In the first episode of SeedToScale Specials, Anand interviews Jim Swartz, co-founder of Accel. They discuss Jim's journey to founding Accel, starting with his background as the son of a middle-class family and how leading his high school football team eventually took him to study at Harvard and Carnegie Mellon.
The conversation then moves to Accel’s founding, and the inception of the “prepared mind” approach to investing, with insights into the variances of the tech industry over the years. Jim shares the core principles of building a lasting business and the key practices founders have employed over the decades to ensure their success. Finally, they touch on the evolution of venture capital over the '80s and '90s; and Jim's engagement with his creative pursuits in film, offering perspective on the dynamic nature of venture capital and how its principles apply to several other personal and professional dimensions of his life.
We’re looking for the next generation of successful Indian marketplaces. If you’re an early-stage marketplace founder, apply now here or learn more about the #DecodingMarketplaces Startup Hunt.
We’d love to hear about your experiences with marketplaces. Let us share our learnings and build a better and stronger ecosystem. Write to us at seedtoscale@accel.com to be a part of the Accel family.
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We’re building Passionfroot 1, an operating system for creators to manage their business.
We’re based in Europe and raised our $ 3.4m pre-seed round from Creandum and US angels such as Vlad (Webflow) and creators like Ali Abdaal.As we’re creating a new category and as the creator economy is global and mostly online, we’re building from Day 1 a global company and product that helps creators monetize around the world.
This brings a lot of complexities especially in terms of payments and taxes as our early users are based both in Europe and the US and deal with cross-border transactions.What are Do’s and Dont’s for European startups who have a global ambition and build products for a global customer base from Day 1. Anything you would do differently?
Thanks @pjbouten! Love how you’ve thought about incrementally shaping a category with a focus on product and service, and only then thinking about getting the message out there vs the other way around.
And totally agree on the distinctions and overlaps both self-serve and enterprise motions share.
Thanks, PJ, for taking the time to address questions from the great vantage of shaping Showpad into a global, enterprise SaaS brand!