https://www.sweatequity.vc/index daily 1.0 2020-02-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579290111298-OEFCWA6X5BRWVOTXWG8M/img-home__dan-portillo.png Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1580927408382-S8OEBLTHBN5LB3TIMJ64/img-home__alexis-rask-short.png Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1580253840513-PG9LT0LLE0MUJMXFU3UZ/partner-new-1.png Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1580254672307-I29BX1N374O5JYJIHKV8/partner-new-2.png Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1580934535362-394GUGK454E852VVVC45/img-home__george-v2.png Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1580826185878-2SRNULP6ISWGBJFK9FCN/russ.png Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1575653342979-J76SEZRIX6KSGIO2EHMD/bg-home__dan-portillo.jpg Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1575590887091-EF6728CWLLE2SVXG3QP5/background-home-top.jpg Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1575764016265-19JWLBNCJ9Q9ZT8RTIWA/bg__newsletter.jpg Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579290741697-UW7I8IIKE8OK1VY2IGZO/Background_12.jpg Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579289841280-8DOHRT1LFL5074A9OCQH/Background_11.jpg Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1580253253675-EDQC2V405J7M4Q2O5P42/background-new-1.jpg Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1580254255258-D9A58YV14WYJDZKOP1Z5/background-new-2.jpg Homepage https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1580826018887-7CASU6F7GH631CKI9LQ7/background-russ.jpg Homepage https://www.sweatequity.vc/philosophy daily 0.75 2021-06-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1576079524849-YYE2GZJIQR223S1RRV5X/bg-philosophy__section-2.jpg Philosophy https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1576079956834-ALBNDR4KP4A16T5PZD7C/bg-philosophy__section-4.jpg Philosophy https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1576080831339-PUZWJ3V8YM2ZIKUKYRNC/bg__newsletter.jpg Philosophy https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1576080628555-NZDE8FIIXVLVC8KCE5X3/bg-philosophy__section-5.jpg Philosophy https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1576073733227-97OD1WSPQWWF7HBUQ1S8/bg-philosophy__top-section.jpg Philosophy https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1576079681788-6I4AC6I3L0F50CGRJ7VE/bg-philosophy__section-3.jpg Philosophy https://www.sweatequity.vc/team daily 0.75 2021-06-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579191890349-NW2Z8L0OADBOIMATFKRA/partners__dan-portillo.jpg Team - Dan Portillo 0 - 1 Through Networks. 0 - 1 is my thing. For 20+ years I’ve helped companies, foundations and government agencies build from the ground up. And it’s all predicated on a network-based approach. If you know the right people, you can connect dots in a way that draws a far faster path to success and drastically changes outcome early. At Greylock, my team’s mission was to help dozens of portfolio companies hire key executives and engineers, and build their own recruiting functions. This network based approach led to 17 investments for the Greylock, including Awake Security where I placed 3 of the 4 founders. But the biggest remit was supporting President Obama to build the talent function for the United States Digital Service. I created Sweat Equity Ventures in 2019 to address the needs of today's founders. Sweat Equity is strictly an Operations venture firm to help companies with hiring, scaling people ops, product development and go-to-market. We have recruited key executives, facilitated fundraises/acquisitions and submitted patents that take a curated handful of the next gen B2B leaders from 0 - 1 https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielportillo/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579201183226-29L8Y0FNLM50APDDZ4UW/partners__megan.jpg Team - Megan Zengerle Putting people first is my mission. I've always had a business-impact mindset coupled with a curiosity and drive to understand how people, organizations, and systems can be best served for the collective success of a business. As a venturous People Leader, I've been committed to pioneering innovation for organizational strategy and cultivating people-centric leaders during a time when building and retaining exceptional organizations is one of the biggest challenges faced by companies. As an Executive operator, I focused on scaling early-stage tech start-ups with cross-functional leadership in people operations, business operations, finance, talent strategy, organizational economics, and company culture. I gained extensive start-up experience having joined CreativeLive as a founding member, working as its Chief People Officer & SVP Business Operations for over eight years. Before CreativeLive, I led People, Talent, and Business Operations at Scribd. Early in my career, I founded and operated a successful human resource and organizational development consulting business focusing on VC-backed startups in the Bay Area and Denver Metro areas. At SEV, I am passionate about working alongside our founders and team to share my learnings and experiences as an executive operator to guide our fund and our portfolio companies to create and achieve well-aligned people and operational growth strategies. https://www.linkedin.com/in/megzen/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202399114-BGSRO3A6UP2HZWXA8N3W/talent__anthony.jpg Team - Anthony Kline Placing Leaders. I’ve always been a talent hunter who thrives in fast-paced, start-up environments. I started my recruiting career building the core teams of well-known, venture-backed startups like Cloudera, Zendesk, AngelList, and Groupon, before joining AppDirect as their first recruiter and head of talent. Over the next three-years, my team and I scaled AppDirect to over 600 people across four continents and nine countries, and a billion-dollar valuation. It was a challenge I’d never before faced, and it was one of the most fulfilling times of my life. Each day required solving challenges and building teams that we didn’t imagine would be necessary at the time of our founding, and it was during that time that I came to rely more heavily on a research-based approach to talent acquisition. At Stripe, as an early member of the recruiting team, my charter was to identify and hire leaders for the engineering organization as well as scale the security team and risk function from a handful of people to what it is today. After successfully fulfilling this charter, I focused on building out the rest of the leadership team for Stripe as the Head of Exec Recruiting. This included roles in finance, legal, partnerships, product and many others that I’d never worked on before. At some point, I even started working in M&A and co-designed an acquihire recruitment playbook with the corporate development team. It was this re-exposure to start-up life that brought me to Sweat Equity. My knowledge of industry leaders, technology trends, and the people that enabled them equips me with the ability to quickly identify the right people for the hardest-to-hire positions, and have a strong reason why I reach out. At Sweat Equity Ventures, I support our portfolio through leadership hiring and talent acquisition strategies that I developed over the last decade. I’m here to prove that talent is key to a company’s success and to support the next generation of technology company’s entry to the market. