As the Venture Atlanta 2022 Headline Sponsors, we conducted a Tech Survey of attendees focused on the future direction of the tech community in Atlanta and the Southeast. The Tech Survey results highlight six key VA takeaways -- providing guidance for our tech directional compass next year.

1.  Tech Talent Remains a Key for Growing Tech Companies – and More Talent is Now Available.  Recent tech layoffs have increased the talent pool, and for the first time in memory there is a surplus of talent. Also, many California companies are jettisoning employees who may be moving back home to the East Coast.

2.  We Need More Angel Funding. For Southeastern entrepreneurs, finding angel money remains a serious problem. Often, early stage companies have to prove their product-market fit by securing referenceable pilot customers. Until the economy turns around, this problem is likely to persist.

3.  Valuations are Lower – and VC Funds are Still Active. Venture investors generally have money and are trying to deploy it. VCs are in the business of “selling” money and are unlikely to shut down just because of a bad economy. To the contrary, many funds view this as a buying opportunity with deals more in line with realistic valuation metrics.

4.  Increased Coordination among “Tech” Cities in the Region is Important to Attract Funding. Despite the commonalities among cities in the Southeast, there is little coordination and virtually no common effort to attract investors to the area as a unified region. Several investors have viewed our region as a treasure trove of opportunity with bootstrapped, fast growing tech companies. It may be time to coordinate the region’s message to attract more funding.

5. Brand Awareness is Critical to Promoting our Tech Community.  Atlanta and the Southeast need to embark on an active branding campaign to promote tech investment and migration to our cities and region. We need to establish a consistent drumbeat of our tech successes and a coordinated branding campaign to attract talent and funding to the region.

6.  VCs Need to be Focused on Industry/Market Specialization and Building Personal Relationships with Founders – The Survey revealed our entrepreneurs are looking for more than money -- they want investors with specialized industry knowledge and contacts with prospective customers and strategic partners. For the founders in our region (especially ones with profitable, growing tech companies), personal rapport with the investor is critical.

In the final analysis, our Tech Survey revealed these important facts:

(1) Venture Atlanta 2022 has become the premier venture conference on the East Coast

(2) Atlanta is the capital of the region and epicenter of tech growth in the region

(3) Our region’s growing tech talent, Fortune 100 headquarters, and business friendly environment bode well for another successful venture Atlanta in 2023.

John Yates -- Morris Manning Martin

Nick Foreste -- Morris Manning Martin

Michael Valerio – Cherry Bekaert

Drew Graves – ExtensisHR

JC Boyanton – Truist Bank

Coming from one of the largest venture capital conferences in the Southeast, you may be surprised to hear this from us…

Cash is not king.

At least when it comes to attracting and retaining talented employees, that is. Finding and retaining talent has never been more difficult than in the post-COVID labor market, where, for the most part, candidates are now in the driver’s seat. With more choices than ever before, employees can easily hop across different companies. This means that employers need to think outside of the box when hiring talent.

In the opening panel of Venture Atlanta 2022, panel host Gabby Sirner-Cohen of FullStory spoke with the following entrepreneurs and founders:

Together, the panel discussed what we’ve deemed the “Talent Wars,” the latest era of hiring and retaining talent. As it turns out, the best employee retention strategies are less about dollar compensation and more about creating value and building a strong culture.

The Talent Wars Panel Discussion

Gabby Sirner-Cohen: Hello everyone and good morning. I'm Gabby and I lead all things people at FullStory, and I am delighted to be here today with three amazing talent partners, Pete, Melissa, and Nicole, who each represent the talent partners from their respective venture capital funds.

I can't help but be struck by the fact that when this group came together when this panel was conceived of in the spring, wow, what a different world we were in. Every candidate I was talking to had three, four offers that they were all juggling. And we as software companies, tech companies, we were all trying to hire and we had to navigate all of these competing interests. And fast forward six months; it's a different world. The economy, inflation, so many things have changed, and yet it's still challenging to find great people. And when we started, we had a prep call last week and we started talking about what, what does "talent wars" mean in this day and age? Pete, you had a spicy take on the name of this panel, Talent Wars. What do you have to say about that?

Peter Clarke: A little something, I guess, for those that have the misfortune of hearing me ramble on about this. But, never been a fan of the war analogy when it comes to people to begin with. So usually always push back on that. It's definitely challenging. It's hard, but always sort of thinking like, what's the war about? Who are you at battle with? Oftentimes it puts you in this mentality of, I'm fighting with another company for this person. And you tend to leave the person out of the decision.

So it turns out that, you know, recruiting people, hiring and building a great team is a bit of a two-sided marketplace. And lo and behold, the person on the other side of that conversation has the ability to make their own decisions, decide where they want to go, figure out what's the right fit. And so this idea that I'm just sort of battling against some other company or I'm fighting over someone, and then, you know, what do you do when you win? What are the spoils of war? Is that person, you know, suddenly the "land" that you took or whatever, the human resource that you collected, it's just for me, kind of a wrong mindset for how you think about building a great team, which is there's a relationship to be built. There's another person on the other side of that conversation. And to really look at it that way.

If you tend to focus on the external factors and the battle, you know, who am I fighting against rather than how am I positioning myself, my company, and you know, what it is this person can do there and how I can build a relationship with them versus just trying to win them at all costs, I guess. So again, not a fan of the war analogy. Never thought it was a good one, and I don't know if that's a spicy take or not, but I'd prefer to leave it off and not talk about it.

Gabby: Well, I think what struck me so much about your hot take—you spoke about the importance of candidates. Employees have free will, right? It's not just companies duking it out, employees have free will. And over the course of the past six months, a year, so much has changed on the micro-macro level. There's so many broader changes that are happening that are influencing how employees, how prospective employees are making decisions about where to work and where to stay working.

So, we thought that in today's session, we would spend some time talking about what some of those trends are that are playing a part in how your employees, prospective and current, are making decisions about where to work. So let's talk about one trend that certainly has been all over the news and the headlines in the past two years. COVID thrust us into a world where the office was not going to be the norm. But this question of where to work, are we gonna work a hundred percent remotely? Are we gonna be fully distributed? Are we gonna work fully in an office? Are we gonna have a hybrid approach? What are you seeing?

Melissa Taunton: So I think we're at a really important inflection point. Hopefully, we can say “post-pandemic,” but we're still kind of navigating our way out of it. And I think over the past two years, there's been an extraordinary challenge for CEOs and definitely people in leadership to help guide and navigate firstly the fully remote option that I think many companies managed quite well initially, and productivity spiked and people got used to having flexibility and being able to work from home. And then, you know, multiple returns that were either stored out because of new variants, or new developments in the pandemic, or because people just weren't coming back in the way that companies expected them to. And I think it's really important that every leader accept that things have changed and they've changed significantly and they've changed differently for different constituents in your company.

I think having an open mind, realizing that no one right now seems to have the silver bullet, the one answer to this conundrum. I think huge complexity has been introduced with hybrid [work] because when everyone was fully remote, it actually really benefited underrepresented minorities, women and people with disabilities, to be equally represented on a screen in a similar size square. And so there were a lot of gains made for those cohorts during a fully remote environment that I think they're fearful of losing now going back in person.

But I think even more damaging is what we're seeing is a lot of hybrid models. And so with hybrid models, I think it's gonna be really important to not create class structure within the hybrid model. A lot of people moved out of the areas where the companies now have HQs. So how are you gonna accommodate those employees? Are you gonna require them to move back or are you gonna have everyone on Zoom for core meetings and then be able to have in-office [work] utilized for things? We're seeing a big trend of in-office gatherings for social interaction, reconnecting with each other, feeling that personal connection, the conversations you'd have ad hoc. We're seeing it to be really vital for creation and creativity and engineering and product team meetings. We're not seeing as many people choosing to work in the office and actually get their work done. They're still vying to feel more productive at home. And so we're really in a state of flux, I would say.

I think we've got to keep our ears to the ground to see what's working, what's not working, and also respect that— definitely for women. There's a study published yesterday, Women in the Workplace by McKinsey and LeanIn. It was absolutely clear there that women want flexibility and women in the workplace are still doing 80% of the work of child caring and elderly parent care at home. And so that flexibility for them became mission critical. So, there are lots of things at play, but that's a long answer.

Gabby: So timely, that report just came out yesterday, and to see the number of women at the director level and above that are leaving in droves because they are looking for that flexibility, it's really interesting because also different populations have different preferences, and Nicole, you're seeing some interesting trends yourself on the executive level.

Nicole North: That's right. And this is an extension of what Melissa just said, not in opposition to it, but we are seeing a trend with senior executives where they're really prioritizing that in-person time. They want to be with their CEOs, they want to be with their leadership teams, they wanna be with their actual teams. So this, "Oh, remote is such a benefit," they're actually not seeing that as a benefit. And in fact, it's like, wow, okay, well I'm gonna be disconnected from those conversations in this hybrid environment. I have to travel more. I'm gonna be away from my family more. There's less organic collaboration. And we all know that leadership and development, employee development, mentoring, is hard enough as it is, and being able to do that in a hybrid environment is even more challenging.

Increasingly, we're hearing like, "Great, I live in San Francisco and oh, an incredible opportunity in New York, it's remote, wonderful!" And others are like, "Yeah, that's actually not great for me. I want to work in a company with a great culture and I want to be in the room with my peers." And there's also, I think for the senior executives that maybe have been through this rodeo before in different iterations, there is a real concern for perhaps not them being left behind, but certainly their teams being left behind in this hybrid environment. So if you're not there, you're not walking by your boss or your CEO and getting pulled like, "Hey, can I talk to you about this strategy? Can I talk to you about this?" And studies have certainly shown—and we're not talking about productivity and like monitoring keystrokes—but studies certainly have shown that when there are these hybrid environments, the people that aren't actually there are getting left behind. And so, that is definitely a shift and a little bit counter to what we had been seeing 6- 12 months ago, and that it was just this absolute benefit where it's quite the opposite in many cases now.

Gabby: It feels like we are certainly in the midst of murky waters, right? We are in the midst of a transition and we will look back on this time as a moment of inflection. I don't know that any of us feel like we're ready to call what direction we're headed in, but certainly in a moment.

