This series profiles the most prominent and influential venture capitalists in the country. They talk about how they broke into the industry, what drives them, and what they have their eyes on, among other topics.
In this episode, I sit down with Tejas Maniar, a Vice President at Mayfield Fund.
Background information on Tejas:
The Interview:
Getting into the venture field
Tejas grew up in a southern Californian town just south of Irvine called Lake Forest. He remarks that, growing up, his dream profession was a basketball star or a Hollywood actor, not a venture capitalist, perhaps because (1:40) “advising companies and their CEOs on their people and talent issues is not something you know is a career until much later.”
Tejas got introduced to the space because back in college, he was an electrical engineer at the time - like quite a few Indians :) - when he applied for an internship at The Lancer Group, a firm he had no idea about at the time. The recruiters announced they were doing incredible research and needed to bring on, fortuitously, electrical engineers. Tejas checked out the firm for a day and only after they made an offer, did Tejas fully realize that The Lancer Group was an executive recruiting firm.
“That’s where I got to see the inner workings of how do companies actually hire, advise, and think about developing their top leadership and what impact it has on the ultimate success or failure of the company.”
Working at Google and Transitioning to Mayfield
At Google, Tejas led, among other things, a project in which he worked directly for the CEO - looking at very specific domains, discovering incredible under-the-radar companies in the space, getting to know the team, and developing ways to assimilate them into Google, whether it be via an acquisition, hiring people, etc.
“I started to understand what VCs do a lot of: find things nobody else can find, find entrepreneurs nobody else can find, see things nobody else can see…”
Tejas’ time at Google opened his eyes to the venture world and made him cognizant that there’s an entire industry dedicated to the type of work he was doing at Google.
Mayfield recruited him, and as they say, the rest is history.
Almond Farming and RPG Games
RPG Gaming: Tejas was a big video gamer growing up (he still has his Playstation) - gaming is something he still likes to do to this day, if he ever has free time, as it’s a great reprieve and release.
Almond farming: Tejas’ wife’s family farms and his dad grew up on a farm in India. Staying somewhat true to his roots, Tejas has more than a patch of land where he occasionally farms almonds.
“I think it’s just an awesome contrast to what you do day-to-day in the tech industry, which is that we make things that don’t really exist and are just software - and now you get to see things that can feed people across the world.”
Main Recruiting Channel
“Over the last 10, 20, 30, 50 years, there was no transparency around data, so you didn’t know who everyone was - and it’s not 100%, but it’s significantly better with LinkedIn and many other things. There’s no longer a problem with how do you really find who people really are. Now it’s a question of access.”
The way Mayfield thinks about access is the same as it did 10, 20, 50 years ago: find a way to get in front of people, have a meaningful conversation, and connect with them on a deeper level. It starts with a thoughtful email coming from the founder of a Mayfield company.
“Ultimately, it’s not about, I think, distributing a lot of volume to our portfolio companies; it’s about really getting to know the best people - and that takes a lot of time, thought, and effort - and being able to make a really thoughtful match across a really diverse and broad portfolio that we have.”
Services Mayfield Provides
“Our core philosophy is portfolio companies should hire amazing talent because you can invest in great founders and CEOs, but ultimately they only go as far as the people they have.”
Tejas sees Mayfield’s role in the process as not only providing exceptional talent, but also minimizing the number of bad hires, and figuring out how to correct such situations when they do occur.
“It’s all about getting this talent equation right and making as few mistakes along the road as possible…We’re not recruiters for our portfolio companies, but we are thought partners and experts around building a company.”
The firm draws on its years of experience building leading companies to advise new startups on best practices for attracting, developing, and retaining people.
Mayfield is constantly networking with top-tier executives across a broad swath of fields so it can make meaningful recommendations and introductions to its portfolio companies.
Tejas devotes a significant chunk of time experimenting with cutting-edge products in the HR-tech space and meeting the founders behind such game-changing technologies, hoping to give Mayfield companies an edge, whether it comes to more efficiently reaching out to potential hires or automatizing parts of the candidate-evaluation process.
Travel Schedule
Tejas’ focus in on Mayfield’s US fund (the firm also has operations in India) and fortunately, 90% of the US companies are in the Bay Area, minimizing his frequent flier miles.
More information about the firm
Mayfield is investing out of its “fifteenth early-stage fund, the $400 million Mayfield XV, and [its] first growth stage fund, the $125 million Mayfield Select.” The firm describes itself as “a global venture capital firm with over $2.7 billion under management and a 47 year history of championing people.”
I asked Tejas what sectors the firm was keeping a keen eye on, to which he responded by first describing the firm’s “people-first, markets-second approach to investing.”
This focus on the entrepreneur allows the investors to explore many different sectors, which might lead one to believe that the partners are generalists, but historically, they focus on investing early-stage and technology, with 2/3 of companies being in enterprise and consumer comprising the rest. AR and VR is a sector the consumer teams keeps tabs on.
Roadblock entrepreneurs often encounter
Different stages bring different challenges, but one common thread Tejas has uncovered is that many tech company founders are very product-oriented and technical, which after careful thought, makes sense considering many were previously CTOs, VP of Products, etc. The challenge these founders face is building a company and a go-to-market strategy, not just a singular product. That’s why Mayfield swoops in and pulls on their network to fill in the holes these founders’ startups have.
Educational background
Because Mayfield is a people-first firm, they have a MD M.P.H running a SaaS platform company around health and nutrition and an ex-attorney running a finch startup.
“We don’t necessarily look for a degree as a means to assess the quality of an entrepreneur. Certainly a degree and where you went to school is part of who you are, but it’s just part of who you are. There’s so much more we’re trying to understand about a person when we’re investing in them. It’s one thing we talk and think about, but honestly, it’s probably not the most important thing by any stretch of the imagination”
Tejas spoke to the combination of a CS undergrad, followed by an MBA as not an unnatural thing to think about in the tech industry because founders are tasked with doing everything and they have to go through multiple stages of a company, so it’s nice to have the agility the tech and business background those degrees provide, but once again, that training, Tejas says, can come from multiple places.