Dayna Grayson's guest appearances

Dayna Grayson

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Full Ratchet (TFR): Venture Capital and Startup Investing Demystified

The Digital Factory

Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast

Samir Kaji

Sarah Tavel

Trae Vassallo

Chris Douvos

Nicole Quinn

Brett DeMarrais

John Vrionis

Aydin Senkut

Gabriel Weinberg

Dave McClure

John Fein

Rebecca Kaden

Charles Hudson

Ash Fontana

Nagraj Kashyap

OwlTail

Rachel Holt

 Dayna Grayson &amp; Rachel Holt of Construct Capital joins Nick to discuss Competing with Amazon, Combatting 60% Talent Attrition, and Driving Transformation of Foundational Industries. In this episode we cover:  Can you each give us the two-minute background and path to VC? What is the thesis at Construct? How do you define series A?  Is there a geographic scope in which you'll invest? Why have you chosen to focus on these sectors and categories? How have you seen the current environment issues affect sales cycles and velocity over the past year? How do you deal with inertia, slow sales cycles, and tech aversion amongst these buyer and user groups? Is there any concern that the skills gap will broaden over time? Will capital intensity, timing of financing rounds, timing to exit, size/scale of exits, valuation multiples, etc. look different for a legacy industry portfolio vs. a standard SV SaaS portfolio? Investment philosophy has shifted from being much more decision-maker focus and top-down startups versus more user bottom-up focus solutions. Is that something that's part of your lens or is it case by case, depending on the startup? There seems to be a lot more VCs/Investors focused in these spaces, so why the need for Construct in this market where so much capital is flowing? What was it like pitching this narrative in the thesis? You raised your inaugural fund during the pandemic — what did you learn from that experience? There are two different philosophies on firm building. One approach is more of an independent/individual sport, the other a team sport. Which do you employ? If one of you wants to do the deal and the other thinks it's not a good way to deploy capital, what happens in that circumstance? How do you think about scaling your efforts and getting more leverage out of your time? What's the post-investment relationship with the founders look like at Construct? What do you know, you need to get better at? What's the best way for listeners to connect with each of you and follow along with Construct?  Missed a recent episode? Go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. The host of The Full Ratchet is Nick Moran, General Partner of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in the exceptions.  To learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our Website and LinkedIn and be sure to follow us on Twitter.  Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free tool VC-Rank and tell us about your business. We’ll send a list of possible investors right to your email’s InBox!

Dayna Grayson &amp; Rachel Holt of Construct Capital joins Nick to discuss Competing with Amazon, Combatting 60% Talent Attrition, and Driving Transformation of Foundational Industries. In this episode we cover: <ul> <li>Can you each give us the two-minute background and path to VC?</li> <li>What is the thesis at Construct?</li> <li>How do you define series A? </li> <li>Is there a geographic scope in which you'll invest?</li> <li>Why have you chosen to focus on these sectors and categories?</li> <li>How have you seen the current environment issues affect sales cycles and velocity over the past year?</li> <li>How do you deal with inertia, slow sales cycles, and tech aversion amongst these buyer and user groups?</li> <li>Is there any concern that the skills gap will broaden over time?</li> <li>Will capital intensity, timing of financing rounds, timing to exit, size/scale of exits, valuation multiples, etc. look different for a legacy industry portfolio vs. a standard SV SaaS portfolio?</li> <li>Investment philosophy has shifted from being much more decision-maker focus and top-down startups versus more user bottom-up focus solutions. Is that something that's part of your lens or is it case by case, depending on the startup?</li> <li>There seems to be a lot more VCs/Investors focused in these spaces, so why the need for Construct in this market where so much capital is flowing?</li> <li>What was it like pitching this narrative in the thesis?</li> <li>You raised your inaugural fund during the pandemic — what did you learn from that experience?</li> <li>There are two different philosophies on firm building. One approach is more of an independent/individual sport, the other a team sport. Which do you employ?</li> <li>If one of you wants to do the deal and the other thinks it's not a good way to deploy capital, what happens in that circumstance?</li> <li>How do you think about scaling your efforts and getting more leverage out of your time?</li> <li>What's the post-investment relationship with the founders look like at Construct?</li> <li>What do you know, you need to get better at?</li> <li>What's the best way for listeners to connect with each of you and follow along with Construct?</li> </ul> Missed a recent episode? Go to <a href="https://fullratchet.net/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">The Full Ratchet blog</a> and catch up! Also, follow us on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/27155166/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/TFR_Pod" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>. The host of The Full Ratchet is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-moran-a738503/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Nick Moran</a>, General Partner of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in the exceptions. To learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our <a href="https://www.newstack.vc/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Website</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/11396054/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> and be sure to follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/NewStackVC" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>. Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free too<a href="http://vc-rank.com/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">l</a> <a href="http://vc-rank.com/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">VC-Ra</a>nk and tell us about your business. We’ll send a list of possible investors right to your email’s InBox!

