20VC: 7 Key Themes To Building A Great Company To IPO, The Right Way To Assess Market Timing & How To Balance Between Speed and Inspection When It Comes To Decision-Making with Patrick Morley, CEO @ Carbon Black
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2018
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Patrick Morley is the President and CEO @ Carbon Black, the company that combines unfiltered data collection, predictive analytics, and cloud-based delivery to provide superior endpoint protection. Prior to their IPO in April 2018, Carbon Black had raised over $150m in VC funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital, Accomplice, Kleiner Perkins and Highland Venture Partners just to name a few. As for Patrick, under his leadership, he has taken Carbon Black from startup to market leader with over 800 employees. Before Carbon Black, he was CEO of Imprivata Corporation and held senior leadership positions with six venture-backed software companies, including three that had successful IPOs.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Patrick made his way into the world of startups and came to be CEO @ Carbon Black where he turned a startup into a public company and market leader with 800 employees?
2.) Patrick has previously said "there are 7 key themes to building a great company", what are those themes? From taking 4 companies public what are the patterns in building a business the right way? How does Patrick look to create a culture of accountability but also with a risk-taking mentality? How does one retain startup culture with scale?
3.) How does Patrick view his role as CEO today? What 3 characteristics do all great CEOs need to embody and then act on? Would Patrick agree that some people are destined for certain stages of a company's life? How does Patrick determine between a stretch and a stretch too far in a VP? What does that subsequent communication look like?
4.) Mike Dauber @ Amplify previously said on the show "timing kills more startups than dollars", would Patrick agree with this? How does he view market timing? What advice would Patrick give to founders who are 3-4 years ahead in market? What are the challenges? What are the right ways to communicate the path to timing it right?
5.) Why did Patrick choose this year to take Carbon Black public? What are the fundamental pros and cons of being a public company today? How does Patrick assess the role that VCs played in the building of Carbon Black to IPO? What must investors always remember in their interactions with founders? What must founders be cognizant of when selecting their investors and board members?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Patrick’s Fave Book: Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I am very excited to say it's that time of the week. It's Founders Friday here on the 20-minute |
| 0:04.1 | VC with me, Harry Stebbings. I would love to hear your thoughts on future guests and questions |
| 0:08.4 | you'd like to hear me ask. You can do that on Instagram at H. Stebbings, 1996 with 2Bs. It really |
| 0:13.9 | would be great to see you there. But to the show today, and if you remember our episode with |
| 0:17.5 | Jeff Fagnon at Accomplice, for everyone that listened intently, you will remember his mentioning the incredible Carbon Black journey, from Idea to IPO earlier |
| 0:25.6 | this year. Well, today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Patrick Morley, president and CEO at Carbon Black, |
| 0:30.6 | the company that combines unfiltered data collection, predictive analytics, and cloud-based delivery |
| 0:35.4 | to provide superior endpoint protection. |
| 0:37.8 | Prior to their IPO in April 2018, Carbon Black had raised over $150 million in VC funding |
| 0:43.7 | from the likes of Sequoia Capital, Accomplice, Kleiner Perkins, and Highland Venture Partners, |
| 0:48.6 | just to name a few. As for Patrick, under his leadership, he took Carbon Black from |
| 0:52.3 | startup to market leader, with over 800 employees. And before Carbon Black, he was Carbon Black from startup to market leader with over 800 employees. |
| 0:55.0 | And before Carbon Black, he was CEO of Improvata Corporation and held senior leadership positions |
| 1:00.0 | with six venture-backed software companies, including three that had successful IPOs. |
| 1:05.0 | And I'd also have to say a huge thank you to the main man, Jeff Fagnan, ad accomplice, for the intro to Patrick today. |
| 1:10.0 | I really do so appreciate that, |
| 1:11.5 | Jeff. However, before we welcome Patrick to the hot seat today, I want to spend a minute to talk about |
| 1:15.8 | Brex. The first corporate card for startups, Brex founders Henrique and Pedro, built a payments |
| 1:20.7 | business in Brazil, but found themselves rejected for a corporate card when they were in Y Combinator. |
| 1:25.4 | They decided to build Brex with With instant online sign-up, |
| 1:28.6 | no founder liability and limits 10 to 20 times higher than standard cards. Pretty incredible. I know, |
| 1:34.1 | and you can sign up for Brex and get card fees waived by entering the code Harry during sign-up. |
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