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyklinesf/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1623349546442-QN3RKAHO9WAYB4CTEUP5/Ryan.jpg Team - Ryan Servatius Pricing is the most powerful lever in business. It’s the one number that defines all that you do as a business, the story of a company’s complete effort. In every transaction, a story is told and price is discovered. I love working with founders to help them define that story to capture the value they deserve--and to do so in their most important deals. I’ve spent the better part of a decade working with founders and boards at every stage of the company lifecycle. As an M&A deal leader at Microsoft, I was proud to celebrate key milestones with founders as they were acquired to accelerate Azure’s transformation as an application platform. Pricing is a factor that determines whether a transaction--or a company--succeeds or fails. The enduring lesson is that pricing synergies are always more powerful than cost synergies. The earlier that founders invest in pricing, the greater the impact. At Microsoft I was the rare person working in M&A who was not a banker. My path to dealmaking was informed instead by my experiences as a product manager for Internet Explorer during an era of accelerating competition and the disruptive shift to cloud/mobile. While at Salesforce, I helped the company increase operating leverage across the corporate COGS line. And at Union Castle, I guided buyout funds to optimize the value of their acquired companies through pricing and staging of complex transactions. If later stage companies require precise optimization, then early stage companies require an understanding of grand strategy. Part of what makes Sweat Equity so much fun is getting to work the other side of the founder journey--at the beginning. Being a partner at Sweat Equity is the best job in the world, perhaps because of the founders I get to learn from. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-a-servatius/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1632874799525-NLWPFHI1LKTRM4Y63NJU/danny-oliveri.jpg Team - Danny Oliveri 10x Valuation Multiplier Danny brings over 20 years of sales and sales management experience, specializing in driving early-stage companies through periods of hyper-growth. He joins Sweat Equity Ventures from Oracle where he most recently led the North America sales team for monetization solutions. Danny drove the global sales efforts for SilverTail Systems (acquired By RSA/EMC); his team delivered more than 10X annual sales growth year-over-year, establishing the company as the leading provider of predictive analytics for Internet fraud detection and prevention. Danny also held sales management positions at Oracle, TopSpin Security(acquired by Fidelis Cybersecurity), Lacoon Mobile Security(acquired by Checkpoint Systems), ClearStory DataVisionael, Collation, Inc (acquired by IBM), CenterRun (acquired by Sun Microsystems) and ETime Capital. https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-oliveri-46a1782/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1623684331480-MV2R6J1WRC2Y6T5F4Y0O/Alec+Fett.jpg Team - Alec Flett My whole career has been about mapping the messy real world into software. I’m continually fascinated by the contrast between the way that humans think about the world, and the way that computers try to model it. As computers have tackled harder and more abstract problems, design and usability have become significantly more important. I love taking on the challenge of implementing a user interface that matches a user’s mental model, rather than just reflecting backend infrastructure. In my early days at Netscape I created features to improve early browsers for both users and web developers. At the Open Source Applications Foundation, I tried to evolve the concept of “Personal Information Management” so that it could evolve as you used it. At Metaweb I helped build a graph-based query language and then built a dynamic, introspective UI on top of it - whose heritage lives on in Google’s Knowledge Graph. At Google, I helped push the boundaries of the Web Platform with IndexedDB and Service Worker in Chrome and the W3C. At UrbanFootprint I lead the development of a rich geospatial application to help users figure out how to adapt cities for growth. And now at SEV I am applying what I’ve learned to help many companies as they grow. I try to use my experience and skills to amplify what makes each company unique and innovative. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alecf/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1591658640747-UMXWPJRUDZS5O2U7BW1R/product__david.jpg Team - David Lluncor Data, Efficiency, Teamwork I love being around thoughtful, humble, and motivated people. Technology drew me to the Bay Area, but the people definitely kept me here. I was fortunate to start at Google in 2011, where I worked on Google web search, A/B testing, dashboards, Play Store recommendations, and applied machine learning at Google Research. I then helped start Instabase as the founding engineer, growing the company to 70 people and a 1B valuation. I love data, customer success, and making enterprises more efficient with their day to day workflows. In my free time, I like beach volleyball, mentoring others in Computer Science, and posture correction. https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidlluncor/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1632874611976-JN9PAVQA42WE34J3M5V5/david_watson.jpg Team - David Watson The Master Generalist. The common thread through my career has been consistently building complex cutting-edge technology that I believe can leave the world better off than I found it. I have joined early startups (such as Google before it was a household name, Voyage where we started building a robo-taxi for seniors before we even had a car, or Embark where we first put self driving trucks on interstate highways) and I've experienced hyper-growth (also at Google, after it was a household name and at Aurora, working to commercialize self driving vehicles). My career has also taken me across multiple sectors: At Google I developed for core Search and led the creation of enterprise hardware solutions. As Chief Architect of Embark, I wrote robotics software, designed safety-critical architecture, and led complex multi-team integrations. Other times I've build consumer and music apps. Across it all, my consistent approach has been to understand the problem, quickly get my head in the game, then do whatever it takes to breathe life into the product and get it out into the world. My approach never changes, nor does the thrill of pulling it off. At Sweat Equity Ventures, I get the opportunity to roll up my sleeves on a wide range of meaningful products at many stages of development. I value each chance to support founders along their journey, as well as the continued growth I gain from each engagement. https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-watson-157b6820/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1626104619101-03S6TBJ6H26888C3XR0D/stas-baranov.jpg Team - Stas Baranov Stas is fascinated with software and people. He has more than a decade of experience building systems and organizations at Google. He created a low-code development platform that got adopted by numerous large enterprises. He reengineered Youtube servers to integrate them into the Google data centers and scale to 1 Billion users. Outside of Google, Stas founded a game development studio, and had another decade-long career building high performance video game engines. https://www.linkedin.com/in/stas-baranov/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202399114-BGSRO3A6UP2HZWXA8N3W/talent__anthony.jpg Team - Anthony Kline Placing Leaders. I’ve always been a talent hunter who thrives in fast-paced, start-up environments. I started my recruiting career building the core teams of well-known, venture-backed startups like Cloudera, Zendesk, AngelList, and Groupon, before joining AppDirect as