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What Founder-Friendly Means to Pilot
Last week, Inc. Magazine revealed their annual Founder-Friendly Investors list. Pilot Growth Equity was honored to make the cut. "Founder friendly" might easily be misinterpreted as "being nice." And perhaps for some investors, that's the extent of it. For us, it means much more. And so I figured this is a good opportunity to articulate what being "founder friendly" means to Pilot.
First, what "founder friendly" doesn't mean
Before we get into what "founder friendly" does mean, let's first define what it doesn't mean.
To repeat, it doesn't simply mean "being nice." Of course we treat people the way they should be treated: like people! But being nice all the time isn't founder friendly.
It doesn't mean telling founders what they want to hear. Mistakes happen. It's part of scaling a business. Being a "yes person" isn't founder friendly.
Similarly, it doesn't mean avoiding tough, important topics. Avoiding the elephant in the room isn't founder friendly.
It doesn't mean doing a founder's job for them. Pilot believes that the best businesses are founder-led. Whatever you believe, they're certainly not investor-led. Running someone else's business isn't founder friendly.
What "founder friendly" means to Pilot
Pilot aims to lean in where we are uniquely qualified to add value while not burdening our founders with unnecessary overhead. This is better illustrated through example.
Many of our founders need access to the enterprise. Our business development advisory team, comprising current and former enterprise executives, offers connections to senior buyers with decision-making authority. These advisors work both to influence current pipeline deals and identify completely new sales opportunities.
Many of our founders also need a hand maturing critical operating functions, including but not limited to finance and human resources. We support this growth through access to a team of seasoned operators who can partner with founders to develop these functions. When the time is right, we also help our founders acquire the right talent to inherit and lead these functions.
Advisory aside, we exhibit founder-friendliness through integrity, availability, sensibility, responsiveness and transparency. We strive to bring these attributes to every founder interaction, ranging from due diligence to exit.
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