“Early feedback in business design and product development is critical to ensure we are building the right thing at the right time.”
Diverse thinking and feedback are important in VC, but absolutely critical in a venture studio. For us, the feedback loop usually starts when our Business Design team identifies a problem that could be addressed with software. We then validate that idea — in many cases, we’re going to our network to dig in and understand if the problem is big enough to start a company. If we decide to launch the company we would go back to these individuals and ask for product feedback. Best case scenario, the executive loves the software and wants to buy it. Worst case scenario, the founder receives valuable feedback from someone in their ideal customer profile. It’s often a win-win scenario for everyone involved.
Last year, we launched 10 companies out of High Alpha with no plans of slowing down. The velocity of company building helped us identify an opportunity to not only expand our network but also be very intentional about diversity to ensure we are creating the best companies that solve the biggest problems.
And so High Alpha Navigators began. We asked for nominations of senior leaders and executives who are movers and shakers in their field who also care deeply about contributing to the startup community. The program not only helps to expand the High Alpha network, but also offers more opportunities for those outside High Alpha to partner with us and our portfolio. The Navigators network is one of the first places we look for feedback, ideas, first customers, advisors, board members, and investors. We’ve been building this program over the past six months and are excited today to be officially launching with over 70 leaders in the program from high-growth SaaS companies like Figma, Productboard, and HubSpot to publicly-traded enterprise organizations.
I’m excited to be leading this charge here at High Alpha and get to work with such talented leaders. One of my favorite quotes about Navigators so far came from Alysse Parekh, the Head of Product at Statuspage, an Atlassian company:
I joined High Alpha Navigators because I've worked with founders and seen up close how hard it is to start and scale a SaaS business. It's gratifying to use the lessons I've learned (often the hard way) to help founders build loved, wildly successful products and teams.
We are so excited to officially launch High Alpha Navigators to help us build better and bigger companies in 2021 and beyond!