their first recruiter and head of talent. Over the next three-years, my team and I scaled AppDirect to over 600 people across four continents and nine countries, and a billion-dollar valuation. It was a challenge I’d never before faced, and it was one of the most fulfilling times of my life. Each day required solving challenges and building teams that we didn’t imagine would be necessary at the time of our founding, and it was during that time that I came to rely more heavily on a research-based approach to talent acquisition. At Stripe, as an early member of the recruiting team, my charter was to identify and hire leaders for the engineering organization as well as scale the security team and risk function from a handful of people to what it is today. After successfully fulfilling this charter, I focused on building out the rest of the leadership team for Stripe as the Head of Exec Recruiting. This included roles in finance, legal, partnerships, product and many others that I’d never worked on before. At some point, I even started working in M&A and co-designed an acquihire recruitment playbook with the corporate development team. It was this re-exposure to start-up life that brought me to Sweat Equity. My knowledge of industry leaders, technology trends, and the people that enabled them equips me with the ability to quickly identify the right people for the hardest-to-hire positions, and have a strong reason why I reach out. At Sweat Equity Ventures, I support our portfolio through leadership hiring and talent acquisition strategies that I developed over the last decade. I’m here to prove that talent is key to a company’s success and to support the next generation of technology company’s entry to the market. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyklinesf/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202399535-UDB65R7H2UHHJF3FFE9Z/talent__john.jpg Team - John Dip Approaching Recruiting Through Systems Thinking. Most recruiters fall into the occupation, but I figured out that I wanted to be a recruiter in college. At UC Berkeley, I double majored in Sociology and Political Econ, which are disciplines that use a combination of qualitative and quantitative lenses to understand communities. One must take the time to deeply understand the business, people, technology, and data in concert. Throughout my life, I’ve successfully navigated a fair share of high pressure situations with grit, intelligence, and resourcefulness. I was the 1st generation college student in my family and I navigated the waters of bootstrapping my own recruiting firm to get it off the ground. I also got to be part of Uber’s rollercoaster ride during its hyper-growth phase. Maps became front and center for the company when they acquired Bing Maps and DeCarta about 6 months prior to my start date. Simply funneling candidates wouldn’t have been enough. I thoroughly studied the org and read through engineering blogs to understand Maps technology and its tie to the company’s mission, which helped me sell the impact and story. To gain insight into any underlying problems, I put together spreadsheets to look at pipeline performance and investigated how candidates performed at each stage of the process. These efforts were necessary to understand and remediate issues. I received a performance rating reserved for top performers at Uber and I would later achieve the equivalent performance rating at Facebook. Within a short period of time, my peers and leaders saw my impact. I built a robust pipeline and gave the team insights into data they didn’t have before. My tools were later adopted by other recruiting pods. I was also frequently tapped on the shoulder to lead workshops or spend time mentoring others. Not only was I able to successfully hire a world class engineering team, but I was passionate about impacting diversity & inclusion. I worked closely with major stakeholders to foster an ecosystem that attracted and retained diverse talent. At SEV, I work across our portfolio to find the best people, build scalable recruiting systems, and help our companies navigate the challenges of attracting top talent. https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndip/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579808472307-BUZNTLCI4HASRWQZHASR/talent__nazia.jpg Team - Nazia Mastan Candidate Advocate and Building Trust with Data. Curiosity may not always kill the cat. I’ve always had a passion for learning and deeply understanding what makes people tick, what drives them to achieve, how teams develop themselves into high functioning organizations, then into generational companies. This curiosity started as innocent and odd questions I would ask family during my childhood like, “what did you have for dinner last night?” To deep conversations with decorated executives on why they turned down their last startup offer, or why they’ve chosen to lead 1,000+ people teams. I strongly believe that when people trust you with their honesty; you owe them your advocacy. What drives me everyday--what really gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that I’ve made a concerted effort to understand what a candidate is looking for—and from that point onward being their advocate to anyone that will listen. This advocacy is what led me to Executive Search at Slack and hiring, mentoring and leading a small army of scrappy Sourcers. In tandem, I love working to ensure hiring managers understand metrics, candidate lifecycle milestones and that they have a thorough game-plan on how to close the right candidate for their organization and team. The hunt for data, information and a deep alignment is equally as important to me as a startup’s product-market fit. My fascination with the human psyche and organizational development has led to a career in Sourcing and Recruiting for large enterprise companies, as well as small and scrappy startups that have grown into multi billion dollar valuations, leading to an IPO eclipse. I’ve spent time recruiting for niche senior and executive level roles at VMware, Facebook and Slack with a big leap into the venture capital world at SEV. I love mapping the market, keeping abreast of bleeding-edge and novel tech trends, and getting to know different skill sets. The more niche the role, the happier my hunting is, and the more value I can bring to the table. I’m excited to embark on this new journey with the best in the Valley! https://www.linkedin.com/in/nazia-mastan-farrukh-8771b754/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1622059610822-ZTIDCWPCIMWP5LJAHFXS/talent__sean.jpg Team - Sean Asir Sean is a recruiting leader who loves building + scaling teams and organizations from the ground up. Previous to joining SEV, he spent 4 years at Facebook, helping build Facebook's Portal team (Facebook's first in-house consumer hardware device) from an early stage. Later, was the first recruiter for the Novi / Diem project at Facebook, and helped scale the team from 0 to over 500 people in a few years, he hired teams across Novi for engineering, R&D, compliance, economics, marketing, analytics, plus a few others. Prior to Facebook, he was the first recruiter for Faraday Future's silicon valley office – he built out their autonomous driving team, ADAS, infotainment systems, and made key executive hires. He started out his career at Yahoo building out engineering teams, and spent a year supporting high level executive searches across the company. https://www.linkedin.com/in/asirsn126/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1591658809212-F5ZO7V9D8LYDX2RFEWJ1/talent__shelly.jpg Team - Shelly Lipson People Win Startups My path to recruiting wasn’t clear in the beginning, but I have no doubt that it is where I was meant to be. I come from