“Ladies, welcome. Please have a seat.” We put Emerson at the head of the table and order a bottle of 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s expensive, but we’re excited to have Emerson as part of our team. We toast to her joining us.
It wasn’t an easy sell at the beginning. Emerson had put together an interesting concept, and she didn’t need us. Her company would do all the business management for various hot start-ups across the bay area and a few other tech hubs across the country—pay bills, recruit, stock option management, manage building issues and anything else that keeps the start-up from doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
Before meeting Emerson, I remember someone talking at a party about the business management concept, and I didn’t understand the value. Now I know that all those things are part of running a business, and it’s certainly beneficial for someone else to deal with it.
In the last three years, we became the most sought-after venture capital firm in the Bay Area. Mason has an MBA from Harvard with an uncanny ability to understand the business side and positioning for sale or going public, Cameron brings a strong technology background to the table, and I bring the knowledge of the numbers. All three of us met at Stanford as undergrads. We were recruited by various start-ups out of school, and we lucked out with all three going huge, making us extremely wealthy very young.
We began our funding of start-ups together as a hobby and a way to share some of our luck, giving seed money to projects we liked as a side gig to our jobs. When four of our investments were bought for millions of dollars each, we were addicted to the gamble and the high of identifying a winner when investing in an exciting idea. Don’t get me wrong, not everything we invested in has been successful, but our hit rate has been pretty high, and we like to get in early.
Sara was our company attorney at a law firm we used. We hung our shingle as Sullivan Healy Newhouse, or SHN, about three years ago and hired Sara out of the law firm, offering her partnership. Now we have close to fifty employees helping with the various start-ups and investigating up-and-coming trends. However, we knew something was missing, though we couldn’t figure out what it was.
Then we watched a few of our start-ups not make it because they seemed to get bogged down in the operations side of the business and were no longer doing what they were supposed to be doing. It was then that I understood why a professional services company appeared to be a solution.
We’re regulars at the Venture Capital Silicon Valley Summit. It offers concepts and start-ups an opportunity to present their ideas and business plans to venture capital firms and individuals. Each is looking at various kinds of funding and are hoping some will invest in their ideas and help make them realities—and the owners very wealthy.
During the conference, we usually sat in private rooms and met with potential investments. I’d never paid attention to nor attended any of the breakout sessions. Randomly, Emerson’s talk on “How to Do What You Do Best Without Complications” caught my eye. It seemed to call to me, so I decided to hear what she had to say. I arrived a few minutes late and sat in the back with no expectations.
She was not only a knockout in her conservative black suit with a soft pink blouse and high-heeled black pumps, but she was smart. And not just smart—she was brilliant. Emerson gave an insightful presentation and answered question after question. She could speak to managing accounts receivable and multiple human resources issues, and her pet saying, “How to see the forest for the trees,” hit home for me. I knew she was someone I could work with, so I collected all the marketing materials she had and brought them back to the team. They could hear my enthusiasm for what she could bring to our investments to make them stronger and better.
We put our research team on her and her company, and it seemed to be a no-brainer. At least for us.
I reached out to her with a request for coffee, and she politely brushed me off. She ducked my calls and emails for two months. I felt like a dog in heat when she finally agreed to meet me. Apparently, she had four other VC firms looking at her. I knew it was going to be tricky, mostly because she had no interest in selling. It took constant calls before she finally agreed to talk over the phone. My team shared our feelings that we would all benefit by working together. Sure, we could create it, but she had already worked out the kinks, and she was magnetic and would be a great asset to our team.
We went into full buy-mode with her. We invited her to the offices, and again she put us off. We sent her flowers and still no response. Before we could give up, our marketing team suggested we send a crate of oranges to her office with a note written by Mason, as the managing partner, asking “Can you squeeze us in?” She sent back a photo of her and a few members of her team drinking orange juice with a time and their address. The meeting was finally going to happen.
She impressed us all with her negotiation skills. When we got a look at her profit and loss statements, we were pleasantly surprised. She was extremely profitable and would be bringing a significant amount of business as well as ten employees across the Bay Area, plus one in
