The MGMT Boston Operators Club was hosted by Asymmetric Capital last week to discuss “Going Early as an Engineer & Operator”. Thank you to Rob Biederman, Nancy Chou, and the rest of the Asymmetric team for having us to their Back Bay office.
Moderated by Asymmetric’s Managing Partner Rob Beiderman, we had Asymmetric portfolio founders Alex Zimmer (Topologic), Mike Torra (Copley), Arjun Aggarwal (Mandrel), and Brian Elliott (Blitzy) on hand to talk about their experiences as early stage founders and what it’s like to “go early”.
Our panel agreed that being successful in early stage environments involves the right individual characteristics and cultural ingredients:
- Mike shared that you “have to want to go early” as you will be forced to learn new things and take ownership
- Alex talked about his focus on recruiting early stage team members who are enthusiastic, curious, and get excited about solving new problem with a low ego
- Arjun talked about how early stage startups are one of the best places to experience a fast pace of learning that are hard to replicate in other environments and that investors are there to underwrite taking this type of career risk
- Brian, as a non-technical founder, has not stopped asking questions and it has led him to the point where he can now contribute to high level design / architecture conversations since he’s spent so much time stepping outside of his comfort zone to understand the entire technical picture
These Asymmetric founders also shared that the landscape changes when you move from idea to building as they get deeper into their problem spaces. Every startup has an initial approach that needs to be tweaked when it collides with reality and you have to embrace the challenge of finding product market fit.
Mike talked about the hard work his team is doing to close the gap from “pretty good most of the time” to closing those last percentage points of accuracy for the AI commerce solution they are building to drive “Enterprise ready” results.
Brian talked about the opportunity for Blitzy evolving as it became clear they could go far beyond their original concept but, as a result, they have had to spend more time understanding what is needed to deliver on the larger ambition.
The panel also shared the importance of cultural make-up of earlier stage teams that need to be able to discuss ideas openly, ask a lot of questions, and collaborate to move quickly.
Thanks a lot for sharing your insights & experiences and thanks to Asymmetric Capital for hosting us!