a family of physicians and grew up in a world where, “What kind of doctor are you going to be when you grow up?”, was the norm. I took this mindset to college, where I picked a standard pre-med major. Two years in, I realized that becoming a physician was not the answer. Instead, I switched to a bio-psychology and communications major. Initially I thought maybe I would go into genetic counseling, but right when I needed it, recruiting found me. It was the career I always wanted, but never knew existed. An opportunity to help people, make an impact within a company, work directly with people, and never having to see blood on the job. It was all the pieces that drew me towards healthcare and more. I truly enjoy getting to know each of my candidates, understanding how they think, what is important to them, and how they make decisions. I started my recruiting career in finance and accounting executive search. The job felt natural to me, I enjoy building connections and partnerships, understanding team dynamics, and working through challenges with hiring managers. I was excited about the work I was doing, and excited to continue learning and expanding my knowledge in the field. I specifically wanted to gain experience within technical recruiting, which led me to Facebook, where I focused on Online Safety, Security Engineering, and Privacy. I had an opportunity to build out brand new teams, source on very niche roles, lead diversity and inclusion for security, and was quickly a top performer on my team. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Facebook and all I had learned, but I knew I wanted to work on smaller teams. I was looking for an opportunity to build things from the ground up, I was lucky to find that at Sweat Equity Ventures. I am truly excited to be partnering with early stage start-ups at SEV. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelly-lipson-699026a8/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1626798279554-NSZBEYS62J020QSHXGKG/tina-tian-3.jpg Team - Tina Tian Built for Scale. I am an experienced startup talent expert, who specializes in building organizations from the ground up. Previous to joining SEV, I focused my time on early stage start-ups, working to build the formation teams and set the companies up for longterm hiring and growth. Most recently, I was at the helm of talent at a Fintech startup, Alt where I grew the team from 12-60+ people in 6 months across all functions and levels. Prior to Alt, I joined Ethos Life as the first recruiter, where I not only scaled Ethos’s team to 120+ across Engineering, Product, Design Finance and Marketing but I also established Etho’s Singapore and Austin teams and developed the company’s first recruiting function and team. Earlier in my career I was the first recruiter for IoT startup, Particle. In this role, I gained valuable experience as I expanded the team from 25 - 110+ people across all functions and levels and built their China and HK offices from scratch. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-tian0902/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202300004-RHSJOB8M5WSIMZOO0EV4/partners__megan.jpg Team - Megan Zengerle Putting people first is my mission. I've always had a business-impact mindset coupled with a curiosity and drive to understand how people, organizations, and systems can be best served for the collective success of a business. As a venturous People Leader, I've been committed to pioneering innovation for organizational strategy and cultivating people-centric leaders during a time when building and retaining exceptional organizations is one of the biggest challenges faced by companies. As an Executive operator, I focused on scaling early-stage tech start-ups with cross-functional leadership in people operations, business operations, finance, talent strategy, organizational economics, and company culture. I gained extensive start-up experience having joined CreativeLive as a founding member, working as its Chief People Officer & SVP Business Operations for over eight years. Before CreativeLive, I led People, Talent, and Business Operations at Scribd. Early in my career, I founded and operated a successful human resource and organizational development consulting business focusing on VC-backed startups in the Bay Area and Denver Metro areas. At SEV, I am passionate about working alongside our founders and team to share my learnings and experiences as an executive operator to guide our fund and our portfolio companies to create and achieve well-aligned people and operational growth strategies. https://www.linkedin.com/in/megzen/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202798794-NSE9XMDI3PPKGAJ8FTXM/operations-team__amanda.jpg Team - Amanda Reed The Culture Creator. I am a culture builder. My mission is to make people as efficient with their time as possible, and make offices run smoothly and harmoniously. The difference between working somewhere that’s a mess vs organized is massive and shows in the bottom line. My world revolves around making things go smoothly in all ways - from the office environment to how information is shared and how people collaborate. I learned how important culture is from the time I was a child. “You make everyone feel welcome” was a core tenant in our family. In the professional world, I try to live that everyday and make sure it exudes as our spirit at SEV. I like to help people, solve problems, and genuinely care about people and their wellbeing. That means the functioning of the office, the inner workings of team dynamics, all of it. And I’ve looked after this both from the investment side at Greylock and Oak Hill Capital, and inside a publicly traded company - Exelis. Everyone at SEV loves their job, what they do and has respect for one another’s time. That is something we pay close attention to. I focus on crafting our environment and how we show up in the world. Our culture at SEV is inherently part of what we bring to bear with our portfolio companies. https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandachojnacky/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202790112-LUFJTEKOXMP1ZYI4CTIE/operations-team__marie.jpg Team - Marie Vail Guercio Data Scientist by Way of Geneticist The quality of decisions to be made is only as strong as the process and metrics to support it. That’s why I have always been compelled to work with data. Designing a measurable process that allows for iteration can leverage better decision making and results. I learned this in a lab researching 10k genetically modified zebrafish, but have more recently applied it to acquiring a small hardware company while at Stripe. 