Josh Felser on LinkedIn: #climateweeksf | 13 comments (original) (raw)
Josh Felser’s Post
Climate Tech Investor Focused on the Enterprise
5mo Edited
INVESTING IN CLIMATE TECH IS SOOO SIMPLE: PART I After a spectacular closing session to #ClimateWeekSF at 9Zero, I thought I'd share a few morsels from our sustainable VC session (organized by Niki Gastinel & moderated by Ron Erd w/ fellow panelists Joshua Posamentier Nare Janvelyan, PhD & Shaun Chaudhuri). Top 3 DD questions I seek to answer: I Would I work for this person? I've been a founder 5x (3 startups, 2 VC funds) & always seeking to grow. When I'm being pitched by a founder, I imagine what it would be like to work for them, because, while team is important, the CEO is everything. The CEOs I back have: · Command of the Market: They are intimate with & drive discourse on distro channels, market players/dynamics, the competitive landscape & where the ball is going. All about founder-market fit! · Evangelical Sales Ability: They’re always selling, intelligently, whether it’s for recruiting, fund-raising, distribution... · EQ IQ: I back intelligent founders but I want that paired with street savvy & deep understanding of what to prioritize & when, not just how to do it. I look for emotional intelligence & how they read the room & adjust comms. I look for CEOs that have done the hard work on their own personal growth & have the right lens to make big decisions. · Battle-tested: I look for founders that are resilient & risk-tolerant. They have been tested in some aspect of their lives: personal challenges (athletics, hardship, military) and/or professional challenges. II Is there a Big Accessible Market (BAM)? · Big TAM: I invest in companies seeking unicorn performance (financial & impact). Matters less where the TAM is today but more importantly where it's going. · Clear and Present Sales Channel: I want to see a beefy sales channel(s) with a clear decision maker; tangible, massive pain for this painkiller solution (not a vitamin); and an accretive path for the customer. Know who your actual buyer is. Hint: It’s not the sustainability exec! · Weighted Average Pipeline: I want to see a well thought out, organized sales pipeline that is dynamically linked to your financial forecasts & produces a justifiable exciting ARR forecast. · Product Market Fit: Because we do seed, we only see the beginnings of traction & sometimes focusing too much on fit can lead to a false negative. This is the time for risk-taking & iteration so you can learn. It’s more about DDing the product as an extension of how the team thinks & executes. III Is There Big Accessible Impact? · Paul Hawken: We have Paul & he is unabashed about rooting out pretenders when it comes to impact. If he doesn’t buy your impact, we won’t invest. It’s that simple. · Qualitative: Because we are software first & seed stage investors, we don’t do hard core quant on your impact. We do our best to gauge the potential decarbonization impact of your company at scale. You know it when you see it. What questions do you ask?
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