Melissa: Yeah. And I think what's super challenging is one size does not fit all right? And that's something you just have to keep in mind. As you really put diversity as a priority, really thinking through how to support that with different initiatives. And I would say to build on what Nicole said, recent grads coming into the workforce for the first time have really struggled with remote. They learn so much from just carrying a bag, sitting in a meeting, hearing a negotiation, and you really can't underestimate the value of being able to see and hear and just be around leadership. So that's a really important aspect of this too.

Gabby: Absolutely. And it requires so much intention and design of leaders of an organization to craft an organization no matter what you decide, whether it's remote or it's hybrid or it's in office, right? It doesn't just happen, right? It needs to be intentionally crafted. I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about what's certainly in so many headlines right now when it comes to the economy and, you know, falling stock prices, inflation... one would think that it'd be super easy to grab some talent, but it doesn't seem

like it's all that easy these days. Pete, do you wanna kick us off?

Peter: Yeah, well I think having been at this a bit as Nicole and Melissa have too, just you see obviously a lot of ups and downs from a macroeconomic perspective. I think, generally speaking, venture-backed, privately held companies can kind of run at a little less of a wild swing of the pendulum. I think we tend to hear a lot of—depending on the macro conditions—like, oh, it must be like this now for you, or hey, because we're kind of in a bit of a downturn, recruiting must be really easy because all these great people are flooding the market. And, generally speaking, not the case, right? I think there are a lot of misconceptions around it being easier or harder.

Recruiting and building a great team is just really hard work. I think that's something we generally also say to a lot of our founders is, you know, you thought you started a company to build a product? You just became a recruiter. That's your job now. So, for all you founders out there, don't forget, it's probably a good 50% of your time at least. And that's just primarily because people joining a privately held startup are generally going to join not because of the great benefits or the amazing cash compensation. It's like, "Oh, you guys are doing something really interesting and I want to come work with you." And so the founder, you are the closer, right? You're the builder of the team.

But just back to "Is it easier to hire right now?" I think what we're seeing more generally and probably at the exec level is people that have kind of taken themselves off the market because it was actually too crazy. January/February timeframe, you were hearing from a lot of great execs, I'd get like, 50 emails a week on opportunities. There are 10 companies doing the same thing. They're all backed by reasonable investors. I don't even know what to look at. And so I'm just turning that off. I think we're seeing now people, interesting people, coming into the market, not because of the macro conditions or "Hey, I don't feel safe in my job," or anything other than, "I was already thinking about doing something else and now it feels like the opportunities that are available to me now are better."

I think, generally speaking, the market has sort of called the herd a bit on which companies are going to survive it, who are sort of operationally focused and are coming out the other side or have the chance to come out the other side. So I think they feel better about opportunities that are presented to them and they're engaging.

Also in this market, you see a lot of the, I guess we'd call them "startup tourists," who are big company folks who are like, "I'm gonna go do a startup now because look at the equity package I can get." I mean, we saw founders doing arguably not wise things relative to, you know, "Hey, let's try to put together this really big package for this exec from Amazon," and if they weren't necessarily the right person for that job, it just felt like in this market, we're going to scale and we're gonna be huge, so we should hire the person that's operated at massive scale. And it turns out they're just not able to come into something and build. They're operators, they're not builders. And you know, I think what we saw with this market is you lost some of those folks. They're gonna stay put at Google, Amazon, whatever. And then we're seeing a lot of really good folks who want to come and build something are now sort of engaging in those processes because it feels like it's a good time to get into the market. And, generally, venture firms talk about it too, "The great companies are built in the downturn," so find a good company and ride it to a big exit in the future when everything comes back.

Gabby: Nicole, you had some thoughts around risk aversion and financial security that candidates are maybe talking about—or maybe not talking about. But, the implications that founders and companies are trying to woo these candidates.

Nicole: Well, I think yes, there may be more people who are technically on the market, but they're more discerning than ever—and for those reasons. Risk aversion around career stability, financial stability, and then value creation. And we're in this challenging time right now. And by the way, we don't have the answers to this, but certainly a big incentive for executives to come in, like those senior executives at the larger companies to come in is because of course they're passionate and mission-aligned, but it is that value creation opportunity.

Now, we're seeing a lot of executives saying, "Huh, this isn't really penciling out so much, these valuations from six months ago..." So, you know, it's tough because we're not so far away that it's easy for founders or even the investors and us to do anything to really reconcile the valuations of six months ago. But certainly, these executives are looking at these numbers and they're like, "I don't see that path whereas I did before." So, that is tough. Then you think about, okay, well what are the strategies to try and get those folks? And so it's a little bit counterintuitive, but some people might think like, okay, our compensation, is that finally coming down? Are we finally able to temper these wild compensation and cash packages? Not really, no. See, great people always cost a lot, but if they're not seeing that the equity is penciling out in a way that it was before, then you actually are gonna have to pay them more because they do need to offset that. So, it's a little bit counterintuitive to what you might just initially think: "Oh, it's directly tied to what's going on in the economy. People just need jobs and want jobs." It's a little bit different, particularly at the most senior level.

Gabby: Cash just always seems to be king. It doesn't matter in a down market, or an up market... it often comes back. I'm curious, Melissa, have you seen anything similar with senior executives and how they're approaching these decisions around compensation and equity in their hiring process?

Melissa: Yeah, I mean, the last few years have just been kind of the wild west of compensation. We've spent an enormous amount of time trying to manage the craziness through COVID. I think great executives have sharpened their pencils. They're asking very insightful questions, maybe around 409A valuation or valuation at a prior round. And, you know, CEOs and leadership teams are having to think through that for themselves and their teams. So, you know, it's a time of reflection, more realism, I would say. You are seeing people who were going for the guaranteed RSU kind of fall away from some of those companies who had very generous RSU packages. And so I think just be really thoughtful, be really thoughtful about people's journeys, what they were aligned with from a compensation perspective prior.

You know, the great candidates are gonna push back, they're gonna ask hard questions, they're gonna be realistic about valuations. And so just think through all of those answers. Don't avoid it; address it, because everyone's thinking about it. So I'd say get ahead of it and really understand, have a good understanding of what your company looks like. I think just having that honest dialogue, I think great candidates will appreciate that because they're thinking about it, we're all thinking about it.

Gabby: Melissa, I heard you say that in this climate culture matters even more.

Melissa: Yep.

Gabby: And that candidates and employees are thinking about the team that they're working with right now. What are you seeing as it pertains to culture and team in this particular moment?

Melissa: Look, I think people have been through a lot and I think certainly a lot of people are traumatized by what COVID did to them, their lives, their families. And I think work is a huge part of our lives. There's no work-life balance. We all know that it's kind of an integration of one's self. And so I think creating a place where people can show up as themselves and feel a part of a team—belonging is a hugely important aspect that really struggled during remote work, I would say. And so, even if you are remote or you're hybrid, create opportunities to make people feel that they belong even if they're different. And so inclusivity, belonging, I think a founder's job, certainly on the recruiting side, but also driving the company, is to get the north star of the company clear and everyone to fall behind that north star and the mission, and to be reminded of it frequently.

What we did learn during COVID is that people really want to have some meaning in their work. It was a hard time and I think companies who are retaining people now are winning on culture, because we're all aware of the macroeconomic conditions and that things can go wrong. And when they do go wrong, you wanna be in a company and in the foxhole with people you trust and with a mission you're aligned behind and where you'll be respected and treated as an adult.

I think a lot of companies right now struggling with this return are not treating people like adults. I think if we learned anything during COVID with the increases in productivity is that people showed up and they behaved as, on the most part, they behaved as adults—apart from some of the people who were taking two or three jobs at various companies, which we know about. But people really showed up. And I think we shifted from, you know, the nine to five, five days a week in office, kind of post-industrial revolution style of working to realizing that people can do great work asynchronously. And so I think thinking through all those things, there's no one answer here, and there's no one direction. I think a leader has to feel what's right for their company and then try and create an inclusive environment to have that communicated through every rank and file in the company.

Gabby: Perfect. I think any one of us could talk about culture all day long. I'm just gonna suggest that we wrap up and Nicole, Pete, maybe you can offer to the founders in the room, what advice do you have for them as they are building the cultures of their organizations?

Nicole: Well, one thing that we're seeing more of is like, okay, well let's do more on-sites. Let's get everyone together. And that also means you're asking everyone to come to you. A lot of founders that we're now seeing that are doing a really great job of this, and we're hearing this from their employees, they're actually the ones doing the road show. They're the ones that are going to the different hubs where they know their employees are, their senior executives are, or their teams are. And that really means a lot. And being able to do those on-sites, but offsite and where they are, it's all about bringing people together and adapting your cadence of one-on-ones and not maybe through the lens of performance management, but really the career development and relationship building and the CEOs and founders really taking that onus on themselves to go to the people versus just asking everyone to come to them, I think is a really, really meaningful and impactful best practice.

Gabby: Really a powerful symbolism.

Nicole: It is. It is. Yeah.

Gabby: Pete, we'll let you close it on out.

Peter: All right. Yeah, I think obviously the founders in the room here were saying, "I don't really care about hiring a C-level exec or a senior exec. I just need to hire a couple engineers." Or, "I'm five people going to 10." I don't think the model's any different, right? I think we tend to, recruiting is hard, bottom line. It's not impossible, right? It's not an overly complicated problem to solve. I think we can overcomplicate it and make it harder on ourselves.

Generally speaking, culture is what wins. If we talk to the senior execs who are usually most vocal about, "Hey, my top priorities are team and mission." You know, what's the company doing? What's the impact? And not necessarily a mission like hey, I'm saving the world, but just... is this a product that impacts people's lives? Is it a B2B software that helps people do work better? And those types of things. Those folks are overtly communicating the fact that, you know, team and culture are most important. I don't think any of us sitting here in this room would say, oh, those aren't the important things, regardless of where we are in our career. So just keeping that in mind too, as you're thinking about how do I hire that next couple of engineers and oh, it's so hard and I've, you know, tried to hire this person and they turned me down and we lost on compensation. And you know, a lot of that is you'll never win on comp for whatever it's worth. You just won't, you know, someone will always probably pay more. And if ultimately you're losing someone to compensation, they probably weren't the right person to begin with, right?

So if you can be in market with where you are from a compensation perspective, the rest of it is about just you engaging with that person, selling them on what it is you're doing, the mission, the vision, the dream, and then really leveraging your own networks and the network of the people you're hiring. That's usually kind of the most effective way to really start to build out a team of folks who have good cultural alignment as well. But, you know, we tend to see a lot of, okay, I need to hire this, you know, front engineer, this full-stack engineer, and they must come from Stripe. Like, okay, but why? And it's mostly "I'm kind of attracted to the brand," or "I know they hired well," and I had to slip my TLC reference in here somewhere, like they say, don't go chasing waterfalls, right?

