Captain, Crew, & Capital

A line from a recent Eric Vishria podcast has been stuck in my head: “Every day you are making plan (as a SaaS CEO), you are destroying equity value.”

Earlier in my career, I worked as a management consultant doing organizational (re)design projects for retailers and CPG companies.

As public markets and tech stocks rebound to exuberant highs, I have had an influx of calls from founders scratching their heads.

I promised myself never again.

Young entrepreneurs often ask me how to land their first enterprise customers.

“Can we go for a walk?

Many attribute Instacart’s success in a brutally competitive environment to solid strategy, great timing, or, most frequently – luck.

At Instacart, we neglected to codify our values for several years.It wasn’t until about ~3 years in that we realized the importance of this exercise.

At Instacart, I had the privilege of being part of $2.4 billion in equity capital financings over eight years.

Many think raising capital is like filling up a car with gas.