6 months out of college I needed to design an interview process to acqui-hire a company 10x larger than any other we had pursued before. My genetics research poised me to develop process at scale that would yield action-oriented and qualitative results and enable us to iterate the recruiting process to yield the highest signal. In practice, this looked like 200+ interviews in 4 series over 10 days of batch interviews spanning 1 month with a 100% offer acceptance rate. At SEV I get to work hands-on with our portfolio companies to optimize their recruiting processes. Whether their bottleneck is interviewer training or calibration, access to analytics, funnel metrics, or interview process, I'm able to support companies' in their efforts to scale recruiting operations. https://www.linkedin.com/in/marievail/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1632874799525-NLWPFHI1LKTRM4Y63NJU/danny-oliveri.jpg Team - Danny Oliveri 10x Valuation Multiplier Danny brings over 20 years of sales and sales management experience, specializing in driving early-stage companies through periods of hyper-growth. He joins Sweat Equity Ventures from Oracle where he most recently led the North America sales team for monetization solutions. Danny drove the global sales efforts for SilverTail Systems (acquired By RSA/EMC); his team delivered more than 10X annual sales growth year-over-year, establishing the company as the leading provider of predictive analytics for Internet fraud detection and prevention. Danny also held sales management positions at Oracle, TopSpin Security(acquired by Fidelis Cybersecurity), Lacoon Mobile Security(acquired by Checkpoint Systems), ClearStory DataVisionael, Collation, Inc (acquired by IBM), CenterRun (acquired by Sun Microsystems) and ETime Capital. https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-oliveri-46a1782/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1623349546442-QN3RKAHO9WAYB4CTEUP5/Ryan.jpg Team - Ryan Servatius Pricing is the most powerful lever in business. It’s the one number that defines all that you do as a business, the story of a company’s complete effort. In every transaction, a story is told and price is discovered. I love working with founders to help them define that story to capture the value they deserve--and to do so in their most important deals. I’ve spent the better part of a decade working with founders and boards at every stage of the company lifecycle. As an M&A deal leader at Microsoft, I was proud to celebrate key milestones with founders as they were acquired to accelerate Azure’s transformation as an application platform. Pricing is a factor that determines whether a transaction--or a company--succeeds or fails. The enduring lesson is that pricing synergies are always more powerful than cost synergies. The earlier that founders invest in pricing, the greater the impact. At Microsoft I was the rare person working in M&A who was not a banker. My path to dealmaking was informed instead by my experiences as a product manager for Internet Explorer during an era of accelerating competition and the disruptive shift to cloud/mobile. While at Salesforce, I helped the company increase operating leverage across the corporate COGS line. And at Union Castle, I guided buyout funds to optimize the value of their acquired companies through pricing and staging of complex transactions. If later stage companies require precise optimization, then early stage companies require an understanding of grand strategy. Part of what makes Sweat Equity so much fun is getting to work the other side of the founder journey--at the beginning. Being a partner at Sweat Equity is the best job in the world, perhaps because of the founders I get to learn from. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-a-servatius/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1591639600687-4MA3PAO0KJ9EYH230FEP/entrepreneurs__adam.jpg Team - Adam Weinstein In pursuit of great problems As a native Midwesterner, I’ve always been interested in the how. How things are made, how work is done, and how it makes people feel. From electronics to building materials - there’s very little that doesn’t make me curious. Over the past 15 years, I’ve been fortunate to be an analyst, engineer, product manager, and CEO, among other roles, but have always had an appreciation for executing over all else. I love the chaos that comes with starting something new and the high of the small wins scattered along the way. Recently, I’ve focused on how Data Science and Analytics teams collaborate to quickly solve problems. This drove me to found Cursor, which was a collaboration platform to help find, use, and understand data. After DataRobot, a leader in Automated Machine Learning, acquired Cursor in 2019, I served in several Product leadership roles in areas like automated feature engineering, product analytics, and growth. Repeating a role I’ve held in the past, I also helped drive our Corporate Development efforts, both in terms of identifying opportunities to accelerate our product roadmap as well as executing and integrating acquisitions. Professionally, nothing gets me more excited than working alongside engineers to bring an MVP to market, talking to prospects about new products, and being in the trenches while an idea turns into something real. I’m excited to work on all of these and more at SEV. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajweinstein/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579192030520-G57M0WIX9OP0RKIEUUHN/partners__alexis-rask.jpg Team - Alexis Rask Impact Oriented Coaching. I’ve always been told that I’m the strangest mix of compassionate and forceful. That I can get people to see things in a way they haven’t before, and act in new ways to bring about different results. Leading teams for 15 years has taught me that you do this by asking the questions they aren’t expecting or don’t want to confront. Through that curiosity, you can unlock new information, solutions and plans. When I coach founders and investors, they trust that I’m telling them the truth no one else will, asking the questions that need to be addressed, and have their best interests at heart. This allows them and their companies to achieve better outcomes. That has served me as a company leader and team builder when founding LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions business in 2006 or as COO/CRO of shopkick which we scaled to hundreds of employees and sold for $250M. I could drive the first sales, profitable revenue and customer adoption in difficult to crack spaces by being willing to challenge the thinking of Fortune 500 C-Suite and being able to negotiate contracts as if we had far bigger leverage than we actually ever did. But it was the work of the teams we assembled that really made all the startups successful and scalable. Spotting and then getting the best out of talented people is how you make the early wins repeatable and create a real business. In coaching for CEOs at major public tech companies and early startups, it’s my job to create the conditions for planning, skill building and problem solving that wouldn’t otherwise exist. In startups, every single year you are running an entirely new business if it’s scaling. Inherently the same strategies and tactics can’t be applied to the next phase as the hockey stick bends up. Working with a diverse set of founders to support their missions is my greatest privilege and what we do at SEV. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleinoff https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1632334398357-WVQZC7YUPZWU6U527FGV/LI+pic.jpeg Team - Mel Sezto Juggling Coconuts & Sprinkling Talent Architecture Mel hails from the Pacific Northwest. Connecting people to scale big ideas has been the core thesis of her career journey. Mel currently advises VCs, Family Funds, Accelerators/Incubators, and startups with a priority towards missions for improving humanity. Previously, Mel was the Talent Partner at Playground Global [a deep tech VC] where she architected and led the talent function from inception. Mel also served on the talent team at Greylock Partners where she focused on enterprise software (security, productivity/collaboration, transportation, health, data) and consumer software (social, marketplaces, messaging, creative tools). Prior to VC, Mel’s operating experience ranged from leading recruiting and people operations at early-stage startups to Google [circa 2005-2012] during the growth stage staffing talent across product, networking, data centers then eventually to leading the 0-1 build-out for Google[x] & Android Hardware Team. Mel holds a BA in Health and Human Services from Western Washington University. Outside of work, she enjoys hanging out with Aloha [a funny Shiba] and discovering new ice cream flavors from around the