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Venture Capital Insights

1. Danny Shader is a serial entrepreneur who had founded several successful companies and was launching his fourth start-up. He pitched his new company idea to David Hornik, a venture capitalist who specialized in investing in Internet companies. 2. Hornik was interested in Shader's pitch because most founders he heard from were first-time entrepreneurs, whereas Shader had a proven track record of success, having sold two previous companies for millions. 3. Their conversation about Shader's new company idea occurred serendipitously while they watched their young daughters play soccer together.

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60 views1 page

Venture Capital Insights

1. Danny Shader is a serial entrepreneur who had founded several successful companies and was launching his fourth start-up. He pitched his new company idea to David Hornik, a venture capitalist who specialized in investing in Internet companies. 2. Hornik was interested in Shader's pitch because most founders he heard from were first-time entrepreneurs, whereas Shader had a proven track record of success, having sold two previous companies for millions. 3. Their conversation about Shader's new company idea occurred serendipitously while they watched their young daughters play soccer together.

Uploaded by

rerere
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Good Returns
The Dangers and Rewards of Giving More Than You Get

The principle of give and take; that is diplomacy—give one and take ten.
—Mark Twain, author and humorist

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Silicon Valley, two proud fathers stood on the sidelines of a soccer
field. They were watching their young daughters play together, and it was only a matter of time before
they struck up a conversation about work. The taller of the two men was Danny Shader, a serial
entrepreneur who had spent time at Netscape, Motorola, and Amazon. Intense, dark-haired, and
capable of talking about business forever, Shader was in his late thirties by the time he launched his
first company, and he liked to call himself the “old man of the Internet.” He loved building
companies, and he was just getting his fourth start-up off the ground.
Shader had instantly taken a liking to the other father, a man named David Hornik who invests in
companies for a living. At 5'4", with dark hair, glasses, and a goatee, Hornik is a man of eclectic
interests: he collects Alice in Wonderland books, and in college he created his own major in
computer music. He went on to earn a master’s in criminology and a law degree, and after burning the
midnight oil at a law firm, he accepted a job offer to join a venture capital firm, where he spent the
next decade listening to pitches from entrepreneurs and deciding whether or not to fund them.
During a break between soccer games, Shader turned to Hornik and said, “I’m working on
something—do you want to see a pitch?” Hornik specialized in Internet companies, so he seemed like
an ideal investor to Shader. The interest was mutual. Most people who pitch ideas are first-time
entrepreneurs, with no track record of success. In contrast, Shader was a blue-chip entrepreneur who
had hit the jackpot not once, but twice. In 1999, his first start-up, Accept.com, was acquired by
Amazon for $175 million. In 2007, his next company, Good Technology, was acquired by Motorola
for $500 million. Given Shader’s history, Hornik was eager to hear what he was up to next.

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