Meaningful Relationships

Relationships are at the core of what we do. The connections we build shape our work and directly influence the impact we can make.

We haven't always been successful in building strong and trusting relationships, but we are committed to keep trying.

Below are some our thoughts on building relationships, based on our learning over the last years:

• We have been fortunate to partner with some outstanding people. Some have invited us to join them for a second time. To us, this is success.
• We value integrity and trust just as much as ambition, charisma or technical expertise.
• We try to follow the Hippocratic Oath: first do no harm.
• We try to understand, so we like to ask a lot of questions; and we are puzzled, disappointed and frustrated when we see founders are not immersed in all the details of their business.
• We probably won't be able to solve most problems our founders encounter. But we try to be good listeners and in our experience that goes a long way, a very long way in helping our founders solve them themselves.
• We want to partner with ambitious teams that seek growth and transformation, and who accept they can succeed or fail. If they do not succeed, we all move on. The relationship with founders becomes perverted and distorted when it turns out investors have financed a path to self-employment. We expect founders to be honest about their true ambitions.
• Transparency and accountability. We know there are ups and downs. We expect it. We have seen some founders become addicted to victory laps when things go very well at the beginning; but when growth slows down or stops, they suddenly become silent and disappear. Show up, say it as it is. You will not be the first who recovers from a setback and neither the last.
• In our experience, teams with a bias towards measuring, learning, fast decision making and execution tend succeed.
• At some point, we must exit, and we expect founders to facilitate that.