20VC: Why Pre-Product Market Fit Is About Systems Design Not Engineering, The Right Way For Leaders To Approach Wartime Leadership Today & A Guide To Recruitment Forward Planning with Ryan Denehy, Founder & CEO @ Electric
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2019
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ryan Denehy is the Founder & CEO @ Electric.ai, the company that provides a world-class IT solution that's centralized, secure, and lightning-fast. To date, Ryan has raised over $37m in funding from some dear friends of the show in Rich @ GGV, Bessemer, Primary, Bowery, just to name a few. As for Ryan, he started his career at the tender age of 17 launching an action sports video production company, which was acquired just 4 years later. Ryan then spent 5 years at USA Today in numerous different roles. Following USA Today, Ryan started his second company, Swarm, acquired by Groupon just 3 years later.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Ryan made his way into the world of startups from launching an action sports video production company at the age of 17?
2.) Having founded 2 prior companies, would Ryan agree with Joe Fernande @ JoyMode in saying that "serial entrepreneurship is overrated"? What did he do right in the first 2 companies that he would look to do again? What did not work that he is avoiding? Where does Ryan most often see first-time founders make mistakes scaling?
3.) How does Ryan think about and assess wartime leadership? What is the right leadership style and approach to battle through the really tough times? Ryan's investors talk of his speed of execution, how does Ryan balance the speed with the quality when it comes to execution? How has Ryan seen both his role and the way in which he executes it change with the scale of the company and of himself?
4.) How does Ryan thnk about and assess forward planning when it comes to recruitment? How should this recruitment planning align to fundraising? Why must it start before the fundraise? How does Ryan think about levelling up individuals internally vs hiring external candidates? How does Ryan think about and present internal expectation setting?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Ryan’s Fave Book: Barbarians At The Gate
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ryan on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to Founders Friday on the 20-minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, |
| 0:03.3 | and if you want to catch the happenings over the last few days of me and SF, you can on Instagram |
| 0:07.2 | at H. Stebbings, 1996 with 2Bs. It would be great to see you there. But to the show today, |
| 0:12.1 | and what a profile our guest today has. I so enjoyed doing this one, and I cannot wait to welcome |
| 0:16.5 | Ryan Denahey, found and CEO at Electric.A.I. The company that provides a world-class IT solution |
| 0:22.1 | that's centralized, secure and lightning fast. And to date, Ryan has raised over $37 million in funding |
| 0:27.7 | from some dear friends of the show in Rich at GGV, the team at Bessemer, Primary, Bowery, just to name a few. |
| 0:33.5 | As for Ryan, he started his career at the tender age of 17, launching an action sports video |
| 0:38.2 | production company, which was acquired just four years later. |
| 0:41.1 | Ryan then spent five years at USA Today in numerous different roles, and following that period, |
| 0:45.5 | Ryan started his second company, Swarm, which was acquired by Groupon just three years after |
| 0:49.5 | the founding of that. |
| 0:50.5 | I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Bob at Bessemer, Richard GGV and Brad at Primary for |
| 0:55.0 | some fantastic questions suggestions today. Mahito's on me for that team. So every time you listen to a |
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