So, find the person that fits, you know, what you need today. And I mean, that may not be the person who graduated from XYZ University or, you know, I love the, "Hey, we're very diverse in our hiring. We hire from Stanford, MIT, and Harvard," right? It's like, well, that's not at all diverse.

Gabby: Georgia Tech…

Peter: Like, Georgia Tech. See, that's where you should be hiring from, right? Take advantage of where those people are going to be coming from locally, right? Don't go trying to find the person that's done the thing that you think you want to do, because they may not be the person who did that anyways. And, you know, ultimately whatever they did for another company may not be the thing that works best for you.

So just, again, general advice, and people have heard me say this too, so apologies for anybody I bored with this concept, but also, I mean, your company is your product too. So we tend to focus a lot on product development. And we're, you know, most founders who are product-oriented are amazing at that generally, then it tends to fall down when you get to recruiting. But if you start to say, "Hey, well let me think about my company as a product. Let me think about the roadmap of people and how we should probably build this organization based on where we want to go." And then, "Can I take user feedback?" if you will, or the unexpected use cases, adjust my roadmap and really just engage more on the building part of your company, just like you would the product itself. There tends to be a lot of like, "We're building this amazing product and we'll conquer the world." And then it's like, "Oh my God, I can't recruit anybody. It's the hardest thing in the world." It's hard. It's not the hardest thing in the world. It's not an unsolvable problem. And I think just engaging and then getting your investors involved, really making it a team effort, pulling in everybody to help you, and then really understanding where you can be the most effective.

Again, back to what I was saying earlier, you're the closer, right? You're the person setting the strategy, the mission, the vision. You're the person that'll get somebody over the line regardless of compensation, right? Because they want to come join you and work with you.

Gabby: Well, thank you so much. If we leave you today with any parting thoughts, first: don't go chasing waterfalls. Second, culture matters. And I will close with I spent eight years of my career at Google. And my boss at the time, a man named Laslow Bach, used to say people came for the mission. They want the meaning and the purpose. And they stayed for the voice and the feedback that they were given, the opportunity to share, to have their voice be heard, and that there would be this feedback loop with their executives, with their founders. And so we hope that over the course of the next two days, and as you all go back home to the various work that you are doing, you continue to think about that mission, that voice, that feedback, and the intention that you are putting behind building a world-class team and organization. And we wish you a great time over the next two days.

Thank you to our panelists. Really appreciate all the perspective you gave today. Thank you.

Looking for More Venture Atlanta 2022 Content?

If you enjoyed this panel, we have plenty more where that came from. Check out our resource hub and stay tuned for full discussion panels, event coverage, and other resources from our community of entrepreneurs and investors.
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Two years ago, the world was still reeling from the pandemic. Everything and everyone went virtual almost instantly—including Venture Atlanta. As everyone adjusted to the “new normal,” so did we, with a hybrid event last year that hosted both in-person and online attendants.

This year, it was time to move forward.

That was the theme of Venture Atlanta 2022: Forward. In the event’s 15th year running, we made our grand return to an entirely in-person conference—and it did not disappoint. Venture Atlanta 2022 saw the conference’s largest and first-ever sold-out crowd in our new, exquisite venue, The Woodruff Arts Center.
The event started off with a big news drop — Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens joined the stage to introduce the event and announce the appointment of Donald “Donnie” Beamer as the city’s new Senior Tech Advisor. He followed this up with a proclamation that Atlanta’s time is now, referencing Money magazine’s claim that Atlanta is the best place to live in America and doubling down by saying it’s actually “the best place to live in the galaxy.” Mayor Dickens then dedicated his morning to watching companies pitch, further exemplifying his commitment to tech in Atlanta.

Venture Atlanta 2022 may well have been the biggest and best Venture Atlanta yet—and many attendees agreed:

“One of the BEST investments I’ve made in years was to register for the Venture Atlanta Conference! Met so many amazing innovators, venture capital companies, and founders.”

“Over 1,300 people in attendance and amazing connections with investors and entrepreneurs. Congratulations to Allyson Eman and the team for an amazing event!” 

“The conference was a huge success; by far the biggest and best yet!”

“What an awesome closing panel discussion! Maybe one of the best of all time — inspiring, classy, and hilarious.”

“What an experience! 24 meetings and am already following up with quite a few funds. Thank you to the amazing people who have introduced me to telehealth companies and other venture capital firms that have telemedicine companies in their portfolio.”

Venture Atlanta 2022 by the Numbers

Needless to say, this year was a huge step forward. This only builds upon the impact that Venture Atlanta has made in the Southeast heading into its 15th straight year. In that time, we’ve connected over 760 companies to $7.5 billion in capital and accumulated over $17 billion in successful exits.

None of this would be possible without our wonderful panelists, presenters, and investors. We feel honored to have hosted such a remarkable and diverse group of individuals and are excited to continue moving forward as we bid farewell to this year’s event. But first, check out Venture Atlanta 2022’s highlights.

Notable Moments from Venture Atlanta 2022 Speakers

The Talent Wars: How to Attract, Grow, and Retain the World’s Best Employees

Nicole North, Lightspeed Venture Partners; Peter Clarke, Accel; Melissa Taunton, NEA; Moderated By: Gabby Sirner-Cohen, Full Story

“Have an open mind. Right now, no one has the silver bullet, and huge complexity has been introduced with hybrid. Work from home allowed people with disabilities to be equally accounted for. Now, with the development of hybrid models, it’s going to be really important to not create a class structure within the hybrid model. Many people still feel more productive at home. And especially for women, that flexibility is of extreme importance. One size does not fit all.” - Melissa Taunton, Partner, NEA, on how to navigate post-pandemic work trends.

“There may be more people on the market, but they’re more discerning. Risk aversion and value creation are important to them. A big incentive for executives to come into a company is that value creation opportunity.” - Nicole North, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners, on what to focus on when hiring for executive roles.

“If you’re losing someone to compensation, it probably wasn’t the right person to begin with. A strong culture can overshadow compensation. Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Find the person that fits. As the founder, you’re the closer.” - Peter Clarke, Partner, Accel, on the importance of company culture in finding the right talent.

Creating Opportunities Through a New High-Impact Fund for Minority-Owned Businesses

Marty Flanagan, Invesco; Colin Meadows, o15 Partners

“There are over 20,000 businesses with more than $10 million in revenue led by people of color or women. Companies with diverse leadership historically have issues getting capital; many minority entrepreneurs don’t know who to call.” - Colin Meadows, Managing Partner, o15, on the reasons he launched o15 Capital Partners earlier this year.

“It’s not just about capital; it’s about putting these businesses in a position to be successful. It’s a combination of those things that is really going to improve the likelihood of success for these businesses.” - Marty Flanagan, President & CEO, Invesco, on the importance of creating meaningful partnerships.

Leading Through Difficult Financial Environments

Jeff Immelt, Former CEO of GE; Moderated By: Vanessa Larco, NEA

“Good times are better than bad times for sure, but the benefit of a downturn is that it does provide a more realistic, returnable investment level. So many knee-jerk reactions go on during cycles (like the one we’re in right now) that it can be easier to earn investors—and people tend to make better investment decisions when the risk-reward is out of balance.” - Jeff Immelt, Former CEO, GE, on why some people say now is the best time to start a business.

The State of Diverse VCs

Mandy Bynum McLaughlin, BLCK VC; Rami Reyes, NextEquity Partners; Moderated By: Tosh Ernest, SVB

“Right now in venture is a time we’ll look back on in 10 years and wonder, “Why didn’t I get into that sooner?” Right now, a lot of Black fund managers are starting to invest in the next amazing Black founders and women’s health systems” - Mandy Bynum, CEO, BLCK VC, on the current state of the venture capital market.

“A lot of newer diverse funds are being founded, but there are still gaps in hiring. One way to correct the under-hiring of minorities? The larger funds should hire more diversely. It’s the largest funds that go on to feed into more VCs and create the next generation of investors.” - Rami Reyes, Co-Founder & Managing Director, NextEquity Partners, on what VCs can do to increase diversity.

State of the Economy and What Comes Next: A Look Ahead to 2023

Dennis Lockhart, Former CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Moderated By: Katie Roof, Bloomberg

“There has been a long-term decline in labor participation, partly driven by demographics as well as the cycle we’re dealing with right now. When Covid happened, many 55+ people just retired with no intention of coming back. Additionally, many households have reevaluated their income needs and arrangement in the household and realized that both adults don’t need to be working. If good jobs become available and people start running out of savings, then they would be inclined to go back to work, but employers should expect the labor market to be tight for the foreseeable future.” - Dennis Lockhart, Former CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, on the decrease in labor force participation.

The Next Trillion-Dollar Tech Disruption That Might Just Save the Planet: Climate Tech

Sophie Purdom, Planeteer Capital; Bill Nussey, Engage and Tech Square Ventures; Moderated By: Jonathan Shieber, Footprint Coalition

“Air pollution causes 7 million premature deaths every year around the world. Weather and climate disasters cost the U.S. $145 billion last year alone. The good news? People are working on solutions.” - Jonathan Shieber, Chief Editor & Venture Partner, Footprint Coalition, opening the panel with some good news/bad news.

“Batteries and solar cells are going through the same technology transition as iPhones, as they’re constantly getting better and cheaper. Solar will eventually, by far, be the cheapest energy source.” - Bill Nussey, Partner, Engage & Tech Square Ventures, on the future of energy.

“Take a look at pre-seed and seed climate tech founders, emerging subsectors within climate (where the built environment overlaps with climate capture), tech that reduces and optimizes energy consumption, ocean tech, and CDR (carbon dioxide removal) technology.” - Sophie Purdom, Founder, Planeteer Capital, on what people should invest in within the climate space.

Hall of Fame Panel: The Power of Leveraging Your Brand

Marcus Allen; Jerome Bettis; Julius Winfield “Dr. J” Erving; Moderated By: Phyllis Newhouse, ShoulderUp Technology Acquisition Corp. and Xtreme Solutions, Inc.

