Feb 16 2016

Welcome to Foundry

welcomeI send a note to each new company that I work with at Foundry that sets up what I hope will be the key tenants of our working relationship. I thought it might be fun to post it publicly – I think it gives meaningful insight into how all of us at Foundry work with the company in which we have an investment.

I’m psyched to be moving forward with our investment! I thought it would be helpful to send a few thoughts on working together – I do this with all of the new companies I work with. It will take a little bit for us to get a natural cadence going but the thoughts below frame my thinking on how to work with me/Foundry.
I work for you. This is core to our operating philosophy at Foundry. Treat me like someone on your team.
Communication is key. The more information we share the better we can work together (for example, I’m happy to have access to your admin dashboard and pull the data or have you (or an internal system push it to me).
You can’t send me too many emails. Let me do the filtering, not you. Send me anything/everything you think is interesting/relevant. If I have something to say I’ll respond, if not I won’t (I generally avoid “thanks” kind of responses – you don’t need that filling up your inbox). If I don’t respond it doesn’t mean it wasn’t good information to have – just means that I didn’t have anything more to add.
Leverage my partners. You should feel free to reach out to Jason/Brad/Ryan any time you’d like. We don’t silo at all at Foundry and everyone is available to you. Copy me if you want, or not – up to you. Assume that information is completely fluid on our end so anything you tell them I’ll be up to speed on as well.
Leverage other Foundry companies/execs. We have a ton amazing people in the portfolio. I’ll suggest specific people to reach out to sometimes to leverage what they’ve already learned. More importantly, you guys will be a part of 2 Foundry mailing lists that are very active: 1) FoundryExec – about 400 executives from all of our portfolio companies; this is the most active list – ask them anything – they’re eager to help; and 2) FoundryCEO – for you to connect with the other CEOs in the portfolio. Less active than the Exec list (the CEOs are all on that list as well) but a great resource.
Help me understand how I can be most helpful. My natural inclination is to listen in “problem solving mode”. It’s hard for me to break out of that sometimes, so let me know if I’m jumping in to quickly to “solve” something that doesn’t need to be solved (for example if you’re simply calling to vent about something). If you need me to help with something or you’re stuck on something just ask – I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff over the years and hopefully I can help you avoid some of the mistakes that other companies have already made.
My mobile number is xxx-xxxx. That’s the easiest way to reach me (text or voice).
I use Voxer a lot with others that like that communication method – let me know if you’re on that.
My Twitter handle is @sether
Excited to be closed!