Check out this presentation from Sara Thomas, principal at Maven Ventures at New Orleans Entrepreneur Week 2016.

1. Consumer Unicorns:
The art of building billion dollar startups
@saraannet
@mavenvc
Sara Thomas

2. About Me and Maven Ventures
Sara Thomas
• Founded in 2013 by Jim Scheinman
• Consumer software hyper-growth
• Seed fund and incubator
• 6-8 investments per year
• 3 exits + 19 active companies
Maven Ventures
Principal @ Maven Ventures
• 8 years investing in and supporting
startups

3. About Maven
Our portfolio: a few examples

4. In Case You Missed It…

5. Part I: Top Ten Tips for Success in Consumer Tech

6. 1. A vision worth fighting for

7. Does the problem really need fixing?

8. Beware of Road Kill

9. Hacker Designer Hustler
2. Founding team

10. 3. Culture

11. Culture: an example
Mission
Maven is the premier incubator and early stage investor for hyper-growth consumer
founders
Values
1. Collaborative: We are not political, willing to share praise, and honest and transparent
with each other. We put the team and company first.
2. No jerks: We are happy, positive, and fun to work with.
3. Accountable: We are high-performing, get stuff done, and value attention to detail.
4. Curious: We are always willing to learn. We are knowledgeable and strive to be experts in
our field.
5. Self-starters: We take initiative, work autonomously, and are resourceful.

12. 4. Product/market fit

13. 5. Growth hacking

14. What is Growth Hacking?
The process of acquiring new customers through:
• Data-driven marketing
• Creative (often free/ unpaid) strategies and channels
• Organized experimentation
• Cross-functional work by engineering, product, and marketing

15. Growth hacking: focus

16. Growth hacking: find your “one metric that matters”
Weekly Active
Re-Pinner
“WARP”
Net Deposits
(Deposits – Withdrawals)
7 Friends in
7 Days

17. No silver bullet

18. 6. Language/market fit
I Agree

19. Language/market fit
Skiggle vs.

20. 7. Focus

21. 8. Mentor whiplash

22. 9. Investors

23. 10. Luck and timing

24. Recap
1. A vision worth fighting for
2. Founding team
3. Culture
4. Product/market fit
5. Growth hacking
6. Language/market fit
7. Focus
8. Mentor whiplash
9. Investors
10. Luck and timing

25. Part II: Thoughts on Today’s Market

26. The Bad…
• Valuations are contracting
• Longer lead time for raising funding
• 1.5 to 2x+ the number of investor pitches required
• Investors more cautious in some areas– they’re considering who are the
likely sources of the next round when making a funding decision

27. The Good!
• Great companies get funded in tough markets
• Be on the lookout for strong draft picks (especially engineers) from
other companies
• Watching your cash burn now will set your company up for more
success in the future
• Passion prevails (and rubberneckers don’t)

28. Stay in touch!
@saraannet
@mavenvc
sara@mavenventures.com