{"id":38,"date":"2021-02-12T08:19:41","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T16:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/how-mike-speiser-and-sutter-hill-are-changing-the\/"},"modified":"2025-01-02T23:37:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T07:37:46","slug":"how-mike-speiser-and-sutter-hill-are-changing-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/how-mike-speiser-and-sutter-hill-are-changing-the\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Speiser\u2019s (Sutter Hill) Playbook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"npf_link\" data-npf=\"{\" type mike speiser and sutter hill are changing the rules for venture taking note of success enjoyed by ventures a longstanding firm that has gone big on incubating start-ups><a href=\"https:\/\/href.li\/?https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/01\/24\/how-mike-speiser-and-sutter-hill-are-changing-the-rules-for-vc.html\" target=\"_blank\">How Mike Speiser and Sutter Hill are changing the rules for venture&nbsp;investing<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none\">But Speiser has shunned the portfolio approach most VCs use. He told CNBC that his strategy is to spend 80% of his time and resources on a single project and the other 20% on the rest.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Once a company is up and running, Sutter Hill\u2019s other portfolio companies try the product and offer their thoughts on how to improve it. \u201cWe\u2019ve now built five companies on Snowflake. Lacework was the first,\u201d Speiser said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>In turn, Snowflake was an early customer of Lacework, and several of Sutter Hill\u2019s other 25 portfolio companies use Lacework.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none\">Sutter Hill regularly leads early rounds of funding for its start-ups, because it\u2019s not making a whole lot of other bets.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none\">It did gain some distinction after backing<\/span><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-13\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; white-space: nowrap; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none\"><u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/NVDA\/\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(32, 119, 182); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline\">Nvidia<\/a><\/u><\/span><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none\">: When the graphics card maker went public in 1999, Sutter Hill owned<\/span><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/Archives\/edgar\/data\/1045810\/0000898430-99-000180.txt\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(32, 119, 182); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline; font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px\">about 10%<\/a><\/u><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lyon, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.3); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important; float: none\">of the stock.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How Mike Speiser and Sutter Hill are changing the rules for venture&nbsp;investing But Speiser has shunned the portfolio approach most VCs use. He told CNBC that his strategy is to spend 80% of his time and resources on a single project and the other 20% on the rest. Once a company is up and running, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[189,2],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-founders-actionable-advice","tag-incubation","tag-venture-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2001,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/2001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashwinl.com\/ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}