Top 7 Mistakes Repeat Founders Never Make a Second Time Audrey Miller, Partner @ Tapestry VC

SaaStr Europa 2024

1. 7 Mistakes Repeat Founders Never Make
Audrey Miller
Partner
Tapestry VC

2. Don’t Chase Glory Metrics
Repeat Founders….
Some Metrics matter, Others Don’t Don’t Chase Glory
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3. Don’t Fish in Small Ponds
Repeat Founders….
Shoto

4. Repeat Founders….
Don’t Overbuild
SMB Challenger Bank
Yoseph prev. built Vuru (acq. Wave)
Building Relay:
●Core focus on SMB customer
●Roadmap focus on customer needs
Takeaways:
●Tech is cool but sales matters
●Focus on customer needs not
what you want to build
Identity Security and Access Control Platform
Jim was Chief Trust Officer at Salesforce
Building Oleria:
●Leverage existing relationships
●Build a few things well vs. a lot poorly
Takeaways:
●Don’t treat company building like a
science project
●Leverage existing relationships

5. Repeat Founders….
Don’t Waste Time
Even when decisions are hard
We’ve seen…
●Co-founders get fired
●Founders say no to big customers
●Pre-emptive financing turned down
●Even founders fire themselves!
“Every great hire will wow
you in less than
2 weeks”
-Repeat Founder

6. Repeat Founders….
Don’t Ignore Business Models
Instant Grocery Delivery
Drone Food Delivery
Consumer Electronics
Repeat founders take a business-
model first approachto building.
They don’t ignore unit economics.
VC is very momentum driven.
Don’t chase hype!

7. Repeat Founders….
Don’t Ignore Stakeholders
Repeat founders understand the importance of monthly or quarterly updates.
They share information with their investorsopenly and on time.
They post investors ahead of board meetings.
They are hyper responsive.
They know how to leverage their stakeholders.

8. Repeat Founders….
Don’t Raise Because They Can
We start conversations months before a next idea.
And often help repeat founders get there.
Repeat founders take their time to figure out what is next.
And raise when they have something that’s worth it!

9. 1.Chase Glory Metrics
2.Fish in Small Ponds
3.Overbuild
4.Waste Time
5.Ignore Business Models
6.Ignore Stakeholders
7.Raise Because They Can
Repeat Founders Don’t
In Summary…

10. Thank You!