1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Seksom Suriyapa, Partner at Upfront Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s take this example that you started with. Who drives acquisition? Is it product leaders or corp dev? How do you find about this company that you ended up considering an OEM deal with that led to an acquisition?

Seksom Suriyapa: In a very perfect world, I advise that product leaders should drive an acquisition. The world is never perfect. One of the challenges on the sell side is to understand who is driving the acquisition. It’s a moving target and you get passed around a lot. In the case of Twitter specifically, it’s always the product leader who is the decider. Corp dev is there as a collaborator and driver of the deal.

In this case, product had an agenda to figure out how to filter spam better on the platform. The way it would work is you want to keep product focused on product releases. Therefore, when the two teams are tightly aligned, it’s like bringing corp dev into the strategy and explaining what the qualification criteria are for the types of companies they would be interested in.

Then giving corp dev a leash to scout broadly and find as many of these companies as possible and vet which would work from the technical perspective and which teams would work well.

Sramana Mitra: How do you orchestrate the scouting process? We consider staying on the radar of a potential acquirer from the sell side. How do we do that? How do you, on the buy side, cast your net or keep yourself abreast of what’s happening in the industry?

Seksom Suriyapa: On the buy side, I’ve been blessed with the branded companies in the space. We’ve always had great success in finding companies that were relevant either because their investors made sure that they were on our radar or there’s a really strong network of entrepreneurs who maintain contact with one another. Usually an entrepreneur would find a way to get to Twitter through another entrepreneurial contact.

Turning to the sell-side of it, there are a couple of ways. I’ve already mentioned a few which use your network. The two doors that are usually open are corp dev and the product side. The third way, particularly on the enterprise side, is if you have common customers. The other thing which gets you on the radar is when you win customers in sales cycles against them. If you know you’re regularly meeting somebody, this is a great way to get you on the radar of that somebody.

Sramana Mitra: I want to underscore one thing to our listeners here. You always feel like, “Are they going to talk to us?” Actually, they want to know about you as much as you want them to know about you. Do not underestimate the power of making that introduction through your network. You want to be on people’s radar. People cannot acquire you if they don’t know about you.

Seksom Suriyapa: The other thing is the places I’ve seen it most successful is where you’ve been able to build a relationship and you know each other long before the sale is imminent. All these things are very relational. They’re buying not just your product, but they believe that you’re going to fit. They believe that you’re motivated and aligned with that mission. If you only approach companies when you’re ready to sell, there usually isn’t quite enough time to have that form of discovery.

This segment is part 2 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Seksom Suriyapa, Partner at Upfront Ventures
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