291. Competing with Amazon, Combatting 60% Talent Attrition, and Driving Transformation of Foundational Industries (Dayna Grayson & Rachel Holt)

Dayna Grayson is a Partner @ NEA, one of the leading venture firms over the last 4 decades with a portfolio including the likes of Opendoor, Jet.com, Uber, WorkDay, Plaid, Box and many more incredible companies. As for Dayna, she has led the firm's investments in the likes of Desktop Metal, Formlabs, Onshape, Glamsquad, Framebridge and Curalate, just to name a few. Prior to joining NEA, Dayna was an investor at North Bridge Venture Partners where she championed companies including Camiant (acquired by Tekelec) and Tapjoy. Before venture Dayna was an engineer at Eye Response Technologies, later acquired by Dynavox Mayer-Johnson and also a product designer at Blackbaud (BLKB), the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Dayna made her way into the world of venture and came to be a Partner at NEA from her roots in product design and engineering? 2.) Sourcing: How does Dayna approach the sourcing component of venture today? What does the deck filtering process look like to Dayna, prior to meeting? What has Dayna found works best in really building rapport in the first meetings? What does the conviction building process look like for Dayna from there? If negative, how has Dayna found is the most effective way to say no? 3.) Decision-Making: How does Dayna think about optimising the investment decision-making process? How does Dayna balance between data vs gut? Does NEA require unanimous decision-making? Why does Dayna believe that at A or earlier, the price really does not matter? When does price really become a big issue? 4.) Evolution of Expectations: How does Dayna believe entrepreneurial expectations of VC has changed over the last decade. Where does Dayna believe investors can really provide the most value? Which board member has been the most impressive to Dayna when sitting alongside them on the board? Why? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Dayna’s Fave Book: Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America Dayna's Most Recent Investment: WhireWheel As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Dayna on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

<a href="https://twitter.com/@daynagrayson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dayna Grayson</a> is a Partner @ <a href="https://www.nea.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">NEA</a>, one of the leading venture firms over the last 4 decades with a portfolio including the likes of Opendoor, <a href="http://Jet.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jet.com</a>, Uber, WorkDay, Plaid, Box and many more incredible companies. As for Dayna, she has led the firm's investments in the likes of Desktop Metal, Formlabs, Onshape, Glamsquad, Framebridge and Curalate, just to name a few. Prior to joining NEA, Dayna was an investor at North Bridge Venture Partners where she championed companies including Camiant (acquired by Tekelec) and Tapjoy. Before venture Dayna was an engineer at Eye Response Technologies, later acquired by Dynavox Mayer-Johnson and also a product designer at Blackbaud (BLKB), the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Dayna made her way into the world of venture and came to be a Partner at NEA from her roots in product design and engineering? 2.) Sourcing: How does Dayna approach the sourcing component of venture today? What does the deck filtering process look like to Dayna, prior to meeting? What has Dayna found works best in really building rapport in the first meetings? What does the conviction building process look like for Dayna from there? If negative, how has Dayna found is the most effective way to say no? 3.) Decision-Making: How does Dayna think about optimising the investment decision-making process? How does Dayna balance between data vs gut? Does NEA require unanimous decision-making? Why does Dayna believe that at A or earlier, the price really does not matter? When does price really become a big issue? 4.) Evolution of Expectations: How does Dayna believe entrepreneurial expectations of VC has changed over the last decade. Where does Dayna believe investors can really provide the most value? Which board member has been the most impressive to Dayna when sitting alongside them on the board? Why? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Dayna’s Fave Book: <a href="https://amzn.to/2WNSrOK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America</a> Dayna's Most Recent Investment: <a href="https://wirewheel.io/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">WhireWheel</a> As always you can follow <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Harry</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/twentyminutevc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Twenty Minute VC</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/@daynagrayson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dayna</a> on Twitter here! <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hstebbings1996/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.</a>

20VC: NEA Partner, Dayna Grayson on Sourcing, Picking, Winning, Gut vs Data in Investment Decision-Making & The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Expectations of Venture

It’s difficult to sell new technologies to big manufacturers. If you’ve got a novel way to build things and a fresh startup to market it, you’ll run into all sorts of obstacles: established industrial companies tend to be risk-averse, top-down organizations with long replacement cycles and highly specific requirements. Many industrial startups generate lots of interest but starve as they trek through long sales cycles. Dayna Grayson sees that changing. She’s a partner at NEA who has invested in several next-generation manufacturing startups, including Formlabs, Desktop Metal, Onshape, and Upskill, and she points to three major shifts that have made manufacturing a compelling sector for startups to address. Visit http://bit.ly/2Xco9WR for full episode notes and links. And visit https://www.thedigitalfactory.com/ to learn more about The Digital Factory Conference, returning to Boston on May 7, 2019. Dayna Grayson will speak along with CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs who are transforming their businesses through manufacturing.

It’s difficult to sell new technologies to big manufacturers. If you’ve got a novel way to build things and a fresh startup to market it, you’ll run into all sorts of obstacles: established industrial companies tend to be risk-averse, top-down organizations with long replacement cycles and highly specific requirements. Many industrial startups generate lots of interest but starve as they trek through long sales cycles. Dayna Grayson sees that changing. She’s a partner at NEA who has invested in several next-generation manufacturing startups, including Formlabs, Desktop Metal, Onshape, and Upskill, and she points to three major shifts that have made manufacturing a compelling sector for startups to address. Visit <a href="http://bit.ly/2Xco9WR" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/2Xco9WR</a> for full episode notes and links. And visit <a href="https://www.thedigitalfactory.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.thedigitalfactory.com/</a> to learn more about The Digital Factory Conference, returning to Boston on May 7, 2019. Dayna Grayson will speak along with CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs who are transforming their businesses through manufacturing.

Episode 19: Dayna Grayson: can startups compete in manufacturing?