Talent not Time
Great teams are more than years of experience
Happy Thursday, 👋
As investors, one of our most critical tasks is evaluating the team behind a startup. While years of experience listed on a team's slide deck might look impressive at first glance, we've learned that not all experience is created equal. The real challenge is deciphering whether a team's background will translate into startup success.
Finding the Right Experience
Experience isn't just about tenure, it's about relevance. When we invest in early-stage companies, we're betting heavily on the team's ability to efficiently and effectively scale the business. The experience must match the demands of startup life.
Three questions we often ask when evaluating a team:
Have they built something from scratch?
What is their experience making decisions with incomplete information?
Can they effectively lead others through ambiguity?
Case Studies: Segway vs. Instagram
The original two-wheel Segway was a revolutionary technology for its time built by the brilliant engineer Dean Kamen. Even though it was a big advancement in mobility engineering, the company did not have a strong consumer and marketing-focused team. The lack of balance on the team and mismatch between engineering and marketing led Segway to fall short of its transformative expectations.
In contrast, Instagram initially launched as a location-sharing platform but pivoted to a somewhat basic photo-sharing app. The founders launched Instagram at a time when Flickr, Facebook, and MySpace were the dominant platforms. What made Instagram different was its focus on user experience and a simple design, allowing it to reach 1 million users in just three months, while Segway, despite its technical marvel, sold fewer than 30,000 units in its first decade. Instagram was not groundbreaking technology but rather a balanced team that understood its target consumer and had a complementary skillset.
Together, Segway and Instagram underscore why the right team is key to startup success. Breakthrough technology falters without the right consumer‑focused talent, while an exceptional, user‑obsessed team can elevate even an incremental product into a category‑defining success.
The Founder’s Role in Talent Acquisition
Building the right team at a startup is highly dependent on the founder's ability to attract top talent. We often view it as the first true sales job of a founder: they must convince highly skilled professionals with multiple career options to join the chaos and uncertainty of a startup.
When a founder successfully brings experienced and talented people onboard, it not only signals their ability to sell the vision but also reflects their leadership maturity. It shows they can inspire confidence, build trust, and align others around a shared mission and vision.
Beyond convincing skilled professionals to join a startup, founders must recognize the need to hire different people for different roles at varying stages of the company's growth. We look for founders who have the confidence and foresight to recruit those with more experience or specialized skills, recognizing that building a strong team often means bringing onboard experts who can fill critical gaps.
Effectively Presenting Your Team
The team slide in a company presentation often includes a few headshots, maybe a creative bio or some prior company logos. Founders should instead be strategic about this slide as the team is often the only real track record investors have to evaluate the potential success of a startup.
Consider adding one or two concise bullets to show why each person is instrumental, what makes them unique, and how they will drive the company’s success. Ultimately, as investors, we are backing a team that is trying really hard to bring an idea into reality. Unlike an established company, we place significant confidence in the team's ability to achieve their goals. Leverage the team slide to tell a story about why this combination of people will make the company successful.
Cumulative ≠ Capable
One thing we ask is please do not use the misleading idea of "total years of experience." When a startup claims its team has "100 years of combined experience," emphasizing such a large number often raises red flags about the relevance of that experience. Such numbers often mask gaps in relevant expertise. Is the team not able to stand on its own? Do they not have the right experience?
Instead, the team slide should talk about why this team is key, what achievements they have, and how each person brings a critical skill set. We have invested in great teams with little experience, so solving for a big experience number does not imply a great team.
Final Thoughts: Aligning Experience for Success
In the end, assembling the right team is about matching the right people with the right experience at the right moment in a company’s lifecycle. Founders who paint a compelling vision, and possess the humility to hire specialists smarter than themselves, create gravity that draws top talent to an unproven venture.
The strongest startup teams blend diverse, complementary skills with shared values and a culture resilient enough to manage through uncertainty. Treat your team slide as living proof of this alignment: spotlight why each member was chosen, the gap they close, and how their track record maps to the mission.
Ultimately, we invest in people, not just products. Show us the team built to conquer today’s chaos and build tomorrow’s success.
Wishing everyone a great weekend,
-Eric.