In what may have been the most anticipated panel of the two-day event, trailblazing entrepreneur Phyllis Newhouse welcomed three legendary Hall of Fame athletes to the stage for a discussion on the power of leveraging your brand—especially in today’s age of NIL and influencer marketing.

It was a heartwarming and thought-provoking discussion that gave attendees a chance to get to know Marcus, Jerome, and Julius the people, not just the players.

“I put a premium on myself, but I love people just as much as I love myself. Giving back is important to me. Lots of times in sports, there comes a time when you’re being replaced. If you’re a good person, you’ll give that next guy the knowledge they need to succeed.” Marcus Allen, Hall of Fame NFL Running Back, explaining that he sees his love for people as one of his main “value cards”.

When asked what they would tell their younger selves before leaving the league:

“Understand who your target market is. Who are you trying to influence? Don’t ever put yourself in a position that alienates that group. Be aware of social media and how that influences your brand and who you are. Be conscious of what you present to the public, because social media doesn’t take a day off. Everything you present is telling a story, and if that story is inconsistent with who you are, you’re not being authentic.” - Jerome Bettis, Hall of Fame NFL Running Back

“Take equity instead of taking cash. I played Larry Bird in a game of 1on1—he took $15k in cash, I took mine in stock. I still have that stock today, but I don’t think he has that cash anymore. If we had taken equity instead of cash in 50% of our situations, the dynamic would be a lot different. To do that early enough would be a big differentiator for me.” - Julius Winfield “Dr. J” Irving, Hall of Fame NBA Player

The biggest curveball of this panel may have been when Jerome shared that his legendary football career was happenstance and that he actually wanted to be a professional bowler when he was younger. Funny enough, he did become a “Pro Bowler” in his own right (six times, as a matter of fact).

Venture Atlanta 2022 Companies

Growth-Stage Companies

CAST AI

Cogniti

Cooleaf

Everyware

Evident

GoCoach

Harness

Hubstaff

Leasecake

Lucid

Marco

Motionworks

Offbeat Media

OneRail

Preteckt

Rippleworx

VIVA Finance

Vū Technologies

Yellow Card

Early-Stage Companies

1 True Health

Allobee

Carpool Logistics

Deposits

EcoMap

Hook Security

Jax

Kayhan Space

Medigi

Mitivate

Omedym

Onwards HR

Patientory

Physician 360

QuantHub

Quinsite

Rali

RentCheck

Seed&Spark

SemiCab

Smart Alto

Speedscale

Togal.AI

Seed Stage Companies

Allergood

Allison

Arcum

BEAM Dynamics

CareWork, Inc.

CIRT (Can I Recycle This, Inc.)

ConConnect

CROOW

Cuemby

Duke.AI

EyeGage, Inc.

F3TCH, Inc.

femPAQ Inc.

FlowPath

Flyp Financial

greenlist

Hummingbirds AI Inc.

iAccess Life

Infinite Giving

Intellidoc

JourneyTrack, Corp

Laundr

Linebird

Mini City Inc.

My Panda

myFloc

One Donation Inc.

PorterLogic

Presso

ProServe Alliance

Qualytics

Resultid

RootNote

Seekr

Siemba Inc.

Skintelligent Corporation

Sola

Spontivly

Swipe Credit

SwitchFrame

The Mirror

Transition

Travelsist

Vieaura Inc.

A HUGE Thank You to Our Sponsors & Partners

So many people came together to make Venture Atlanta 2022 our biggest and best conference yet, and we would be remiss not to extend a massive thank you to everyone involved. Thanks to the work of our 2022 Board of Directors and the support of our 90+ sponsors, we were able to host an unforgettable two-day event in the heart of the great city of Atlanta. A special thanks to our title sponsor Invesco, our presenting sponsors Intuit Mailchimp and SVB, and headline sponsors Cherry Bekaert, ExtensisHR, MMM Law, and Truist.

We also want to give a special shoutout to the sponsors who have been with Venture Atlanta for the past 15 years: 

Moving Forward from Here

This year saw our largest and most diverse lineup of companies yet. Among the 85 selected companies for Venture Atlanta 2022, there were 14 industry sectors represented. We heard discussions about digital healthcare, climate technology, cryptocurrency, and more. Across all industries, AI was a common theme, and it’s now apparent that AI-powered tools are being adopted by nearly every business as we continue to catapult through this next digital frontier.

Topping Venture Atlanta 2022 definitely won’t be easy, but with the community of founders and funders you’ve all helped us build, the sky is very much the limit. Already looking forward to Venture Atlanta 2023? Stay tuned for a “Save the Date”—coming soon. In the meantime, you can keep up with all Venture Atlanta news and announcements by subscribing to our newsletter or following along on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Southeast’s leading VC conference announces 

85 presenting/showcase companies and 90+ event sponsors

ATLANTA (September 20, 2022) — Now in its 15th year, Venture Atlanta, one of the nation’s most prestigious venture capital conferences, today announced the companies that will be featured at its annual event to be held October 19-20, 2022. The event’s 15th anniversary also sees the investor conference moving to a brand-new venue—The Woodruff Arts Center and Atlanta Symphony Hall.   

With the theme of FORWARD signifying the Southeast tech ecosystem’s continued growth and momentum, Venture Atlanta 2022 has again broken its previous records with close to 500 applications this year and 90+ event sponsors. To view the list of 85 companies that were ultimately selected to present or be showcased, go here.

For a decade and a half, Venture Atlanta has been selecting the most promising tech companies and bringing in top investment firms from across the nation to hear them pitch. The annual conference has helped to launch more than 700 companies and raise $6.5 billion in funding to date, spinning out $17 billion in successful exits. 

Venture Atlanta boasts a roster of highly successful alumni, including CallRail, Car360, Flock Safety, Florence Healthcare, Kabbage, ParkMobile, Pindrop Security, Salesforce Pardot, Salesloft, SingleOps, Stax, and Terminus.  

“This year’s number of applicants broke even last year’s record, with the quality of companies making it a very difficult job for our Selection Committee,” said Venture Atlanta CEO Allyson Eman. “With an impressive slate of presenting and showcase companies, a record number of sponsors, and a brand-new venue, we’re continuing to raise the bar for what will be our 15th anniversary event.” 

“We’re extremely pleased by the caliber and scope of this year’s presenting and showcase companies,” said Rob Casey, Partner, Assurance Services, at Aprio and chair of this year’s Venture Atlanta Selection Committee. “As always, Venture Atlanta’s mission is to give stellar companies access to connections and capital, and we look forward to watching the trajectories of this year’s soon-to-be Venture Atlanta alumni.” 

Again this year, a significant portion—nearly 60 percent—of presenting and showcase companies hail from outside Georgia, reflecting the growing awareness and pull of Venture Atlanta. Companies that will present and be showcased are based in some of the strongest tech innovation hubs in the Southeast, including Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham, Charlotte, Dallas, Durham, Miami, Nashville, and Richmond.   

New Venue Reflects Growing Intersection of Arts & Technology

As in previous years, Venture Atlanta 2022 is anticipated to be a sold-out event, with over 1,200 entrepreneurs, founders, investors, and business leaders expected to be in attendance. The new venue for Venture Atlanta—The Woodruff Arts Center at 1280 Peachtree Street—will reflect the growing intersection of art and technology. 

Woodruff is the third-largest arts center in America. Venture Atlanta FORWARD pitch presentations will be held in the beautiful and newly renovated Atlanta Symphony Hall that is part of the Woodruff campus.

“Over the years, Venture Atlanta has evolved from a two-day event into an active community dedicated to bringing together innovative companies, disruptive technologies, and top-tier investors,” said Elizabeth Stephens, Principal at Noro-Moseley Partners and chair of the Venture Atlanta Companies Committee. “We’re excited and honored to be hosting Venture Atlanta FORWARD at such an important and historical facility as The Woodruff Arts Center and Atlanta Symphony Hall. The venue, as well as our remarkable showcase and presenting companies, notable speakers, and full roster of sponsors, make it an event not to be missed.” 

Venture Atlanta FORWARD Partners With SCAD for This Year’s T-Shirt Design

Attendees at Venture Atlanta look perennially forward to receiving an event t-shirt to mark the occasion—and this year, the t-shirt will be designed by a student at The Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta.

Venture Atlanta FORWARD is hosting a “hackathon” with SCAD Atlanta students on September 30, during which at least one t-shirt design will be selected. The winning design(s) will be printed on 100% “made in the USA” t-shirts, made and printed by Venture Atlanta alumnus company SoftWear Automation. A video at the conference will depict how the t-shirts are made.   

Additionally, the winning SCAD designer(s) will receive a scholarship from Venture Atlanta on stage during the event.

Venture Atlanta FORWARD, Presented by Invesco, Has Record Number of Sponsors

This year there are more than 90 Venture Atlanta sponsors, including repeat sponsor Invesco as the conference’s title sponsor. Silicon Valley Bank returns for the 15th year as sponsor, this year in a leading role as a presenting sponsor along with Cherry Bekaert, ExtensisHR, Morris, Manning & Martin, and Truist as headline sponsors. For a complete list of sponsors, go here.

Silicon Valley Bank also served as this year’s host for the “Creating Momentum” series designed to open a dialog among underrepresented founders and social entrepreneurs at events held in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Miami, Austin, and Dallas, with more education and events planned for later this year. 

Creating Momentum is the result of an ongoing partnership between Venture Atlanta, Goodie Nation, and Metro Atlanta Chamber. 

Register to Attend Venture Atlanta FORWARD — Before Surge Pricing Begins

Venture Atlanta FORWARD will offer a full schedule of high-energy presentations and unforgettable events, including a closing keynote address from high-profile mystery guests who will stay “after the clock runs out” (hint) for autographs and photos. 

For the full Venture Atlanta FORWARD event schedule, go here. 

To register for the 15th annual Venture Atlanta before pricing goes up and passes are sold out, go here. 

About Venture Atlanta

Venture Atlanta, the Southeast’s technology innovation event, is where the region’s most promising tech companies meet the country's top-tier investors. As the Southeast's largest investor showcase helping launch more than 700 companies and raise $6.5 billion in funding to date, the event connects the region’s top entrepreneurs with local and national investors and others in the technology ecosystem who can help them raise the capital they need to grow their businesses. The annual nonprofit event is a collaboration of the Atlanta CEO Council, Metro Atlanta Chamber, and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). For more information, visit www.ventureatlanta.org. For updates, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and visit our blog.

