In the summer of 2015, we discussed the commitment to good governance that we uphold at Bee Partners. Our philosophy is essentially that there’s so much uncertainty in a startup, that reducing any governance risk early in a company’s lifecycle only pays dividends moving forward. And while this practice is often found on the “important, not urgent” … Read more
It seems like a straight-forward question: “As an entrepreneur, if I experience harassment or discrimination, where do I report it and how will I be protected?” Emotional safety is something we value highly at Bee Partners. How can Founders, who risk so much already, possibly function without it? Yet so many cannot be certain they … Read more
By Santiago Freyria By Santiago Freyria, Haas 2020 Six years ago I was an undergrad in economics looking for a part-time job. After more than 50 rejections because of lack of experience, I was willing to work for free. It turned out to be the best thing that has happened in my career, as I … Read more
Ask anyone who knows me—my capacity for optimism is off the charts. As a newborn I had a “baby bottle half-full” frame of mind. And yeah, there’s a substantial feedback loop in my career that has nurtured and supported that. Who would want a pessimistic venture capitalist, even if such a thing were possible? Especially … Read more
The financial valuation of any company—any deal, any enterprise—is prominent in Bee Partners’ thoughts as we consider, plan, and proceed with investment decisions. But what’s less understood is how much of our thinking is driven by a set of other values we hold deeply. We express these values in both business and human terms on … Read more
I recently read a blog post that really got under my skin and it didn’t take long to realize why it got me so riled up. So many startups today have created ‘governance debt’, and have added more risk as a result. We believe that good governance starts at the Seed stage, and that investors … Read more
When you have a $50mm fund with a ‘Seed-stage mandate’ and you’re out there searching for opportunities to deploy capital visibly and quickly, it’s easy to rely upon shortcut ways of finding fundable opportunities. After all, we think that’s a pretty big fund for Seed-stage investing. Some of those short-cuts come through accelerator demo days … Read more
Founders, I’m with you on this one. Solidifying the Founder/Investor relationship is hard and I get excited about wanting to immediately see your new company’s logo on our website or mentioned the news. I get fired up about seeing a big name on another firm’s website. I recently asked Michael about the topic relative to … Read more
Yep, I personally reply to every email I get from a founder. While I’m not quite ready to pledge a response time to those emails, I will take responsibility for having a public email address. The quality and thoughtfulness of a response will vary, for sure, but here are some ideas for you as … Read more
I hope to add more ‘Bee Partners Pledge’ blog posts over the year, but I’ll start with a lingering frustration with other VC websites: “Bee Partners will show every company that it ever invests in on its portfolio page, both past and present.” You’d be surprised how many portfolio pages have been sanitized by … Read more