Why I decided to join Innovation Endeavors and become a VC

I have some personal news to share: This week, I officially joined Innovation Endeavors as a partner on the investment team. I’ve gotten to know the team at Innovation Endeavors over many years as a part-time venture partner, advisor, and a board member of several portfolio companies, and I am really looking forward to this new chapter.

I’ve known Scott Brady, one of my new partners, since graduate school. He and I went on to found and build two companies together — Slice and FiberTower. Innovation Endeavors was also an early backer of Slice.

Having worked with the same team over the last 18 years for my last two ventures, I’ve learned that if you’re going to do something ambitious, you want to partner with people who are mission-first, deep thinkers and good human beings. Our partnership was always about the mission and not about us as individuals, which gave us great clarity. I feel the same about my new team at Innovation Endeavors.

Beyond that, it’s important to know you’re headed in the same direction. My new partners and I are in deep alignment on strategy: helping founders accelerate the super evolution of industry. Throughout my career, I’ve worked on companies that had a few things things in common: they went after complex problems; they were technically difficult to build; they relied on access to proprietary data; and they targeted big emerging markets.

A core belief at the firm is the importance of fostering relationships: One of the things Innovation Endeavors does best is build a community and an ecosystem around their companies.

If you are interested in learning more about what I’ve gotten myself into, you can check out this Medium post, in which Eric Schmidt and Dror Berman explain the firm’s philosophy and Super Evolution strategy. If the message resonates with you, I hope you’ll reach out.

https://medium.com/innovationendeavors/a-super-evolution-is-coming-21b2cfad1e7

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