Change, after all, is a beautiful thing. Think about the evolution of computers: When the first computer was introduced in the 1930s, it took up an entire room. Today, they fit inside our pockets. The transformation of automobiles also demonstrates the power of technological evolution. The invention of the car, in and of itself, introduced a new sense of freedom that people had never experienced before. Fast forward to today, and you’ll find that self-driving, autonomous vehicles are attempting to introduce an entirely new type of freedom on the road. If you’re looking for more positive impacts of change, there’s a whole list of things that didn’t exist a decade ago—pretty mindblowing when you consider how engrained these technologies are in our everyday lives. 

All that to say, change is vital to the growth of our tech ecosystem and what we believe as a facilitator of both connection and innovation. 

In other words, it was time for us to change, too.

Why Now?

This year marks our 15th year of connecting companies to capital, and we wanted to celebrate in a big way. We've stepped things up with an incredible new venue: The Woodruff Arts Center and Atlanta Symphony Hall. This breathtaking space will elevate the experience for the 1,200+ attendees and 200+ investor funds we expect to attend. We’re also revamping the Seed Stage Showcase, introducing new and improved programming, and featuring art and entertainment for the first time ever. 

Considering these efforts to raise the bar in every way, it felt like the right time to level up our website, too. Pitch companies, investors, sponsors, and attendees that come to Venture Atlanta from throughout the Southeast and across the nation already know and love our annual event—and our website experience should make them feel the same.    

See What’s New

So, what’s new on the Venture Atlanta website? We’re so glad you asked. For the past five years, our marketing team has been developing our brand and growing our digital presence, and during that time, we’ve learned a lot about our audience, how they view us, and how they interact with us online. We tapped into these insights in order to create an experience that is designed with our users in mind and a visually stunning brand that reflects Venture Atlanta’s evolution. 

Visually, that meant utilizing bright, modern colors that feel fresh and reflective of today’s tech industry. We also designated specific colors to each of our audiences: teal for attendees, blue for pitch companies, and purple for sponsors. Functionally, that meant making the user experience exceptional—it’s now easier than ever to find exactly what you’re looking for. 

Another big goal of our website redesign was to establish Venture Atlanta as more than just a two-day annual conference. Over the last 15 years, we’ve built an incredible network and community in support of tech companies throughout the Southeast, and our involvement in that community is year-round. We wanted our website to better showcase that. Here’s how we did it: 

Go Beyond the Conference 

Our conference is still a huge part of who we are, so don’t worry—our event overview page still contains all of the conference info that you’re looking for. 

But to establish Venture Atlanta as a true community and connector, we dedicated our homepage content to showcasing not just the conference, but the benefits of Venture Atlanta at large. 

In doing so, we’ve dedicated the rest of the website to highlighting everything that makes our community special. We’ve achieved this by prominently featuring our story and alumni companies, showcasing our thought leadership, and facilitating connections—find more on those below. 

Discover Our Notable Alumni 

With $6.5 billion in capital raised and $17 billion and exits, you might say we’ve had some incredible success stories come out of Venture Atlanta. Therefore, we wanted a place to showcase and celebrate our 700 past participants and their noteworthy accomplishments. Discover them all on our alumni page. 

Access Incredible Resources 

Thanks to our network, experience, and expertise, we’re well-equipped to provide the best resources and information for tech entrepreneurs. We’re introducing a redesigned resource hub with comprehensive articles, case studies, videos, and more to help guide, inform, and entertain. Check out our resources here. 

Explore the Job Board  

Speaking of our network… what better way to leverage the connections made at the Venture Atlanta Conference than with a job board? Members of our network can get their tech job listings in front of the right candidates, in the right industry. Want to list your job with Venture Atlanta? Contact us to get started.

Join the Website Scavenger Hunt and Get 50% Off Admission

To celebrate our brand new look, we’re hosting a website scavenger hunt! The first three people who find the “15 Year Triangle” will receive 50% off the Venture Atlanta ticket price. Here’s the image that you’re searching for: 

Here’s how to play:

View ticket pricing here.  

There’s Still Time to Register for Venture Atlanta 2022

Our new site is just a preview of the elevated look and experience that you can expect at VA 2022. If you think this is an exciting upgrade, just imagine what we have in store for the conference!

In addition to ambiance, our breathtaking new venue offers tons of networking space, including a beautiful courtyard where you can hold networking meetings or eat lunch while enjoying the crisp fall weather. There are also many other things happening during Atlanta Innovation Week in addition to the conference. Thanks in part to the 90+ sponsors we have this year, visitors can look forward to the following events starting on October 17: 

Whether you’ve attended in the past and are excited about all the new changes this year or it’s your first time and you want to see what it’s all about, Venture Atlanta is full of opportunities for founders and funders to connect, learn, and be inspired by one another. It is THE must-attend venture capital event of the year. 

Tickets are selling fast for the two-day event held on Wednesday, October 19, and Thursday, October 20—get them now!

For those seeking advice for entrepreneurs and startup CEOs, any internet search will yield pages upon pages of articles, blogs, tips, and guides—all claiming to help founders find success. But you shouldn’t necessarily take just any entrepreneur’s advice.

The best startup advice comes straight from the experts who’ve been there themselves: top-tier startup CEOs who know what it’s like to raise capital and complete successful exits; founders who overcome obstacles, continuously try (and often fail)—only to get back up and try, try again. 

At Venture Atlanta, we’ve had the privilege and honor of having the best of the best, year after year, grace our stage as keynote speakers. Founders like Ernie Garcia, who started Carvana as a way to cut out the middleman and sell used cars directly to customers, and Arianna Huffington, who founded her own media company at the age of 54, generously share the invaluable knowledge and startup advice they’ve picked up throughout their tenure as some of the most successful and highly recognized entrepreneurs around the world. 

In anticipation of the Venture Atlanta 2022 Keynote Speakers, we rounded up some of the top startup CEOs’ and entrepreneurs’ advice from past conferences. So sit back, relax, and skip the Google search—the best guidance is right here, at Venture Atlanta.

Ben Chestnut, CEO & Co-Founder, Mailchimp 

Venture Atlanta 2021

Mailchimp’s CEO and Co-Founder, Ben Chestnut, shared more than some advice for entrepreneurs—he shared the story behind his decision to bootstrap, how he scaled the business, and lessons learned along the way. 

“I started Mailchimp back in April 2000. In all humility, I think that decision to ‘bootstrap’ was made for me. That was the time of the dot com bust, so I got laid off. I started the company with the severance check that I got, and there was no investment money to be had. Even if I wanted it, I couldn’t get it. 

We started as a web design agency. In 2007 we pivoted to MailChimp; by then, we were profitable. We were growing fast. SaaS was new—so to the few investors who flew over to Atlanta back then, I had to explain what SaaS was. I had to explain furthermore why we would build a SaaS company focused on small businesses. There’s no money in small business, we thought back then. Even if I wanted it, we wouldn’t be able to get investment money.”

Ben also revealed the value of having a large, homegrown company in Atlanta—and how that impacts the future growth of the ecosystem:

“There was no ecosystem at all [when we started]. Back then, 20 years ago, if you said you were starting up a tech company, people would say, ‘I’m so sorry. Oh, what would compel you to do that?’ It was kind of dismal for tech companies back then. 

It was always on our minds; how can we build an ecosystem in Atlanta? My approach was that ecosystems are made of people, made of great, innovative, courageous leaders. I felt all that I could do to contribute was to build a great big company full of great leaders who could then someday go off and start their own companies. I’m seeing it thrive so much now. I wish we had something like this back then.”

Arianna Huffington, Founder, The Huffington Post & Thrive Global 

Venture Atlanta 2020

Arianna Huffington was a successful journalist and author before launching The Huffington Post (now HuffPost) at the age of 54. In 2016, she embarked on a new venture with Thrive Global. Here’s the female entrepreneur’s advice to startup CEOs about raising capital (and breaking the mold). 

“I started my first company at 54 and my second company at 66… I love reminding my friends who want to start companies that you don’t have to do it all in your 20s!

The first time around [raising], when I launched the Huffington Post, raising capital was much harder. My first round was friends… but because HuffPost had a successful legacy, it was much easier to raise capital the second time around, raising $65M in the last four years.”

Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder & CTO, Hubspot

Venture Atlanta 2020

After the sale of his first startup, Dharmesh Shah wasn’t planning on starting another—in fact, he made the promise to his wife not to! But, like many serial entrepreneurs, he couldn’t resist the pull of his shared passion for SMB with Hubspot co-founder Brian Halligan. 

Here’s what he had to say about where his inspiration comes from: 

“I like to think of myself as a builder of things or a tinkerer… I like to fix inefficiencies. Those are the kinds of things that keep me up at night… What are those inefficiencies still left to be solved, and what can I do to help solve them?”

On advice for entrepreneurs: 

“I would encourage entrepreneurs to [avoid going into] stealth mode. Everyone’s worried that someone is going to steal their ideas, but that almost never happens. There’s so much upside to getting those ideas out there… You will have this idea and you will start iterating this whole billionaire team and you’re going to spend the rest of your time convincing your team that the idea you’re actually pursuing is worth pursuing.”

Aaron Levie, CEO & Co-Founder, Box

Venture Atlanta 2019

Entrepreneur Aaron Levie revealed how he went about raising the first round of institutional capital:

“Between our sophomore and junior year of college, when we really started to take the business seriously, we were living and working in Seattle where we had grown up and we decided to go out and pursue some venture capital. So we did what anybody else would do. We looked up all the venture capitalists in the Seattle area and we cold-called every single one.

I remember we had one meeting where we went to the venture capitalist's office and then got this notification about 20 minutes into waiting in the lobby that the meeting was canceled for no apparent reason. We dealt with blow after blow. We did other things you’d expect. We dropped off a prospectus of our business model to Paul Allen’s house. He didn’t reach back out to us. We found the public fax number for Bill Gates’s office and sent him a fax of our prospectus. So that didn’t work also. 

So basically all of the Seattle venture capitalists that were either professional venture capitalists or hobbyists in venture capital rejected us. I mean it made sense, we were 20 at the time going after the largest incumbents in the world with this online storage product. We finally got lucky—there was a group of private investors, some of which had been in venture capital prior, some had been in real estate, and so we raised $80,000 for the company, and we sold a quarter of the company.”