world. https://www.linkedin.com/in/msezto/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1622058671300-KOO6VCUWU2HRU4VVD9UF/advisor__ross-w.jpg Team - Ross Wiethoff I've spent my entire career in sales. I've chosen this path because I'm genuinely interested and motivated by helping people and companies thrive. Throughout my career, I've spent time in every sales position from Sales Development to VP of Sales. This experience has enabled me to understand the impact of each role in maximizing customer satisfaction while optimizing sales process. Over the past decade, I've built and led Sales teams for Square, Compass, and Belly. Most notably, at Square, I worked alongside the global head of sales to launch the sales team and grow it to over 75 employees in the first year. Throughout my time at Square we scaled the team to over 200 individuals across multiple business functions and geographies. I was responsible for developing Square's first outbound sales function and grew revenue from $0 to $45 million in 2 years and led a team of over 30 people including sales management, sales development, and account executives. Additionally, I launched our first e-commerce and field sales teams and therefore was responsible for the inception of 3 new teams that ultimately led to the larger strategy of how the Square sales team is structured today. As a result, I've gained deep experience in creating go-to-market strategy and sales processes for multiple different products, segments and verticals. At Sweat Equity Ventures, I'm passionate about sharing my learnings with our portfolio companies in order to help them optimize their sales process and reach key milestones. By focusing on go-to-market strategy, sales planning, sales process, sales enablement, and sales operations, we're able to unlock growth and achieve results faster. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579190590774-DVMO8S69K8VDRX83PG60/Background04.jpg Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202891459-U5ZPWDC3WXOREFPSW92M/bg__newsletter.jpg Team https://www.sweatequity.vc/connect daily 0.75 2020-02-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579577846345-EJMG6SGULKJFVJBD2B27/Background06.jpg Connect https://www.sweatequity.vc/portfolio daily 0.75 2020-11-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1622083937709-KGI6H9PZZMHHCXHMLHVM/Aven+.png Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353930474-6CW46CQ6NZ83YMNPXL86/portfolio-color-ubiquity.png Portfolio - Ubiquity6 Dan and Sweat Equity is the best kept secret in startups. We wouldn't be here without their help on team and talent. - Anjney Midha https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1614878312653-UBENQ9K3IJE4NT5FGAB3/portfolio-color-chainlink.jpg Portfolio - Chainlink - - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1603375587791-H6MX7J3TD5R8RNE5FAC5/Alex+DeNeui+and+Shishir+Mehrotra.JPG Portfolio - Coda It’s hard to think of SEV as a traditional investor because they’re not. The quality of their work is unparalleled and they’ve added value in numerous areas beyond top-tier introductions. They have really advanced our product and customers forward in significant wasys. They’ve become a true extension of our team. - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353643100-90S435YSYL32JBDSPTOS/portfolio-color-dessa-2.jpg Portfolio - Dessa When we needed help the most, the Sweat Equity team was there, their sleeves rolled-up, helping us with the gnarliest of challenges. Their bench is deep with the expertise necessary to build a world-beating business. And in cases where they can’t be helpful, they’re a phone call away from world class experts who can. - Stephen Piron https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1614883850525-JNOO4MWFHYO7HQ0O08I3/portfolio-color-eigth-sleep.png Portfolio - Eight Sleep - - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1603375877093-81XF8C3J8V33YVFII6HZ/Richie-Serna---Finix-.jpg Portfolio - Finix SEV gives us the opportunity to up-level our talent searches when trying to fill competitive and niche roles thanks to its unique recruiting pipeline. Compared with traditional hiring agencies, it's a no-brainer. - Richie Serna https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1614878770952-DGVM2PIWGV2EP84O99T8/portfolio-color-getsetup.jpg Portfolio - GetSetUp - - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353952006-4OVK7ONY0H7RIAF0H97X/Grafana+Leadership.gif Portfolio - Grafana https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1608068900030-741ECSG48J4HAQGKWZF1/5D3_5021++%281%29.jpg Portfolio - Juni https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353798604-KSI9MAKLNTOUP7Y2EU05/portfolio-ltse.jpg Portfolio - LTSE Sweat Equity plugs in quickly and functions as an extension of our small but growing team. As fellow practitioners, they double as thought partners and executers—a rare combination. And importantly, they approach the work with a long-term lens. We are grateful to have them on our side. - Eric Ries https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1614879346266-IB0YY8B1FDA33GFWNMM2/portfolio-color-monarch.jpg Portfolio - Monarch - - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353835533-REN9OL44WTYT7MACEM11/Newfront+Founders.jpg Portfolio - Newfront SEV helped to define our strategy, align the hiring team and accelerate the overall search in a way we didn't envision possible. They are serious pros. They've been there and done that in Silicon Valley. They're my first call for executive recruiting - Mike Brown https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353882796-2ZT5T61PUB0L8KIHSPP8/portfolio-nuro.jpg Portfolio - Nuro The SEV team has increased hiring capacity and execution on our most critical, hardest to hire positions. They have partnered effectively with our team to not only deliver but also mentor and develop our recruiters in key areas and more advanced techniques. - Jonathan Lydon https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353907873-XPN2XHES6CW267OHT22Q/portfolio-color-swoop.png Portfolio - Swoop SEV provides our team a Swiss-army knife of experience, capability, and support as we build our team and company. We have been able to apply their expertise across engineering, company building, and strategy. In engineering, as we hit a phase of our roadmap that included technical challenges new to our team, SEV brought engineering resources in to augment our team that helped us to find solutions. As we have grown, and brought new talent into our team, SEV has been integral in working with us to design our organizational structure, compensation plan, recruiting strategy. Growing comes with its pains, and the coaching that SEV has delivered to our leaders at Swoop has helped us navigate as smoothly as possible these challenges. Finally, as we have worked to enter new markets, SEV delivered expertise in GTM that collaborated with us to craft our strategy and model. SEV is a partner in all phases of building a company, and we are a more valuable company as a result. - Quinn Bottum https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353631467-6CMEJQLLHYJV8W1WX2CO/portfolio-color-colony-labs.png Portfolio - Cursive There's no other firm like SEV. As a founder, you feel like they are in the trenches with you - not just advising, but actually rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty alongside you. What's special is they do this across a broad range of key activities - from engineering to recruiting, strategy and GTM - all under one roof. - Jennifer Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1608135064581-AOCU8PD8NDU4RRGKB453/syntegra2.jpg Portfolio - Syntegra SEV has been invaluable to Syntegra by providing us with a world-class