1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mark Hasebroock at Dundee Venture Capital (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the geographical distribution of these six companies that you have exited?

Mark Hasebroock: They’re all in the Midwest – from Texas to Kansas City and between the mountains.

Sramana Mitra: Have you sold anything from Omaha?

Mark Hasebroock: No, we haven’t.

Sramana Mitra: It’s interesting. I’ve known for a long time Greg Gianforte who ran for the Governor of Montana. His big hit was in Bozeman, Montana. There was a Silicon Valley office, but the bulk was in Montana. Oracle eventually acquired the company for a lot of money. A company like that and then an exit like that can change a place, right?

Mark Hasebroock: Totally. It changes the pace.

Sramana Mitra: Also Utah had gone through several of these. Utah has got Omniture. Now, several others are there like Pluralsight and Qualtrics. I’m hoping that you will find one of these outlier hits in Omaha as well that will change the pace of the place.

Mark Hasebroock: Absolutely. We sold Heyneedle to Jet.com. Jet was sold to Walmart. Here’s the interesting thing that happened. The people that were at those companies left to start something else. They were part of something from the very beginning. If they’re a part of that energy and determination to solve something and they saw it all the way through to an exit, they realize, “We have good engineering talent. We have good sales talent. Why don’t we create something?”

There are dozens of companies that have been started because of that one exit. The same thing happened in Indianapolis and Montana. No matter how many government programs are thrown at entrepreneurship, I think it starts from the ground up.

Sramana Mitra: It does start from the ground up, which is why we’re doing One Million by One Million. I really believe it’s grassroots innovation and grassroots entrepreneurship that really does it. If you have lots of companies, just by law of number, you’re going to either have a lot of mid-sized successes, which is just as valuable as having one big outlier success. If you have a lot of mid-sized successes, that’s fine too.

Mark Hasebroock: I agree. That’s what people are realizing. You sell a company for $25 million or $50 million, that’s life-changing money.

Sramana Mitra: Especially in those geographies, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen that often. It’s huge.

Mark Hasebroock: Right.

Sramana Mitra: Would you like to add anything to this conversation that you would like to convery to our audience?

Mark Hasebroock: Anybody considering to starting something like this, it all comes down to relationships and the quality of your own personal brand. You may have cash. You do what you say and you follow through. You educate people on the need for early-stage funding. Be persistent. It takes time. I will share one thing with you. To get our investors in our last fund, I had 938 meetings.

Sramana Mitra: I totally agree. Week after week, I have a slide that says, “If you like what we are doing, bring serious entrepreneurs into the program.” I put serious in bold because it takes anywhere between 7 to 10 years to build a serious company. Those are the kinds of entrepreneurs that we are interested in working with.

Mark Hasebroock: For those founders out there, the more that you can tolerate the fear and elation that you feel every day, the more success you’ll have. It’s cliché to not give up, but it’s one of those things. Find a mentor. Find an investor that believes you and listens with both ears. Just go for it.

Sramana Mitra: Absolutely. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 4 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mark Hasebroock at Dundee Venture Capital
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