Ernie Garcia, CEO & Co-Founder, Carvana

Venture Atlanta 2017

When asked what startup advice he would give; particularly for those who might think they have the idea but are not sure how to go for it, Carvana’s CEO and Co-founder, Ernie Garcia, shared this insightful tidbit: 

“The first thing I say is I think starting companies is a noble cause. I would encourage anyone who wants to do it because I think it's good for the world. A thought experiment I like to run is if you have a huge retailer with millions of customers who come to your store every day, you can put a pizza parlor in the back and serve mediocre pizza. 

You’re going to sell pizza because people are already there, but if you’re a guy who wants to start a pizza company, and you’re going to be in a back alley somewhere because you can’t afford a better place, you have to blow people’s minds with your pizza or no one’s coming back again. That pressure that exists on startups forces you to build products that are better for the world. I think that’s really cool and noble and positive.”

Garcia went on to drop some knowledge when it comes to leading as a startup founder or CEO. Here’s the entrepreneur’s advice when it comes to being an effective leader:

“I think by far the most important thing to leadership is that you have a real cause. You need to have something that you can explain to people to get behind and feel good about. Having a good mission is just a prerequisite to good leadership in general. 

When there’s a cause, people come together. I think a cause, hopefully, a positive one, is an important prerequisite. In the world of building a company and putting it out to a world of completely objective consumers, you face objective feedback that is just absolutely brutal. A really important part of that is making sure you have a really strong team around you and a really strong team that compliments your own weaknesses. So I think being aware of your weaknesses and acknowledging them is really important.”

Scott Dorsey, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, High Alpha and  Former CEO, Salesforce ExactTarget

Venture Atlanta 2017 

Entrepreneur, investor, and startup CEO advisor Scott Dorsey said:

“Business is all about one-to-one relationships. It’s all about caring about people in a really authentic and genuine way and communication is a really important part of that.”

Mark Cuban, Serial Entrepreneur 

Venture Atlanta 2017

Entrepreneur, television personality (Shark Tank, anyone?), and media proprietor Mark Cuban has invested in too many companies to list. He graced our stage and offered the following advice for entrepreneurs regarding leadership style:

“If I start a company and I’m growing it, I have an all-in management style… [as an investor], my style really is to be supportive. If I invest in you, I trust you. I invest in you because I have high hopes for the company. I think there's something special about your organization. I think there's something good about you as an entrepreneur, but I want to keep updated so that I can help you.

My job is to help you solve problems. And so if there's something going wrong, that’s where I come in. And so I really tried to be hands-on as a problem solver, rather than micromanage and say, ‘Well, why aren't you doing this? Or why aren't you doing that?’ Because again, as entrepreneurs, you get to see firsthand what's working and not working. 
The challenge I had in managing a lot of this is that we—as entrepreneurs and salespeople—lie to ourselves. We lie and say, ‘Oh, it's going great.’ Well, it’s not always as great as it should be. And so part of my challenge, other than just solving problems, is also trying to get my entrepreneurs to really be self-aware about their companies to know what's going right and what's going wrong because too many times we sugarcoat things. So, you know, I try to be supportive. I try to be aware and I try to be helpful.”

More Invaluable Advice For Entrepreneurs Awaits at Venture Atlanta 2022

Join us on Wednesday, October 19, and Thursday, October 20 for an exciting lineup of keynote speakers, pitch companies, and more. Spots are limited—register today!

Looking for more content from past conferences and startup advice for entrepreneurs and startup CEOs? Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The Forbes Midas List is the annual ranking by Forbes magazine of the most influential and best-performing venture capital investors in the world. 

According to Forbes, in order to qualify, "Investors are ranked by their portfolio companies that have gone public or been acquired for at least $200 million over the past five years, or that have at least doubled their private valuation since initial investment to $400 million or more over the same period." Liquid exits over unrealized returns earn bonus points, as well as "large multiples on money invested for early-stage investors or large sums of cash returned for growth-stage specialists."

Naturally, as the largest venture capital conference in the Southeast, we were curious: What does it take to wear the Midas crown?    

At Venture Atlanta 2020, we debuted our very first Midas Panel, hosted by Linnea Geiss, COO at PDI Software. The 2020 panel included:

The panel was so popular that we brought it back in 2021-this time hosted by Rachel Spasser, the Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer at ACCEL-KKR. Our featured panelists were: 

There's a lot to be learned from the best in the business, and our Midas List panelists did not disappoint. Read on to experience some of the highlights from the past two years. And if you don't want to miss this year's Midas Panel, make sure to register for Venture Atlanta 2022 here!

The Forbes Midas Panel Highlights from '20

Linnea: What kind of trends are you interested in investing in now? 

Aileen: At Cowboy Ventures, we're seed-stage investors. We are generally looking to partner with founders when they're raising their first institutional round. When I started as a seed investor, that was sometimes $500,000, sometimes a million dollars. Now, oftentimes it's a $2M, $3M, or $4M round. We invest in both consumer and enterprise businesses. 

Tech is just an incredible driving force of change and innovation increasingly around the world. We focus on just investing in the US. We do a lot of enterprise software investing. We're really interested in what we call "unsexy tech." So basically there are just a lot of industries, or functions, that customers don't see. They aren't really front-office functions, but things that are maybe back office, financial logistics, supply chain, and operational-functions that are still running on pen and paper, or really old, outdated software. 

The markets are now ready and big enough to be able to support this… Unfortunately, because of COVID, many people have realized that healthcare can be done remotely. And so we're excited about new opportunities for consumers to be able to take healthcare into their own hands. 

Linnea: So you're all part of partnerships, and I think it's an interesting question and a conversation to have about how you walk the line between challenging convention and supporting ideas that are really new; ideas that you have to kind of bring your partnership along. Some investments must be harder to sell than others. Would any of you care to share some of those particularly hard sales where you really had to champion a deal internally? 

Scott: Well, I'm happy to start. I'm sure this is the same story in every venture partnership, but the best ideas are very seldom obvious to everyone. So, you know, because we have a consensus-oriented culture, you'll often get very vigorous debate, but at the end of the day, we trust individuals to make those hard calls. 

We know that a sponsoring partner is closer to a company in a situation than the rest of us could ever be-no matter what amount of due diligence has been done or presentations they might make to us. So our style is to have very vigorous debates, but at the end of the day, we leave the final decision in the hands of the sponsoring partners. 

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, we have a very similar culture. I think as Scott mentioned, I think venture firms depend so much on the intellectual curiosity and belief systems of the partners that they've been investing in over many years to make decisions and to know a market and understand an entrepreneur better than anyone else in the firm. 

Linnea: Any stories from your own portfolio about something that seemed like a harder, harder sell at a particular time? 

Aileen: We are investors in a company called Guild Education that is doing quite well, and we're really excited about it. But when we heard the Guild pitch, it was two women at Stanford and they had a lot of passion about folks who are having a hard time getting career momentum going. And, in particular, people who had never finished high school or college. 

And so what they had done was they basically came up with a four-hour reboot-your career boot camp. And they basically had posted on Craigslist, saying, "Hey, come to our career seminar. It's free it's four hours." And they were renting out remnant strip mall space and doing boot camps for careers. And that's what their business was like; it wasn't really a business because it was free. 

So the idea was there are a lot of people who are hourly workers who are patching together a living and don't have a lot of career mobility. And we wanted help them. And we think we should probably have software and figure out how to do it remotely over the internet. But right now we're doing it live.

We think, you know, it's a really big market, but there were no founding technologists. There was no software. There wasn't really a vision for how we were gonna scale it. And now we actually partner with employers and we are an enterprise company and, like Walmart and Disney, some of the biggest employers of hourly workers in America are partners where we actually help their employees get an education and be on a better path. 

It's been a complete change from Craigslist to Walmart. And it was really about taking a bet on the market [being] big and very underserved. There aren't a lot of solutions for this.

Linnea: That brings up the topic of pivots-not every deal finishes the same way it started. Does anybody want to tell a story about some of their favorite or most notable pivots in their portfolio? 

Scott: We invested in a wonderful company called Tuya-and I'm sure none of you have ever heard of this company. That's partly to do with the fact that it's located in Hanzo, China. When we invested in the company, we had a one-hour meeting in a hotel in Shanghai and the founders so impressed us. 

They had started a company, which was acquired by Alibaba while they were working there. They had built the Ali Cloud with a team of about 200 engineers. And then they decided that they had a vision for something else and they wanted to go off and start their own company. So they went off to do that. 

We gave them $5 million and about two years into it-I'll never forget this meeting-the founders came back to us and they said, "You know, we've concluded that this really isn't working and we're wondering if we have to give you the money back, because we still have $3M of the $5M in the bank," or something like that. And I'd never been asked by an entrepreneur, "Do we have to give you the money back?" 

So I sort of chuckled to myself and I said, "Well, you know, just out of curiosity, do you have another idea, something else you might wanna pursue with the remaining $3 million?" And they suddenly lit up and they said, "Oh yeah, we have this. We really have this idea we've been working on for quite a while now. And we think that all of these appliance manufacturers here in China… they all want to make their devices smart and none of them really know how. So we think we could build a solution for that." 

And that's what today would be called an IoT platform, the internet of things. They have something like 80,000 products on this platform today. It'll be a public company next year. But that's not what we invested in. We invested in some very talented engineers out of Alibaba who fell flat on their faces with the first idea and had the guts to come up with another one. 

Linnea: So another important macro trend that's really permeating is the conversation around social justice, equality, and activism. How are you handling some of those current diversity and inclusion topics, both within your own firms and at your portfolio companies? 

Scott: I think all of us have been focused on increasing the diversity in our business for quite some time. And so the latest social unrest in the country has just re-energized us and, and broadened [that focus]. 

Thinking back to five or six years ago, there was a lot of interest in gender diversity. And so we started a diversity task force and, at that time, some of the women in the firm lept forward and said they really wanted to be actively involved. And that led to a big focus on gender diversity. Since then, our partnership has gone from a couple of women to 36% of the partners being women. We have two female general partners, and, and I say all this because I think it's encouraging to look at what the future holds for other kinds of diversity. 

And so now, we've constituted our diversity task force to include a broader set of people (not just women). And the focus is obviously to include BIPOCs and others that are still underrepresented in the venture business. Our model is to start at home. We want to make NEA a really diverse place that is welcoming and where more people feel like they belong. 

