Sierra Ventures Managing Director Mark Fernandes

July 22, 2019

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About the Guest

Mark Fernandes

Managing Director at Sierra Ventures

Mark Fernandes is a Managing Director at Sierra Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based Venture Capital firm focused on early-stage technology investments, specifically seed and Series A investments. Unlike many VCs in their 11th fund, Sierra has differentiated itself by staying true to its mission by staying small, staying early-stage focused, and making mostly enterprise investments. Mark and his fellow partners, Ben Yu and Tim Guleri, have stayed together since 2002, and they bring a diverse set of backgrounds to the table. Ben comes from a deep technical background, Tim was an entrepreneur, and prior to joining Sierra, Mark was a sales side research analyst at Merrill Lynch.

Episode Overview

403: Sierra Ventures Managing Director Mark Fernandes discusses the five attributes he looks for in an entrepreneur. These five attributes include their ability to raise money beyond the early stages, their ability to attract talent, their ability to generate momentum, if they come prepared, and their ability to tell their story. In terms of what Mark looks for in a company, he cites that there needs to be a technology platform shift or a business model innovation that is applicable to something that they are doing. We also discuss Mark’s accidental path to the VC community, the CXO Advisory board Sierra has started, the importance of approaching investing from a bottoms-up and top-down approach, among other topics.

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