team of engineers, product-experts, GTM strategists, and recruiters to address our evolving needs. They have become a catalyst by enhancing our ability to rapidly scale our efforts to democratize healthcare data. We are delighted with our decision to partner with them. - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1622085724545-W8BDPXXIQKC1234L0R6N/portfolio__The-Public-Health-Co-2.jpg Portfolio - The Public Health Co - - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353942513-5V88A3ZO1QWT3VXV8QVQ/portfolio-color-verta.png Portfolio - Verta.ai SEV helped me amplify Verta’s exec team many-fold; they are like my extended exec team. The kind of experts that they can bring in to help with different parts of company-building is amazing — whether it is a world-class enterprise sales expert or a developer marketing expert — they’ll work with you to identify the right people at your stage of the company. The ability to work with such top-talent early-on has greatly accelerated Verta’s growth. - Manasi Varatak https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1600225538310-W4STAK5E298SS62NX6T9/Ian+speaking+on+stage+%281%29.jpg Portfolio - TurbineOne SEV was the best partner to incubate our first startup company. It wasn't just advice, they did real work and delivered rocketship-level results. And as a Founder, I was very grateful for SEV's approach to earned equity and the long-term success of the business. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353959983-4UIKVWC0IVR5VNLZVPHL/Wholesail-Team-1.jpg Portfolio - Wholesail At Wholesail our vision is to enable trading partners to work together like they're part of the same company. We feel like this is exactly the kind of relationship we’ve developed with the team at SEV. As former venture investors and repeat entrepreneurs ourselves, we appreciate how unique this kind of partnership between a founding team and their investor is. During a short period of working together in the challenging environment of early 2020, we jointly developed a talent map of the specific networks we want to hire from, calibrated our screening and evaluation process, and hired a head of engineering with the specific industry expertise we were looking for. - Corey & Eli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1576711071143-9AZ5IMQX1HKW2A4L5R4N/bg-portfolio__top-section.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1577108454844-ZVRV5P1XHCQME7ZLK02K/bg__newsletter.jpg Portfolio https://www.sweatequity.vc/portfolio-1 daily 0.75 2021-05-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1622083937709-KGI6H9PZZMHHCXHMLHVM/Aven+.png Portfolio - Aven https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353930474-6CW46CQ6NZ83YMNPXL86/portfolio-color-ubiquity.png Portfolio - Ubiquity6 Dan and Sweat Equity is the best kept secret in startups. We wouldn't be here without their help on team and talent. - Anjney Midha https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1614878312653-UBENQ9K3IJE4NT5FGAB3/portfolio-color-chainlink.jpg Portfolio - Chainlink - - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1603375587791-H6MX7J3TD5R8RNE5FAC5/Alex+DeNeui+and+Shishir+Mehrotra.JPG Portfolio - Coda It’s hard to think of SEV as a traditional investor because they’re not. The quality of their work is unparalleled and they’ve added value in numerous areas beyond top-tier introductions. They have really advanced our product and customers forward in significant wasys. They’ve become a true extension of our team. - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353643100-90S435YSYL32JBDSPTOS/portfolio-color-dessa-2.jpg Portfolio - Dessa When we needed help the most, the Sweat Equity team was there, their sleeves rolled-up, helping us with the gnarliest of challenges. Their bench is deep with the expertise necessary to build a world-beating business. And in cases where they can’t be helpful, they’re a phone call away from world class experts who can. - Stephen Piron https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1614883850525-JNOO4MWFHYO7HQ0O08I3/portfolio-color-eigth-sleep.png Portfolio - Eight Sleep - - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1603375877093-81XF8C3J8V33YVFII6HZ/Richie-Serna---Finix-.jpg Portfolio - Finix SEV gives us the opportunity to up-level our talent searches when trying to fill competitive and niche roles thanks to its unique recruiting pipeline. Compared with traditional hiring agencies, it's a no-brainer. - Richie Serna https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1614878770952-DGVM2PIWGV2EP84O99T8/portfolio-color-getsetup.jpg Portfolio - GetSetUp - - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353952006-4OVK7ONY0H7RIAF0H97X/Grafana+Leadership.gif Portfolio - Grafana https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1608068900030-741ECSG48J4HAQGKWZF1/5D3_5021++%281%29.jpg Portfolio - Juni https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353798604-KSI9MAKLNTOUP7Y2EU05/portfolio-ltse.jpg Portfolio - LTSE Sweat Equity plugs in quickly and functions as an extension of our small but growing team. As fellow practitioners, they double as thought partners and executers—a rare combination. And importantly, they approach the work with a long-term lens. We are grateful to have them on our side. - Eric Ries https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1614879346266-IB0YY8B1FDA33GFWNMM2/portfolio-color-monarch.jpg Portfolio - Monarch https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353835533-REN9OL44WTYT7MACEM11/Newfront+Founders.jpg Portfolio - Newfront SEV helped to define our strategy, align the hiring team and accelerate the overall search in a way we didn't envision possible. They are serious pros. They've been there and done that in Silicon Valley. They're my first call for executive recruiting - Mike Brown https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353882796-2ZT5T61PUB0L8KIHSPP8/portfolio-nuro.jpg Portfolio - Nuro The SEV team has increased hiring capacity and execution on our most critical, hardest to hire positions. They have partnered effectively with our team to not only deliver but also mentor and develop our recruiters in key areas and more advanced techniques. - Jonathan Lydon https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353631467-6CMEJQLLHYJV8W1WX2CO/portfolio-color-colony-labs.png Portfolio - Cursive There's no other firm like SEV. As a founder, you feel like they are in the trenches with you - not just advising, but actually rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty alongside you. What's special is they do this across a broad range of key activities - from engineering to recruiting, strategy and GTM - all under one roof. - Jennifer Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1608135064581-AOCU8PD8NDU4RRGKB453/syntegra2.jpg Portfolio - Syntegra SEV has been invaluable to Syntegra by providing us with a world-class team of engineers, product-experts, GTM strategists, and recruiters to address our evolving needs. They have become a catalyst by enhancing our ability to rapidly scale our efforts to democratize healthcare data. We are delighted with our decision to partner with them. - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1622085724545-W8BDPXXIQKC1234L0R6N/portfolio-color-the-public-health-co.png Portfolio - The Public Health Co https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353942513-5V88A3ZO1QWT3VXV8QVQ/portfolio-color-verta.png Portfolio - Verta.ai SEV helped me amplify Verta’s exec team many-fold; they are like my extended exec team. The kind of experts that they can bring in to help with different parts of company-building is amazing — whether it is a world-class enterprise sales expert or a developer marketing expert — they’ll work with you to identify the right people at your stage of the company. The ability to work with such top-talent early-on has greatly accelerated Verta’s growth. - Manasi Varatak https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1592353959983-4UIKVWC0IVR5VNLZVPHL/Wholesail-Team-1.jpg Portfolio - Wholesail At Wholesail our vision is to enable trading partners to work together like they're part of the same company. We feel like this is exactly the kind of relationship we’ve developed with the team at SEV. As former venture investors and repeat entrepreneurs ourselves, we appreciate how unique this kind of partnership between a founding team and their investor is. During a short period of working together in the challenging environment of early 2020, we jointly developed a talent map of the specific networks we want to hire from, calibrated our screening and evaluation process, and hired a head of engineering with the specific industry expertise we were looking for. - Corey & Eli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1576711071143-9AZ5IMQX1HKW2A4L5R4N/bg-portfolio__top-section.