1517 Fund founder Danielle Strachman on venture capital success metrics and startup fire-fighting

‍

Episode Outline

[04:39] Danielle’s background

[07:16] How the whole petition process of a charter school is funded with public money. So you have to petition the state to let you do what you want to do in the district.  

[10:13] Why starting a charter school in some ways is very much like starting a startup

[11:18] Understand that we're firefighters and we're all here to do whatever needs to get done because our building is constantly on fire especially in the first year of operations

[12:04] The most success metrics in venture are different than when you're trying to champion alternative education and giving

[14:34] Standard return metrics in venture and whether or not you're able to build something viable. The importance in keeping balance of those things

[16:35] Knowing that there's something really fascinating and kind of a Zen mindset about decision-making theory. You have to separate the outcome of your decision from the decision you make at the time

[19:22] Uncover why they're just not using the product that much, and what really want to see is that those pilot customers are insatiable

[20:19] What to do if something goes awry or they get fickle, when you're not sure who else to service in the market, it's hard to get that company to grow

[24:30] Getting the feedback loop between the founder, the engineering team, especially if they're using sort of like a dev group and the customers it's too disconnected

Danielle's Inspirations:

Shea Tate-Di Donna

Alex Iskold

Charles Hudson

Sydney Thomas

Connect with Danielle

LinkedIn

Twitter

‍