Hear the story firsthand of how Eli met John Zeratsky and the origins of starting Character VC with JZ and Jake Knapp.
Eli provides a number of insights for startup founders and investors alike from a venture capitalist’s perspective, including how to listen to founders empathetically and objectively.
We discussed this excerpt from John Zeratsky’s article announcing Character in December 2021 and this is at the core of what Eli and I discussed:
“[Eli] shared his experiences as a traditional startup investor, where he often joined company boards and supported founders with coaching and advice. But he saw the limitations of that approach, and told me that ‘value add’ can easily become ‘value destroy’ when you’re not working hand-in-hand with the team.
The Design Sprint is an antidote to that model, providing a format for investors and startups to truly collaborate on solving problems together. What if we supported our portfolio companies by running sprints together, like we had done at GV? But what if we embraced this model as the core of our strategy, not just one thing on a menu of offerings?”