Entrepreneurweek Be Driven

Brad is Founder and General Partner at High Peaks Venture Partners. He has been a venture investor since the bubble days of the late 1990s, leading over two-dozen investments in that period. He co-founded High Peaks in 2003. Prior to his venture career, he was a strategy consultant with Monitor Group, leading projects out of the firm’s Cambridge, South Africa, and Brazil offices.

Brad focuses his investing activities on SaaS and web applications – lightweight enterprise apps and data-intensive consumer apps.  He has led the firm’s investments in Savored (sold to Groupon), TxVia (sold to Google), Pump Audio (sold to Getty Images), Threadsmith (sold to Vistaprint), and Allworx (sold to PAETEC).

Brad is a graduate of Williams College, where he captained the rugby team and majored in economics. He blogs regularly at http://www.bradsvrluga.com

What challenge is your company addressing?

Not sure this one applies to a VC, though it's something on which we have a point of view. We think that despite an abundance of capital chasing startups today, there is a lack of really experienced capital focused on rolling up sleeves and working hard to support the amazing array of b2b-focused startups that are starting to redefine the enterprise IT landscape. High Peaks is all-in on that challenge

Why are you an entrepreneur?

I don't think I could work for anybody, and I don't think anyone would want me working for them! But more importantly, I simply cannot resist the excitement of building something and the excitement of an environment where decisions you make over your first cup of coffee can be having material impact by lunch.

What is your best piece of advice to entrepreneurs?

There is a monumentally challenging line you have to navigate in running a startup: you must be relentlessly focused one doing one thing better than anyone else while also maintaining the nimbleness and flexibility that are so fundamental to your advantage as a startup. In my experience far more entrepreneurs fail because they favor the latter over the former. But in my mind, there is nothing more important than focus.