Comment by novok
6 years ago
You are a much better founder than my founder was, and I'm glad you are. My founder was a good business man, kind of slimy, but effective. And definitely not transparent and gave a pretty employee unfriendly options contract. Again, I was an unwise jr and that experience was years ago now. I was also employee ~50, so I don't know if that was early enough to get real warm intros for investments with people I didn't interact with that much.
TBH the pre-ipo company I went on to next has given me a much better network than the startup I went to as a jr. One coworker direct has started a company that I think will do pretty well, along with a bunch of others who have gone on to VC firms, their own startups and so on.
I appreciate the kind words, but trust me, I still have a lot to learn. The most important contributor to our early success so far has been the team, who have supported me in my growth as a founder as much, if not moreso, than I’ve supported them.
Yes — being employee 50 changes the scales a little. You’re a little too far removed from the executive team to have the same level of comfort. We’re still significantly smaller than that, but at my first job I was in the same # range as an employee.
While I didn’t get to build a relationship with the executive team, my boss at the time kept in touch and ended up introducing me to my best friend / confidant in the Toronto ecosystem as a result. So I would still say the network was valuable. :)