Enterprise Investing with Ed Sim

Created by Rishabh Srivastava, Founder of Loki.ai

This summary was largely done for my own note-taking, sharing it just in case it adds more value to other people.

I have no affiliation whatsoever with anyone in this note. This is a summary largely taken for my own reference, and may contain errors :)

Context

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Keywords

Investing, B2B, Startups

Summary

Ed Sim is a partner at Boldstart, an early-stage enterprise investment firm.

Highlights

Every 10-15 years, there can be a fundamental rearchitecture of the space and new enterprise software companies can be built

How to understand B2B software companies and opportunities if you’re not technical?

First thing is a technical founder and their quality

Second thing is what is their unique insight? What is a pain they’ve experienced for 10/15 years and are can’t stop thinking about?

What is a shift that’s going to happen in the future but hasn’t happened yet (like GDPR before it was passed)

Is this a real problem? If so, how’re CTOs or CIOs currently solving it? Are they trying to built it themselves and just can’t? Are they on the lookout for external solutions?

A solid technical product and a real need are great raw ingredients

Thanks to cloud, developers don’t need a lot of capital to start a business. They only need capital to scale

There are a bunch of companies that could not work before broadband became widely adopted. Is there an equivalent for 5G?

Anything with high bandwidth needs or low latency

Trading for banks

Video for IoT

When looking for an exit, never try to sell. Always be bought. Wait for a partner at some firm to come in and buy you because you’re making a dent in their customer base

Because 90+% of investments are pre-product, you want to spend a lot of time surrounding founders with people who have done it before and who can introduce them to customers

Reputation is critical for early stage investors. If they lose that, they’re screwed because they’re so reliant on talent

2 key thrusts for investments – a) developer tools, b) reinventing existing SaaS in a much better way

For founders, Hustle is not a strategy. Hiring and developing leverage is super important