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1577108454844-ZVRV5P1XHCQME7ZLK02K/bg__newsletter.jpg Portfolio https://www.sweatequity.vc/galleries daily 0.75 2021-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1622083937709-KGI6H9PZZMHHCXHMLHVM/Aven+.png Galleries - Aven https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1622083937709-KGI6H9PZZMHHCXHMLHVM/Aven+.png Galleries https://www.sweatequity.vc/experience daily 0.75 2019-12-04 https://www.sweatequity.vc/real-unicorns-are-not-born daily 0.75 2019-12-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1575497878706-84BJACER2WTM1XBAL3QX/background-home-top.jpg Real unicorns are not born https://www.sweatequity.vc/operations-team-2 daily 0.75 2020-06-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202798794-NSE9XMDI3PPKGAJ8FTXM/operations-team__amanda.jpg Operations Team (Copy) - Amanda Chojnacky (Copy) The Culture Creator. I am a culture builder. My mission is to make people as efficient with their time as possible, and make offices run smoothly and harmoniously. The difference between working somewhere that’s a mess vs organized is massive and shows in the bottom line. My world revolves around making things go smoothly in all ways - from the office environment to how information is shared and how people collaborate. I learned how important culture is from the time I was a child. “You make everyone feel welcome” was a core tenant in our family. In the professional world, I try to live that everyday and make sure it exudes as our spirit at SEV. I like to help people, solve problems, and genuinely care about people and their wellbeing. That means the functioning of the office, the inner workings of team dynamics, all of it. And I’ve looked after this both from the investment side at Greylock and Oak Hill Capital, and inside a publicly traded company - Exelis. Everyone at SEV loves their job, what they do and has respect for one another’s time. That is something we pay close attention to. I focus on crafting our environment and how we show up in the world. Our culture at SEV is inherently part of what we bring to bear with our portfolio companies. https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandachojnacky/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202794057-UTO43I95OOC15QN9PW7Q/partners__george.jpg Operations Team (Copy) - George Babu (Copy) Lifelong Fascination with Technology’s Impact. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with technology’s impact on our lives, iconic products that once seemed like SciFi, and the small early teams that overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to bring new products & technologies to billions of people. Through a variety of roles at several companies and funds, I’ve been able to explore how to spot promising emerging technologies, bring people and capital together to productize the tech, figure out how to bring them to market, and finally, how to build defensible moats around all this (hint: profits & patents)! My early training as an engineering scientist led me to a research role at BlackBerry in the 90s. I got to play with (and help patent) exotic antennas and skunkworks wireless chipsets in massive anechoic chambers, while hacking away at emerging 3G protocol stacks, helping BlackBerry prototype next-gen wireless systems. Watching our small diverse team take on the giants with our “Crackberries”, and go from an underdog in Waterloo to a $55 billion company serving 85 million people globally...was mind-blowing, educational...and addictive! The rapid fall from grace was equally mind-blowing, educational...and humbling. A founding role in an enterprise SaaS company, taught me how messy, chaotic and fun company formation could be. I learnt the ropes from two exceptional entrepreneurs, David Stein and Dan Debow, worked with an exceptional team, and helped with whatever I could help with - sweeping the floors, building financial/operations models and data rooms, negotiating deals with Big Cos & VCs, getting our acquisition by Salesforce across the finish line. Most recently, I became fascinated by the promise of applying the new emerging deep learning algorithms to problems that have long been considered intractable...self-driving machines, learning robots, etc. I joined a group of brilliant deep learning researchers, co-founded Kindred, and spent several years talking to hundreds of people to commercialize Kindred’s magical new AI tech. We hired a phenomenal team, raised money from some of the best investors in the world, and worked with incredible customers willing to be pioneering users of Kindred’s robots. [I now help founders with all aspects of go-to-market for deep tech based products: customer development, prototyping, product definitions, pricing, selling, pitching…] Early stage companies are messy. Early stage deep tech companies are messier still. But I’m convinced it’s worth navigating this mess to make real the potential that these technologies have to improve our everyday lives. My job at SEV is to help founders see through the fog, tackle the FUD, and bring their visions to life. https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebabu/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de6e7742211c811faad4a88/1579202790112-LUFJTEKOXMP1ZYI4CTIE/operations-team__marie.jpg Operations Team (Copy) - Marie Vail (Copy) Data Scientist by Way of Geneticist The quality of decisions to be made is only as strong as the process and metrics to support it. That’s why I have always been compelled to work with data. Designing a measurable process that allows for iteration can leverage better decision making and results. I learned this in a lab researching 10k genetically modified zebrafish, but have more recently applied it to acquiring a small hardware company while at Stripe. 6 months out of college I needed to design an interview process to acqui-hire a company 10x larger than any other we had pursued before. My genetics research poised me to develop process at scale that would yield action-oriented and qualitative results and enable us to iterate the recruiting process to yield the highest signal. In practice, this looked like 200+ interviews in 4 series over 10 days of batch interviews spanning 1 month with a 100% offer acceptance rate. At SEV I get to work hands-on with our portfolio companies to optimize their recruiting processes. Whether their bottleneck is interviewer training or calibration, access to analytics, funnel metrics, or interview process, I'm able to support companies' in their efforts to scale recruiting operations. https://www.linkedin.com/in/marievail/