The Forbes Midas Panel Highlights from '21

Rachel: Let's talk about early-stage investments. ​​Tell us what caught your attention about a company like Robinhood or others, and what gave you comfort that this was the right bet to make? 

Jan: You are by definition making a leap of faith, and [in the case of Robinhood], Vlad and Baiju were really determined to build a huge company. They identified a really big market and made it clearer that there was a true business-a huge business-to be built.

I guess for me, the major sort of "aha moment" was when they presented their idea of this notion of platform shift [to mobile]. So from the website (and sort of an old interface) to an intuitive, beautiful product with friction removed, I guess the final ingredient was that they truly projected commitment, perseverance, grit, and clarity to go and make it happen. 

Lauren: We are a very thesis-driven firm. So we do proactive thesis work every quarter. FinTech is our largest category and it's where I spend all of my time, but we're really thinking about subcategories within FinTech, that are of interest to us based on those platform shifts based on, societal and consumer trends and then going out and proactively finding companies that fit those themes. 

So at the time, I had developed a thesis-which doesn't sound particularly novel now, but back in 2015, it was-around the idea that millennials were entering the workforce as the first population of truly digital natives. And frankly, they had come of age during the great recession and were inherently distrustful of legacy financial institutions. 

And so this notion that a digital-first bank (like Chime) could exist seemed very apparent to me. And as I thought about all of the categories within FinTech, the most intuitive was, "Where does your source of income come in?" That's the entry point to all other financial services and it's your bank account. And so to me, that was an obvious place to look. And then when I met Chris and Ryan, with their combined depth, it was the right combination. 

It sounds a little funny to say, but the reality is, that finding both kinds of financial services or FinTech domain depth, as well as technology product chops on a FinTech team, was very rare back then. And it's still rarer than you might imagine. Because oftentimes people come from industry thinking they can make it marginally better, or they come from tech looking at financial services and saying, "I could build a better product here, but they don't know how to see around corners. And they don't know what they don't know." And so it was the combination of those skills coupled with that thesis that got me really excited. 

Rachel: Would love a quick story from each of you on one investment that you had that had a very surprising outcome for you and why. 

Jan: The company I would use for this one is Adyen payments, valued at approximately a hundred billion dollars and has a global footprint of customers, employees, and shareholders. And it was a company where we led a Series A round in 2011. Again, I go back to payments. It's a big market. They had a great idea and the best technology in the market. So it was a kind of a no-brainer with no question marks. 

But here's the surprise. As the years went on, there was always a positive surprise, and the company always over-delivered. When I look at what the business is today, I don't think I could have dreamed that the business would be this big. I mean, the whole market has lifted, and I guess I would credit it to the growth of eCommerce.

So the addressable opportunity has grown multiple folds, probably similar to when cell phones appeared in the 1990s. All of those projections were exceptionally pessimistic relative to the number of smartphones in the world today. But when you step back, it's always that size of the opportunity… and the team going to grab that opportunity that sort of makes you wonder. These guys have done a phenomenal job. 

Lauren: To be completely candid, the honest answer is Chime. I think that the scale and magnitude and the impact that they've had would've been impossible to predict. So, I think it's particularly interesting because, at the time, it was not a popular deal. Pretty much everybody passed. But my thesis orientation gave me the conviction to do it anyway. I think there were a lot of naysayers and so watching them execute like crazy and then become what they've become… it's just been completely inspiring to watch. 

There's more Venture Atlanta content where that came from! Check out our post, Building a Unicorn Startup, or visit our blog and YouTube channel for discussion panels, event coverage, and more from our community of entrepreneurs and investors. 

Want to be the first to know when we announce 2022's conference speakers and event info? Sign up for our newsletter, and don't forget to follow Venture Atlanta on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

In the world of venture capital, a “unicorn” startup, valued at $1 billion or more, is the ultimate aspiration for many entrepreneurs. Unicorn startups, like Tope Awotona's Calendly and Kabir Barday's OneTrust, garner significant attention from investors and venture capital firms due to their extraordinary unicorn valuation. These remarkable success stories serve as inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs seeking startup success. The aggregate valuation of unicorns around the world is a whopping $2 trillion as of 2020.

As noteworthy as their valuations are, the real question on everyone’s minds is: What does it actually take to build a unicorn startup?

Naturally, we asked the experts themselves—and their answers did not disappoint.

During the Building a Unicorn panel at Venture Atlanta 2021 Momentum, panel host Vanessa Larco of New Enterprise Associates spoke with the following entrepreneurs and founders:

This panel discussion offered invaluable insights and advice for entrepreneurs aiming to join the ranks of unicorn startups. The wisdom shared by these successful founders can be a guiding light for those looking to replicate their startup success. Read on for some panel highlights, or watch the entire panel discussion video below.

Building a Unicorn Panel Discussion

Vanessa Larco: Thank you everyone for being here. It's great to be here in person with all of you. So I think we'll just dive right into questions. Why did you choose to build your startup in the Southeast?

Kabir Barday: I was born and raised in Atlanta, ended up at Georgia Tech, and it just kind of happened. But as we grew, this ended up being one of the biggest competitive advantages we had. We had competitors in Silicon Valley, New York, DC, and Europe, and we found that our ability to access the international markets in Atlanta was significant. And yes, it’s the airport, but it's also the time zone. When you just think about doing business in Europe, part of OneTrust is that we have software that helps with GDPR and all these privacy laws and security laws. A lot of that originates out of Europe, and we were doing 50% of our revenue in Europe within the first year and a five to six-hour time difference is very different than an eight to nine-hour time difference.

The second [advantage] was just access to talent. We largely dodged the talent war for engineering talent because we built the brand in Atlanta. We were the place people wanted to come work and accessing talent from North Carolina, Alabama, and Florida was significant for us.

And then the third, when investors look at our growth profile and then look at the cash burn, they can't believe it. We are so capital efficient in how we grow and it's just because everything is more accessible and affordable here.

Tope Awotona: So I think there are a lot of similarities. I ended up choosing Atlanta because I lived here. So the simple fact is what led to starting Calendly here. And at the time I didn't really think [much of it]. I'd worked for IBM and EMC, which were global companies and had employees all over the world. I also worked for two startups that actually had really good outcomes. And both of those startups were started in very remote, cities. One was started in Shawnee, Kansas. I'm sure you've never heard of that. Unless you're from Kansas. Another company that ended up getting acquired was started in Georgia, and that ended up being a multi-million dollar business.

And so I guess for me, what I thought about was the fact that those companies… they were able to achieve all their goals in spite of being in these very small cities. And I didn't think of it as a negative. Years later, I reflect on, you know, what Atlanta's meant. It's a lot of the same things that Kabir said. The business is incredibly capital efficient and because of the cost of talent, real estate, and employee retention on the east coast versus the west coast. So for us, it's been a huge advantage.

Tim Sheehan: I think it's just a boring answer of that's where I live. I think anyone starts where they are; wherever they happen to live.

Eric Boduch: I actually lived in Pittsburgh when we started Pendo. So our story's a little more complicated in the sense that, you know, we had four co-founders—two of which happened to be in Raleigh, one in DC, and one in Pittsburgh. We still have a co-founder in DC, and I've since moved to Raleigh, but for the first five years of Pendo or so I was a remote founder, which meant more time on planes, but also got used to like working the way we've had to work the last couple years.

But we really did think about, you know, would we start this somewhere else? And I'm a proponent of like, okay, you can build a great company anywhere. There are challenges, but there are also advantages, like Tope said, about starting a company in the Southeast; in an area that's not San Francisco or Boston or New York.

Vanessa: So I think we all touched on capital efficient talent and access to great talent, but in the introductions, everyone [is also] talking about how much Atlanta has evolved. So are these big tech companies moving into the Southeast a good thing, a bad thing, or net neutral?

Tim: It makes it more competitive for talent. I think overall for the metro area, it's a fantastic positive.

Kabir: I have a slightly different perspective. Certainly, it's competitive for talent and we've seen just in the last year, I mean, we're having to roll out salary increases and additional benefits. And a lot of the expectation of tech workers in Silicon Valley has come to Atlanta. Tope set the bar very high here for benefits as well. And so we always look up to Calendlly and what we can accomplish as well.

But the downside of being in Atlanta for us is somewhat fixed by those companies coming here at scale. The challenge we've had is the caliber of executives we need, from CFOs to CMOs. Once you're past $5-10 billion, it's slim pickings anywhere on the east coast. And so the more those companies move their second headquarters here, we've seen unbelievable talent at that level start to trickle in.

[The other challenge is] access to mentors and CEO coaching at that level. Tope and I were just comparing notes on just where we go for that peer group. And there's just not one in our world here. And so I think it's gonna be great for the ecosystem in terms of helping entrepreneurs like us just think bigger and demystify what it means to get to that scale.

Tope: Yeah. So I have a very similar experience to Kabir. You know, the biggest challenge we have with talent and recruiting is actually not the talent that already exists in Atlanta. Like we do really well there. The biggest challenge we have is as we got from zero to let's call it, you know, $30 million or certain revenue, all the talent we needed to find was here in Atlanta. But as you scale beyond that, there are these very specialized skills and experience that you need. That's just incredibly difficult to find in Atlanta; not only difficult to find in Atlanta, very difficult to get those people to even take a look at Atlanta and become interested in moving to Atlanta.

So those people are staying in the Bay Area and when they do move, maybe they're going to Austin. They're going to New York. They're not really considering Atlanta. And so what I think is really positive about all these big companies coming to Atlanta is it raises Atlanta's credibility. And I think over time, we'll see more of that talent coming to Atlanta.

Vanessa: I was thinking that, you know, having that meld of bringing experienced folks, I remember you hired some folks from Facebook that wanted to move back home to Atlanta, um, and then have them train up the local folks here and then get that flywheel going so that it, we do level up the talent base here to, to be CFOs that take companies public as well.

Eric: I've been involved in startups and public companies in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Raleigh, (not Atlanta) and I think there are a lot of similarities between Raleigh and Atlanta. My perspective on the question is it starts out as net negative.

I saw that in Pittsburgh when Google moved in pretty heavily. Now, Microsoft, Apple… they all have offices [there]. So I saw the net negative in particular in engineering costs in the beginning. But then it became net positive, not just from the executive position, which it's actually a little harder because a lot of people are just opening engineering offices, right. And they aren't hiring a lot. You know, you won't see the VP of sales necessarily, or that kind of person you want, or that the senior finance person, it still might be hard to get.

