Partnering with Us

Partnering with Camber

Founders:

In an ideal world, we'd have months to spend getting to know the teams at the companies in which we are looking to invest. Getting to know them as people, understanding strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and aspirations. The inverse is true as well, founders want to know what it's like to sell a major stake of their company to Camber. And if they are continuing on with the company, what's it like to work side by side with us. Finally, and usually most importantly, what will it be like for the teams they have hired, trained and built their company's culture alongside. Since the M&A process is rarely ideal, we've written this memo to give you a sense of who we are and how we operate to help determine whether there is a cultural fit in which we can work collaboratively to achieve outsized results. In our experience, the best results come from teams with clear alignment and a strong culture, and therefore we ask that if after reading this, you don't genuinely believe that we're a mutual fit, you let us know so we can all avoid the pain of a suboptimal partnership.

At Camber, we've all worked in the early-stage technology world our entire careers. As investors, founders, employees, and executives, we've seen the start-up journey from just about every angle. Over 20+ years and dozens of companies, we've had some great success and some great failures and learned from them all along the way. We've learned what we're good at, what we're bad at and, most importantly, what we're passionate about: Scaling product-led companies. We're not experts in finding product-market fit. We're not suited to build products in nascent markets. We're not built to endure everything it takes to take a business from $100K to $3MM in ARR. We admire you for already accomplishing those feats.

We get excited about go-to-market strategy and execution for product-led growth companies and the journey from $5MM to $20MM. We take a hands-on approach building demand generation engines, creating and executing on SEO strategies, systematically experimenting with new channels, ongoing CRO and onboarding optimization, layering in and optimizing inbound sales motions, building outbound sales organizations, implementing account health scoring, turning monthly customers into annual and building customer success teams. At the heart of all of this is our data pipeline and rev ops engine, Gemini, which provides the foundation for unlocking the data within your funnel, product and customer base and allow us to optimize and scale the business.

None of this works without a well-loved product as the foundation. We won't invest if the core product DNA doesn't intend to move forward with the company, for at least a meaningful time period. Sometimes this is a product-centric founder who is eager to shed the management burden and go back to the part of the job they truly love. Sometimes this is a CTO with deep product and domain expertise. Sometimes this is an up-and-coming product manager ready to take the next step.

Our goal with each company we work with is to invest in a Culture of Learning. While we all have different experiences and expertise, we recognize that none of us have the right answer every time. Each market and product is unique. What worked in company X will not always work for company Y. What worked for company X in year 2 will not necessarily work in Year 4. We strive to center our operating philosophy around Data & Experimentation. We don't claim to always have the right answer, but we've assembled the tools and processes to reliably find it. If we've done our job correctly, this methodology empowers teams to be creative, pushes decision-making to the edges of the company and enables high-potential employees to flourish. Teams and individuals can try anything they want, limited only by time, budget, and the requirement to test and measure the results. At earlier stages and lower volumes this testing isn't perfect, but it begins to build muscle memory and lays the foundation for the compounding effects as the company and customer volumes ramp.

We take a bespoke approach to building leadership teams at each company. While we'll look to immediately fill GTM skill gaps with Camber partners and resources, we'll take a thoughtful approach on how to build out the broader leadership team with internal and external resources over time to ensure the company's ability to achieve its potential. We'll count on your input in this process and be transparent in our thinking.

At the end of the day, our goal is to maximize the value of each company we invest in and deliver outstanding returns to our investors and to the other company shareholders. Our hope is that you'll maintain an equity stake in the business moving forward and that we can collaboratively drive an equal return from your remaining shares as you received in the initial transaction. We've found that the most effective path to creating this value is to enhance your company's culture and team with our capabilities and process.

If our approach resonates with you, we look forward to continuing the conversation. If not, we wish you the best of luck in finding a financial and operational partner that aligns with your vision.

Posted November 15, 2021

By Jason Hable