Loved Mark Sherman, Disappointing Partner Meeting
Fund: Battery Ventures
Posted by williamson on 2009-01-22
This was a few years ago, but my company had a very good series of meetings with Mark Sherman and had Battery on our short list. He's a bright guy, high energy, seems to love his job, care about growth companies etc. Good alignment there.
Then he set up the presentation to their partners meeting, which was a relationship-ender. A bunch of listless MBAs on both coasts (via satellite) reading their blackberries, failing to make eye-contact, not asking questions and just clearly thinking "this is Mark's deal, I've got better things to do." It was so bad I actually had to ask during the presentation if there was something else they wanted us to focus on (other than, say, our business). It shouldn't matter much, but we love what we're doing and are looking for financial partners who do to. We just walked away thinking these guys (and they were all guys) aren't for us and went another direction.
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