Member-only story
I was scared. I should have been thrilled, but I was scared.
It was Sunday night, and Monday I would officially begin my journey as an EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) at a VC fund based in San Francisco. It was an incredible opportunity to build an Analog IC company (my expertise) with VC backing, and now I had to deliver.
I knew the playbook for building the company inside and out. After all, I’d been building companies like this for close to 20 years.
I knew the moves. Yet I was scared because, even though I knew the moves, I wasn’t sure I would be able to execute on the most important move in the startup playbook: finding a great VP Engineering.
Okay. Maybe I was more worried than scared. But it was still a daunting task. Really great VPs of Engineering just don’t grow on trees.
You need to knock on a lot of doors to build your team.
So there I was, zero days into the job, worried about finding this elusive person. I had to buy something at Fry’s and I ran right into “Jim”. Jim and I had worked together years ago, and I had always thought highly of Jim.
Jim asked me what I was up to, so I told him that I was in the process of starting a company. Jim said he’d be…
