Aligning with Investors

Mayfield, especially in Rasheed, when they're looking at, you know, founders, they're looking at people, right. You, the founders should be doing the same the other direction like because it is a long journey. Right. It's like hopefully like a 10 plus year timeline. So whatever you're talking about at that time, like the tactical part is probably going to be completely different like even maybe a year later. So like you, you want to make sure you know you are having a good conversation. But the more to the point, I think what I always look for is the conversation itself. And like do you like talking to each other and like, even if you disagree, like does it feel like you're learning and like you're moving forward and like fundamentally just do you like respect each other mutually? Because there's going to be times you agree, there's going to be times you like, you disagree. If you just always agree, that's probably not a good sign either. Right? Because like clearly like you never disagree on everything. So I think it's more like looking for someone that can be like a true thought partner and that as the company is growing, like you can both really. Yeah. Just like be really in sync in terms.

How do you know? So all the VCs are going to say that we're here to change the world and we want to be your best friend to come to when you have a discussion. It's, it's a common narrative. So if you have multiple, how do.

You actually know who's actually spend time? In my opinion and honestly that's one of the biggest skills you have to develop as a founder, I think is that intuition whether you're hiring or you're like finding investors, being able to like see if you have values alignment. Right. Because if you hire someone, they don't have values alignment either. Like you're going to end up in similar problems. So, but, but once you sign the.

Term sheet, you're sort of wedded, you can't get rid of the investor. So how do you know if your.

Values are non binding? But yeah, the definitive agreement.

All right, okay, so fair enough. But, but how do you know if your values are aligned if it takes time to figure that out?

Yeah, so there's the conversations. But then I think other things that are really helpful is just looking at like other entrepreneurs they've worked with and like what are the types of companies they invest in and like you know, that speaks for itself and it doesn't even have to be the same industry, but it's just like are they building things that tend to, you know, get sold in a couple of years. Are they building things that are ipoing and, like, you know, really trying to build something that's generational and going to change the world. And, you know, talking to entrepreneurs that have worked with investors very similar to how, you know, you get diligence to yourself as a founder. So, I mean, all those things that are just going into that funnel of, like, is this person someone that I'm, like, values aligned with? And whether we agree or disagree on any one tactic, like, are we both shooting for the same, the same goal?