My first experience with entrepreneurship came in 2014 when I joined a healthcare startup called Compass. I was coming from a generalist investing role at a family office and I quickly realized how far from the action I had been once I got inside the day-to-day operating cadence of a startup. The Compass experience was challenging and rewarding and ultimately led me to join the investment team at Delta-v in 2018.
Serving as the head of finance and chief of staff to the Compass founder and CEO, my role, at its core, was to support a mission-driven entrepreneur. Spending hours each day with our CEO, I had a front-row seat to the all-encompassing sprint it takes to build a company. Everyone in the organization fed off his passion and his certainty that we were building something important. He faced a constant stream of decisions, most of which he was encountering for the first time. As his chief of staff, I witnessed the moments of loneliness and isolation that inevitably plague the founder of any entrepreneurial venture.
At Delta-v, I'm honored to support entrepreneurs and the companies they are building. When I work with people like Zach Maurides (Teamworks), I am amazed at the energy and determination of the founders in our portfolio. As an investor and an advisor, I take my role seriously and humbly. While I have the benefit of seeing hundreds of companies and some general trends, I have to remember that the teams on the ground are far closer to the customer’s pain points than I'll ever be. I believe there is a lot of power in admitting when I don’t know something, and I like working with founders who feel the same way. And since the right answer to a given question is never exactly the same for any two companies, my job is endlessly stimulating.
