Solid piece. I really appreciate you calling things as they are - from the realities and challenges in the co-working and hospitality space during a pandemic to the cancel culture, and of course the challenges and shortcomings of the board and individual board members. More than anything - your honesty and sense of accountability are very clear.
A ton of work must have gone into this write-up! Very thoughtful consideration of all the factors that go into a business and leadership malfunction. Nice bonus to put the media-analysis lens on to help show why this nuanced treatment gets less visibility and the broader systemic challenges go under the radar.
Would love to read more postmortems (postmorta ?) from investors. Enjoyed this one a ton.
Some VC should create some sort of living postmortem, so we can read precise, unsparing, clinical, analyses like these WHILE the company is still alive...
****** SHORT VERSION OF MY COMMENT! ******
Raising one's profile as a founder is NOT The same thing as Raising the profile of one's company.
A publicity-hungry founder may THINK they are acting in the best interest of their startup, but that's not always the case. And investors have to be smarter about making that distinction to their superstar founders. Saying yes to every TV segment, magazine cover, panel talk, guest lectureship may be really good for the founder, but does it help the startup? I'd wager it's not a 1-to-1 correlation.
****** END SHORT VERSION OF MY COMMENT! ******
post-scriptum 1./ And by the way, this comment is in no way Audrey Gelman-specific! But I think many of us see this phenomenon on the rise -- startup founders who are more famous than their startups... and it's not clear that the startup always benefits from the high profile of the company leader.
post-scriptum 2. / I think VCs, more so than anyone else, can and SHOULD be able to look over the history of their investments and determine how much founder publicity is helpful to a company. I'd bet that -- monetarily-speaking -- investors would say that their most successful startups have been run by people who sought out little or no attention.
post-scriptum 3./ Someone has to pioneer the living autopsy or something. It's a shame that we have to wait for the startup to be morte/dead to get such a incisive look at how it operated.
I would have appreciated if I could have ERVER gotten a response to any of my emails or form submissions. Besides everything else, that was why I could not be a The Wing fangirl. My perception was that The Wing was all about garnering ego-feeding press and cashing out because that's all I saw.
Solid piece. I really appreciate you calling things as they are - from the realities and challenges in the co-working and hospitality space during a pandemic to the cancel culture, and of course the challenges and shortcomings of the board and individual board members. More than anything - your honesty and sense of accountability are very clear.
A ton of work must have gone into this write-up! Very thoughtful consideration of all the factors that go into a business and leadership malfunction. Nice bonus to put the media-analysis lens on to help show why this nuanced treatment gets less visibility and the broader systemic challenges go under the radar.
Super well written. Didn't follow the press but it was very insightful to hear how you as an early stage investor felt. 🙏 For sharing.
Would love to read more postmortems (postmorta ?) from investors. Enjoyed this one a ton.
Some VC should create some sort of living postmortem, so we can read precise, unsparing, clinical, analyses like these WHILE the company is still alive...
****** SHORT VERSION OF MY COMMENT! ******
Raising one's profile as a founder is NOT The same thing as Raising the profile of one's company.
A publicity-hungry founder may THINK they are acting in the best interest of their startup, but that's not always the case. And investors have to be smarter about making that distinction to their superstar founders. Saying yes to every TV segment, magazine cover, panel talk, guest lectureship may be really good for the founder, but does it help the startup? I'd wager it's not a 1-to-1 correlation.
****** END SHORT VERSION OF MY COMMENT! ******
post-scriptum 1./ And by the way, this comment is in no way Audrey Gelman-specific! But I think many of us see this phenomenon on the rise -- startup founders who are more famous than their startups... and it's not clear that the startup always benefits from the high profile of the company leader.
post-scriptum 2. / I think VCs, more so than anyone else, can and SHOULD be able to look over the history of their investments and determine how much founder publicity is helpful to a company. I'd bet that -- monetarily-speaking -- investors would say that their most successful startups have been run by people who sought out little or no attention.
post-scriptum 3./ Someone has to pioneer the living autopsy or something. It's a shame that we have to wait for the startup to be morte/dead to get such a incisive look at how it operated.
I would have appreciated if I could have ERVER gotten a response to any of my emails or form submissions. Besides everything else, that was why I could not be a The Wing fangirl. My perception was that The Wing was all about garnering ego-feeding press and cashing out because that's all I saw.