#lightbank

Lightbank is a venture capital firm that specializes in investments in disruptive companies at the seed or Series A stage (though sometimes later as well!). Well-known investments include Groupon, Belly, InnerWorkings, BenchPrep, and Qwiki.

Entrepreneur or VC? Which lifestyle do you prefer?

I’ve tried each and I thrive best when I have a little bit of both. When I started a company, I found myself continuously distracted by other exciting ideas and the projects that other founders were working on. As a VC, I love working with multiple companies at the same time and being hands-on with the companies.  I like to be an extension of the teams I invest in, which is partially why I joined an entrepreneurial venture firm, Lightbank, where we have a roll-up your sleeves mentality to investing in and building companies. At the end of the day, founders are the most interesting people in the world, so nothing makes me happier than spending my day meeting and working with them and that’s something I could never do if I weren’t a VC.

Lightbank is headquartered in Chicago. How do you feel about the growing startup community in the Midwest and the venture backing behind it?

It’s important to note that while we are based in Chicago, we truly are a national firm. The first investment I led for our firm was based in the Valley and I usually find myself in NYC 1-2 times a month. That being said, Chicago has a lot of excitement building and I’m optimistic that we are at the beginning of a massive wave. We’ve already seen a half dozen or so unicorns created in the last couple of years and we’re seeing great opportunities for enterprise companies due to access to buyer bases and sales/technical talent from the schools in the area. The venture ecosystem there is comparatively nascent, so we’re making a big effort to create greater ties across the community and build on some of the best practices we’ve seen in other markets.

What advice do you have for someone looking to join a startup but comes from a non-traditional background? Both on the technical side and non-technical side.

The key for both sides is to get involved in the ecosystem as much as possible. Startups are cool these days, so everybody wants to join one, but the folks who get the best jobs are the ones who are already participating in the community and already know the ins-and-outs of the ecosystem. We all want to see people who are extremely passionate about this world, so folks looking to break in should demonstrate that before even applying. Outside of that, I think its important to build a story on how your past experiences provide value to a startup. Whether its industry experience or overall athleticism, there are a lot of non-traditional skills that are tangential to startups, so you just need to build the story and show that you are willing to go the extra mile.

How do you attract top talent for your portfolio companies:

We do a couple of things to help our companies land the best folks and we have a few additional things in the works. We actually had a full-time recruiter on staff, but one of our startups stole her since she was so good. More recently, we've developed a talent base for folks that we consider “rockstars”. These are executive level folks that we actively track and can hopefully be injected into our companies when opportunities arise. For less senior roles, we're finding that our meetups are driving really great applicant flow for those types of positions.

What sector has a lot of opportunity left for new players?

I've been spending a LOT of time in HR tech lately and think it will be a massive category. We've seen a lot of movement for benefits/payroll and great recruiting resources like Vettery, but there are so many areas of the HR lifecycle that are left untouched. HR has traditionally been viewed as an administrative function and I think we will see it gain increasing strategic and buying influence in the enterprise. I'm seeing a lot of corollaries between the way marketing tech evolved and what we are currently seeing in HR and we all know how successful marketing tech has been as an opportunity.

Two existing and unrelated startups that you would mash together for a ridiculous startup:

Tinder for Chubbies – An app that matches me to other “bros” in my local area.

Favorite restaurant in Chicago?

There is nothing quite like restaurant scene in NYC and I miss the availability of authentic ethnic food the most. In Chicago, I'm a big fan of Gilt Bar. Great food, eclectic drinks and they have a little speakeasy in the basement.  Come football season, nothing beats beer and burgers with a few friends at Old Town Pour House.

Favorite social account