peakventures.vc/blog

And as you might expect, we each vary wildly in our own experience and backgrounds– differences that come from the perspective of a co-founder to that of early team member, from the failed startups to successful exits, and from having been born and raised in Utah to first stepping foot in the US at age 14. Peak’s beginnings are with three founders: Jeff Burningham, Jeff Danley, and Jamie Dunn. But if you know Jeff, you know he’s persuasive and brings a big vision; for that, I’m very grateful. The approach to our craft is simple: this business resides squarely on the backs of audacious founders — our livelihood, our reputation, is only as good as the most recent experience, and the sum of experiences, founders have had with our team.

Given the odds of startup success and the fact that every ounce of energy needs to be focused on creating value and then growing value, many startups risk loudly starting something that ends quietly. In the earliest days in startup Shaun, Zach and their team focused all their energy on hacking to find and create customer value, a loud internally focused effort, before eventually hacking to extend that value to as many as possible, an effort with louder external reach. Here’s to another Utah startup success, another heavy hitter entering the state in WeWork, and to all the founders who don’t have the time to read this bit.

Seed stage investing can feel eerily similar to Instagram-posting: even unwittingly, my instinct is to post the photo that captures me in the best light, on my best day, and in the most picturesque of backdrops. And though I don’t try to come off inauthentic, I have no interest in posting images of me first thing in the morning, after I’ve yelled at the driver in front of me on I-15, or that time when someone snapped a candid photo of me on the beach with my shirt off before I was warned to suck in my belly, cock back my shoulders, and arrange my chest hair. Here’s how I summarize Mike’s explanation of founder secrets to my kids: I meet someone with an idea: their idea seems crazy, because they want to change how the world does something. What I knew in that first meeting with the Cake founders wasn’t that this would be the next big innovation for users of the mobile web, what I know is that the way we search, especially on our mobile devices, has lost some of the magic that search once had.

Career risk is real and can be daunting– whether it’s risk-taking at your present job or starting a startup. A few months ago, I was invited to share thoughts on the topic “whole-hearted risk” at a Women Tech Council summit held in Salt Lake City, Utah. In the process, I realized that though it is difficult to isolate the risk I’ve taken, let alone give it so grand a descriptor as “whole hearted,” I am able to more clearly call out the risk taken by those with whom I’ve operated. Whole-Hearted Risk: Problems to Solve & The People Involved Part 2 of this series:Whole-Hearted Risk: