Have you ever had one of those days that you can’t shake out of your head?  A day where you hear someone tell a story and it moves you in a really big way?  I had one of those days.  And the woman that moved me was Ping Fu. 

She came on stage with hot pink wedged shoes that she had made on her 3D printer.  Her demeanor was soft yet focused.  Her story remarkable.  She was taken away from her family at the age of 8 to live in a labour campus during the Cultural Revolution in China while caring for her younger sister.  She started to work in a factory at the age of 9, was raped at 10 and labelled a broken shoe.  She persevered for ten long years.  In 1983 the police asked Ping to leave the country and in 1984 she scraped enough money to buy a one-way ticket to the US and eventually studied computer science.  She worked day and night as a programmer for Resource Systems Group and Bell Labs.  Later she founded a 3D software company, Geomagic, secured venture funding and sold the company to 3D Systems.  She is the definition of iconic.    

Listening to her, I wondered why some of us go on and do great things while others don’t. Why is it that some people can persevere against adversity while others completely crack?  And even if we break, why is it that some of us can dust ourselves off and stand back up while others stay down?

I think people who persevere against adversity have a “whatever the F**k it takes” attitude.  They are beyond stubborn and have a relentless level of curiosity.  They are passionate – they love what they do and follow their instincts because not following it is not an option.   Ping Fu said, “When I first saw a 3D printer, I felt like I fell in love for the first time”.  Passion makes people unstoppable even when life tries to break them. 

That day I also met Brenda Barnes, Kegan Schouwenburg, Angela Ahrendts and Sheryl Sandberg  – all of which have amazing stories and unstoppable passion.  These women, and many others, have supernatural resiliency and courage.  And I realized in many cases there is a common theme.  People who are incredibly successful have faced adversity, usually at a young age, and have somehow figured out how to overcome it.  They dig deep inside of themselves.  They then apply this perseverance to other parts of their lives, whether it be their careers, themselves or their family.

So then I started to think about this question in the context of women in business.  Why don’t we see more C-level and board level women in business and, specifically, in tech?  Why are there not more Ping Fu’s? 

Women hold more degrees than men and make-up 58% of the professional workforce yet only 15% hold C-level and board positions in the corporate sector.   So is it really a numbers game?  There are many women in the workplace but the odds are against them as they rise in the ranks. 

Interestingly in tech we know, on average, only 1 in 5 computer scientists are women.  We know that teenage girls use computers and the Internet as much as boys but are 5x’s less likely to consider a tech-related career.  So how can we get more girls passionate about technology and business?  Tech needs to be “girl-cool”.  My daughter downloads completely different apps than my son yet boys are developing most of the apps, not girls.  How do I get her to start thinking about developing those apps that Wow her?  How do I introduce tech to her in an exciting way? When Ping Fu was asked this question, she said that every school needs a 3D printer for children to play with.  I believe girls, including my daughter, could find it fun creating mobile apps and designing jewelry and other fashion accessories on 3D printers.  

There are now clubs and resources emerging to entice girls and women that want exposure to coding:  Girl Geeks Toronto, Stemettes, Femgineer, Women & Tech, Ladies Learning to Code, Entrepreneur First: Code First Girls, Lady Geek and more.  The only thing is that my daughter doesn’t like the word “Geek” and she would raise an eyebrow if I said I signed her up to go to a Geek Club, even though I know these groups are amazingly cool.  She’d probably consider going to a Cool-Girl Coding Club instead. 

I end with a story that Ping Fu’s father shared with her.  Ping Fu’s Shanghai Papa taught her about how their garden had plants for each season and there was a story behind each plant.  He walked over to the bamboo and explained that it was flexible, capable of bending but never breaking.  It symbolizes resilience.  Her father grabbed a stalk of bamboo, bent it towards her and tickled her nose.  Let’s do that to our girls.  Let’s tickle them with tech. 

Author: Whitney Rockley, Co-founder & Managing Partner, McRock Capital

The secret to start-up and venture capital success is to buy low and sell high – full stop. I suppose this advice is not really a secret but most people think of this sound bite for public stocks and retirement savings plans. It also holds true for start-ups. The only way to create shareholder value and serious pocket change is to increase the spread between the dollars in and the dollars out. So buying low and selling high is all relative.

Ok, here is the real secret to success – ownership efficiency. The founder’s sweat equity, the employees stock grants and the VC investors bucks all convert into an ownership percentage in the company. The goal for everyone should be to provide the appropriate amount of capital to achieve growth that leads to a pay day. It’s obvious that the more investor cash that goes into the company, the higher the sale price tag must be for everyone to achieve a healthy return.

I don’t want to get into the gory details of VC financing terms but you should think of a company’s value as a stack of pancakes. The founders and employees have common stock which is the bottom pancake and every financing adds more pancakes to the pile. When an exit happens the top pancakes suck up all the syrup while the bottom pancake just gets cold.

The management and the investors’ goal should be to efficiently convert every equity dollar invested into value. Staying ownership efficient allows management and the brave early investors to be rewarded by maintaining their ownership positions. It also increases the chance of achieving a meaningful spread between the dollars in and the dollars out. Billion-dollar cash exits are rare so don’t confuse them with billion dollar private company valuations which are not so rare.  I struggle when entrepreneurs and investors brag about significant capital raises, especially those at lofty valuations. What I see is that the people doing most of the work (founders and employees) are getting buried under a huge stack of pancakes. Where’s the return? It’s in ownership efficiency, not building a big stack of pancakes!

Author: Scott MacDonald, Co-founder & Managing Partner, McRock Capital

As the holiday season is once again upon us, it serves as a reminder that there are other “things” outside of work to occupy our time and thoughts. For some entrepreneurs, this time of year is a welcomed reminder to redirect some attention to something other than business. For others, it’s just a reminder that causes momentary guilt but has zero impact on behavior.

There has been so much written on Work-Life Balance that one could spend a lifetime just researching how to achieve it. Some articles offer helpful tips and others, like Sheryl Sandberg, have declared “there’s no such thing as Work-Life balance”.

I have a very different take on the topic which starts with my understanding of Balance from years of being a gymnast. A very popular Canadian sport for men (Ha!) that is all about mastering the art of Balance. What I learned is that there is no such thing as Balance based on how most people think of it.  Balance is not a static “perfection point” that is achieved and locked-in. It’s actually a constantly changing state that requires dynamic adjusting. Being Balanced is about continuous adjustments that keep you within an acceptable range. Think of a handstand. It looks like perfect balance but it’s actually many lightning-quick and almost unnoticeable adjustments to hold the body within a “range” of Balance. Hit the edge of that range (in any direction) and you fall out of the handstand. In order to have Life Balance, you need to first set what that range (in all directions) is for YOU. With that understanding, you can constantly adjust to make sure you stay in Balance.

Yah, the trick I’m doing on rings above is way easier to Balance than Work-Life. But don’t feel bad that you work like crazy because you should work hard. You’re an entrepreneur!

Author: Scott MacDonald, Co-founder & Managing Partner, McRock Capital

I was listening to a story about a friend’s son who was experiencing his first “crush” on a girl in his class. His wise mother told him that he should simply ask the girl out. The boy’s reaction to this advice was one of fear. His mother looked him in the eyes and said, if you really want something bad, sometimes you have to get uncomfortable to get comfortable.

This lesson is brilliant and immediately struck me as something far more applicable than to just adolescent crushes. It is in fact the key to growing and evolving as a person. Take, for example, the leap to become an entrepreneur. Anyone who has ever started a new business will immediately resonate with this advice. In order to achieve greatness, you have to develop a mindset to constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone. When you look back, the obstacles that caused discomfort are now less daunting and can be replaced with new levels of discomfort. This is the essence of entrepreneurship. The craziest part is that when the comfort of an exit results in financial independence, some chose to do it all again because they realized they were not all that uncomfortable. It’s just the awkward position a giraffe has to get into, to drink water.

Author: Scott MacDonald, Co-founder & Managing Partner, McRock Capital

Large corporations have recognized for decades that innovation is critical to growth and success. In more recent years, corporations have divorced themselves from the “not invented here” hubris of the past as the world has witnessed industry titans fall to technology innovation spawned outside the corporate wall.

In fact, globally Corporate VC (CVC) has been on a tear since 2009. Over 200 CVC groups have been launched since that time from companies such as Rogers Communications, GM Ventures, Comcast and Google. Some of the most established CVCs like Intel, Cisco, Shell, Qualcomm Ventures and Chevron Technology Ventures have been active investors for decades. Just yesterday Chevron Technology Ventures announced it closed its fifth fund.

With the traditional venture capital industry contracting both by number of active firms and total assets under management, CVC has helped to fill the funding gap for start-ups and especially expansion stage capital. According to CB Insights, an analysis of the 100 largest tech deals over the past 5 years highlights the huge increase in corporate participation. CVCs participated in nearly 40% of the largest tech VC deals in 2012, up from 22% in 2009. CVCs are on track to do the same or more in 2013.

CVC groups like Google Ventures have led some of the larger financings in recent history like Uber’s $258 million round. There has certainly been some debate in the VC industry about the alignment of interest, or lack thereof, between the entrepreneurs and the CVCs. Perhaps Union Square’s Fred Wilson has been one of the most critical of CVCs. Like it or not, the VC industry needs the corporate balance sheet right now and most CVCs contribute invaluable market domain expertise to their portfolio companies. Not to mention the significant credibility a small company instantly inherits when it lands a large corporation as an investor. We call this the “Meatball Logo Effect” named affectionately after GE’s circular logo.

In our view, there is often a misunderstanding about a CVC’s strategic objectives and why they are actually not at odds with the entrepreneur or VC. We know firsthand because we have worked for both CVC units and traditional VC funds. Our experience is drawn from having co-invested in venture-backed companies and having CVCs as limited partners in our VC funds. These corporations include Bosch, John Deere, Volvo, Chevron and Dow.  With this knowledge we want to help entrepreneurs understand the goals of CVCs and explain how they can work with strategic corporations to drive significant value for their small but growing companies.

There are three key goals for CVC groups: Strategic Return, Market Intelligence and Financial Return. They all matter to the corporation but some matter more and most importantly, all can be incredibly helpful to a venture-backed company.

Strategic Return is a fundamental corporate requirement to develop profitable business opportunities that capitalize on emerging products or services in adjacent or core markets. This requires close alignment with the relevant business units in an effort to reduce costs and/or grow revenue within the corporation.  As long as entrepreneurs and Boards of the venture-backed companies make sure this relationship is also profitable for them, this corporate goal can result in an attractive channel to market.

Market Intelligence is a two-way street for both the corporation and the venture-backed company. The CVC group expects to gain a proprietary window on markets, companies and products through its corporate venturing activities. The venture-backed company can also access significant intelligence as it becomes part of the extended corporate family. A traditional VC Fund with corporate investors can also give a venture-backed company access to an extended corporate family without having the CVC group invest directly. For this reason, it is valuable for an entrepreneur to understand the investors behind a traditional VC Fund.  

Financial Return is simply an expectation but perhaps not as important as Strategic Return. This is because the absolute dollar return from a CVC group, even if it delivers a monster return multiple, will likely be too small to have a financial impact on the corporation. But beware, no corporate executive will support a CVC group that does not deliver positive returns.  Some have made the case that CVCs are less sensitive to valuation but based on our experience, most CVCs are very clinical in their valuation methodologies and any complaints from VCs made around lack of focus on financial return are made out of competitive frustration.

Despite the occasional mud slinging and paranoia towards CVCs’ true motives, they actually have much to offer venture-backed companies and their traditional VC investors.  We have had great success partnering and co-investing with large corporations and encourage every small company to find a meatball logo to invest in them.

Author: Scott MacDonald, Co-founder & Managing Partner, McRock Capital