At Golden Section, we’ve found that one of the best ways to ensure the success of our founders is through weekly syncs with our Founder Success Analysts (FSAs). We view FSAs as fractional operating partners that we deploy to our portcos as a crucial part of our portfolio management strategy.
Each FSA is assigned a few portfolio companies to work with, developing strategies with those founders around relevant challenges and opportunities to help move the companies forward. Once a week, FSAs touch base with their founders to share important updates on ongoing projects, review data, and plan for the future.
Not Just Another VC Firm
One of our core operating principles at Golden Section is to work side by side with our founders. Whereas other VC firms act as hands-off investors, we work with our founders from start to finish, from product development to meaningful exit.
We have seen amazing results using this basic principle. Instead of investors and founders operating in different spheres, we work together and combine the best of our shared expertise. Many of us at Golden Section have been founders ourselves and have experienced the ups and downs of launching startups. We understand the pressure on founders when building new products and trying to make it in a world full of competitors.
“When a bad thing happens a pessimist thinks, ‘just my luck’, an optimist thinks, ‘this will pass’, and a teacher thinks, ‘what’s the lesson here?’.”
― Garry Fitchett
We have also been investors for more than 10 years, and while it may be cliche, there is no substitute for experience. In our niche of B2B SaaS, we have seen it all: the best and worst ways to go about product development, raising capital, management, maintaining balance, communicating, and more. Some of these have been our mistakes, while others are the mistakes we’ve witnessed other founders make. When severe enough, we document those mistakes to share as a resource to other founders.
Weekly Syncs Build Trust
In terms of communication, we’ve found that having weekly touchpoints between founders and FSAs allows them to build relationships based on trust and reciprocity. As challenges arise, founders know they can turn to us for guidance and support before the challenge becomes a major issue.
Why Founder Success Analysts Work For Founders
The fractional basis works well for our founders because it does NOT require a:
- Long-term commitment
- Full-time salary and benefits
At the same time, founders get to work with someone who:
- Is highly qualified
- Brings an outside, fresh perspective to the table
- Is invested in the success of their company
Unlike consultants who often come on board at times of decision-making or crises, our team works with portfolio companies through the good times, and the challenging times. As a result of these ongoing conversations, the FSAs forge strong relationships with the founders. Our open lines of communication and weekly sync approach serve to deepen the relationship between our community and founders, which ultimately increases the opportunity for meaningful exits.