I would argue that the early engineers you want are not the people that are necessarily gonna go work at Apple or Google right now. They're gonna be the people that really want to be in a startup that really want to dig in; that are passionate about the problem you're solving. I think that early base is still very recruitable, you know, even from the Googles of the world.

Tope: I would also add that I think the upward pressure on, you know, salaries is a nationwide phenomenon. It's not unique to Atlanta. And I think every company has to be prepared to deal with that, regardless of where you might be.

Vanessa: That's a good point. Kabir, you touched on mentorship. One of the things that sold me on Silicon Valley when I moved there from Atlanta was access to all these mentors and people that have done this before. Have you found good mentors out here? And if so, where did you find them?

Kabir: I found amazing mentors in Atlanta, but as we've scaled, how we approach mentorship has been very different.

What I learned very quickly is that your mentors need to change to be stage-appropriate as you grow. And if you manage that right, then your mentors turn into friends and then you can get new mentors along the way. A lot of your mentors in that middle stage kind of become your investors and board members. And then at some point that gets awkward. Because when you're going to your investors and board members for mentorship, at some stage, it gets a little bit weird. And so now at a later stage company, we're finding more traditional coaches. I never thought I'd need a CEO coach or a team coach. At that scale, you kind of need an independent voice.

Tope: I've been really lucky. It takes a village to build anything that's worth anything. But I guess what I found is that, you know, folks in the south in Atlanta are just really, really kind and generous. And if you ask for help… I can't think of a single person I've reached out to that has not offered their time and advice.

Tim: We don't get on this stage without massive help. I mean, investors, friends, prior colleagues, new people that I met through co-founders… I've received tons of help from all of them. So I think when you're scaling a company like we all have, you have to keep an open mind and you have to look for good advice and information insights… you're kind of constantly taking it all in.

Vanessa: Are there any groups that you found particularly helpful in Atlanta?

Tim: Uh, for me personally, ATDC, the Georgia Tech incubator, was super helpful. I had spent some time there helping other entrepreneurs prior to starting Greenlight. So I made some close friends with other experienced entrepreneurs there who were EERs or entrepreneurs and residents there. And, uh, you know, I just loved the advice you would get from them. I remember learning from some of them about the importance of being very direct and clear, even when you're telling someone something they don't want to hear, because maybe they're really in love with their idea. Or you need to encourage them to look more at the problem and being able to prove that the problem objectively exists in the market.

Eric: I agree. I'm thumbs up on mentors, thumbs up on coaches. I think coaches as a trend, you know, moving to the east coast, see it all the time. I think it's a great thing. I have a different perspective though.

I think it's harder getting good mentors when you're starting a company than it is hiring engineers. Because often, especially first-time entrepreneurs don't know exactly what to look for and what you want is someone that's done it recently that can actually give you advice in the area because there's a lot of bad advice out there.

Vanessa: I would say as someone who invests and joins boards, I'd be very careful about adding any advisors to your board. I think it's a bit of a warning sign. If you're an early-stage company and someone is helping you and they say, “I want to join your board.” I would just slow roll that for as long as possible, because as Kabir said, there's different advisors and mentors for different stages and being on a board is almost permanent.

Eric: And I, even when people ask me to be an advisor and they're like, well, would you want to be a board member? It's like, those are different. And we can talk about how they're different and why, but think about, you know, what you want from me, as opposed to like, just thinking that giving me a board title is gonna make it more exciting to me. It's really not. I'm more interested in the equity piece than anything else.

Vanessa: So I have to touch on fundraising because all of you took very different strategies. Some took early fundraising capital. Some took middle-late stage. What led to your fundraising strategy and why did you choose that strategy?

Tim: Well, for Greenlight, building a financial product and bringing that to market, there is a lot of what I call pre-work. You need to have the deal with the bank and the processor and the card network and, uh, you know, gosh, you have to actually build the thing.

So there are a lot of deals required; regulations and laws that you need to make sure you're compliant with. So we actually raised angel funding, and I would say that's actually a real positive about Atlanta.

Kabir: I never thought we would raise as much money as we did. It was never my goal. I was in a very lucky position where I was able to fund my own angel round, and all the investors we ended up signing on board… we ended up raising over $900 million in the last three years. So I never actually had to reach out to investors. They all pitched to me. And you know, what worked for me was creating a little bit of being a little bit of an enigma. And being a little bit mysterious and investors would see us at trade show. They would hear that customers are buying from us, but nobody really knew much. And it created this desire and this demand that was really interesting.

Tope: My fundraising strategy was really to never raise money. Somewhere along the way I failed. I bootstrapped Calendly, and by now I've told the story a million times… I raided my 401k to start Calendly. And so given that I took this very risky approach to start the business, I didn't really feel like I diluted myself.

What happened along the way… I ran out of money. I needed money and I got connected to David Cummings and I was still on the fence about raising money in spite of the fact that I needed money. But the fact that David was an entrepreneur himself… he had just exited Pardot and was successful. I thought he would not only be a source of capital, but he would also be an advisor; a mentor to me. And so that made that decision easy.

Eric: I mean, the fundraising process has been interesting. It's changed a lot. Pendo has gone from zero (eight years ago) to over a hundred million in ARR in less than eight years. We went from a market cap of, in essence, zero to, you know, $2.6 billion.

Vanessa: I wanted to close this with like rapid-fire, one line advice to early-stage entrepreneurs. Who wants to go first?

Tope: Mine is simple: have fun and celebrate the milestones. I wish I would've done more of that. I definitely had fun, but some of those milestones just kind of flew by and I wish I would've taken more time to savor them. So I encourage you to do that.

Eric: I mean, it's not always easy to do, but work with great people, like wait for the great people. Don't sacrifice on the hiring side, whether it's the co-founder, whether it's the early engineers, whether it's your first VP of marketing, whether it's your advisors or mentors, or even your VCs. Suffer through it for a little while to make sure you get the great people.

Kabir: The easiest thing to neglect is yourself. And you know, something that not a lot of CEOs and founders talk about is their own personal health; their own physical health; their own personal relationships. I got engaged and saw my (now) wife 30 days that year and it was brutal. You don't have to make those sacrifices in that extreme of a way in today's world. And I would say it's okay to prioritize yourself a little bit.

Tim: I'll say, stay focused and keep an open mind and listen to what the market tells you.

Vanessa: Thank you all so much, it’s been a blast!

Looking for more Venture Atlanta 2021 content? Check out our blog or visit our YouTube channel for discussion panels, event coverage, and more from our community of entrepreneurs and investors.

Want to be the first to know when we announce 2022’s conference speakers and event info? Sign up for our newsletter, and don’t forget to follow Venture Atlanta on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Think about how much can happen in a year. Now think about how much can happen in 15 of them.

As we approach Venture Atlanta Forward, our 2022 conference, that's exactly what we're doing: looking back at all we've accomplished since our inaugural event back in 2008. We're proud to celebrate this milestone by revisiting all of the achievements, growth, challenges, and changes that have made this groundbreaking event what it is today.

Whether you've been with us since the beginning, or you're discovering Venture Atlanta for the first time, we invite you to take a trip with us down memory lane in honor of 15 inspiring years of connecting companies with capital.

Our Founding Companies That Set the Stage (Literally)

Venture Atlanta began as a shared goal among the Atlanta CEO Council, Metro Atlanta Chamber, and Technology Association of Georgia. Their mission was to bring a premier venture capital event to the state of Georgia, and so these organizations joined forces in 2007 to host the first-ever Venture Atlanta conference in the fall of 2008.

Our premier event welcomed just a couple hundred attendees and 20 investor funds. A humble start-but we knew it was only the beginning. The members of our founding companies believed in the power and influence of Ventura Atlanta; they knew this conference could fill the need for investment dollars in Georgia and beyond.

Venture Atlanta's Growth Along the Way

15 years later, Venture Atlanta now welcomes 1,200+ attendees and 200+ investor funds. We've expanded beyond showcasing Atlanta companies and now welcome the entire Southeast. From as far west as Texas to as far north as D.C., we've had an incredible lineup of participating companies from throughout the region.

Not only are we showcasing companies from the Southeast, but we're making it a priority: Last year, we hit a huge milestone with over 60% of our pitch companies coming from outside of Georgia. What's more, 12 different states across the Southeast were represented at our 2021 event.

Where the Magic Happens: Our Venues

With more and more companies and investors attending over the years, we've had to ensure our venues could accommodate Venture Atlanta's progressive growth. We're always looking to bring a new and exciting experience to our attendees, too. Our locations over the years reflect those efforts:

This year, we've upgraded our location once again to The Woodruff Arts Center and Atlanta Symphony Hall. This stunning, modern space encompasses our 2022 theme, Forward, and also represents the uncanny relationship between art and technology.

Notable Board Members Over the Years

In addition to our noteworthy venues, we've also had the pleasure and honor of working with notable board members throughout the years. These incredibly talented and hardworking people have helped make Venture Atlanta what it is today. Some of the names you might recognize:

A Spotlight on Our Alumni's Success

Our accomplished board members have helped pave the way for many successful Venture Atlanta participating companies. To date, we have 667 alumni companies that have collectively raised $6.5B in funding and achieved $16B in exits. Some of the biggest funding announcements and exits include:

 

To Our Sponsors-We Couldn't Have Done It Without You

We certainly couldn't forget our sponsors over the years-Venture Atlanta wouldn't be possible without you! Special thanks to these companies that have sponsored VA every year for the past 15 years:

Last But Certainly Not Least…

We couldn't have done without the tireless work and support of Venture Atlanta CEO Allyson Eman. She has been leading the way since the beginning, along with our incredible board of directors, and we can't say thank you enough for everything that you do.

Cheers to 15 Years

Our mission used to be all about connecting companies to capital-and that's still a very important part of what we do. Over the years, however, it's become even bigger than that. Venture Atlanta is an incredibly valuable networking opportunity and facilitator of connections; both for investors to connect with other investors and for founders to connect with other founders. The event also serves as the connection point for companies to find talent, customers, mentors, partners, M&A opportunities, and so much more.

It's been an incredible journey, but we're not slowing down anytime soon! You won't want to miss this year's event-our biggest and best yet. Subscribe to our newsletter for event updates and be sure to follow us on social media to stay up-to-date on the latest conference announcements.

We can't wait to move Forward with you at Venture Atlanta 2022.

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