“I'm often skeptical about the role a VC plays in the early stages of a company. On the one side, you have companies that are scraping for resources, and on the other, you have random thoughts and feedback from investors that can have a giant impact on the direction a founding team takes. This can be dangerous for the company if it’s not coming from an informed place," says Luke Miller who recently joined the Earlybird Catalyst program.

For many, venture capital is viewed as a simply transactional relationship, and in the worst cases one where flippant advice damages a company. “Once you get past the check, there is mainly zero value or negative value. A lot of investors get in the way. They think that they add value by being involved without being very thoughtful. I've seen companies scrambling to address investor questions, which led to no further feedback or insights, and that interaction distracted us from our customers, employees, and product. There is a massive disconnect.”

The Catalyst program was created to actively eliminate this disconnect, providing founders with the kinds of sparring partners they’ve been looking for. Luke says “When Akash and Tim presented the Catalyst program to me, I was interested because I could see the angle they were coming at it with, aiming to be different. I'm excited to support and be part of a VC looking to narrow that gap.”

Luke is a specialist in Sales & GTM strategy with 20 years of experience in high-impact sales within enterprise and Fortune 100 realms. He has often played the role of the first salesperson helping the company move from founder-led sales to building a scalable machine. He has spent countless hours helping founders navigate their sales motion, define their ICP, and scale their GTM engine. Luke describes himself as ‘an entrepreneur at heart’ with a passion for early-stage companies. “In fact, the first time I met Earlybird was when I unsuccessfully pitched my startup to them in 2009, so it’s a brand I’ve known for a while and I’m proud to now be a part of, but more importantly, the people I’ve met at Earlybird over the years, they're smart people that I enjoy spending time with.”

With this experience, he’s learned a few things that he’s keen to share his expertise with founding teams. Luke says “The number one thing that startups do that fail in GTM is that they over-strategize the process, they spend too much time planning it, and in turn don't speak to customers. Sales is an action, it must be in motion, not just a plan. Sales isn't just asking people to sign contracts and asking for fees. You're engaging with the market, talking to people, and listening to people. You're putting value into the market, and you're feeding back on what you're hearing from the market.”

He says this journey of listening and feeding that back into your solution can start very early on, even before you have a product. “The best entrepreneurs I've seen are thoughtful about the problems they’re addressing. They're not forcing a solution on anyone, but they're projecting value into the market by sharing insights with customers in the pipeline. They gain customers by showing people that they are thoughtful and intentional about the problem they’re solving. This is what they mean when they say ‘fall in love with the problem, not the solution,’ as popularised by Uri Levine. The goal should always be to understand the problem that you’re solving better than anyone else” he explains.

He warns technical founders need to take caution: “Don’t try to engineer out the task of talking to people in the market just because you don’t enjoy doing it,” he says. It is such a critical continuous action that’s fundamental for a startup. Even if you are targeting a PLG company, it still involves continuous conversations with the market.”

Product evolution will come through listening, even for those founders who have massive open-source communities. Luke says “Start with where you've already connected and where you're closest to. Look for the patterns in how your potential customers want to buy, create a process around it, and then scale it up. In the beginning, when there's an individual request, you take it because it’s revenue, but then you need to get better at pattern matching versus distinguishing what's just noise. But there’s no excuse for not speaking to customers, listening should still be happening in every single phase, you just use the input differently as you scale up.”

Why is listening so hard? Well, aside from being overly obsessed with the product, Luke says “The whole process of being a founder is a little bit of self-delusion. You need to have this confidence that you can build something of massive scale and have a giant impact. You need to be able to walk into a VC firm and say ‘Hey, can you give me a couple million dollars? I've got this tiny little bit of revenue.’ At the same time, you need the humility to sit back, listen, and continuously refine and evolve your grand solution, all while staying firmly grounded in the reality of payroll and runway.” Sounds easy enough? Let’s spar and make this happen.

Did these insights resonate with you? Reach out to Luke via LinkedIn and stay tuned for more.