After listening to others pitch me a number of completely different job alternatives whereas nonetheless at Google in 2008, it grew to become clear to me that I might make a greater choice if I might totally discover the bigger panorama of latest corporations rising in Silicon Valley.
I had spent the final a number of years specializing in Google’s enterprise outdoors the U.S., and I actually felt out of contact with the startup world. Beyond my purpose of changing into a CEO of my very own firm, I had two different ambitions: I wished to assist construct an awesome client service that might delight individuals (doubtlessly in e-commerce) and I wished to construct additional wealth for myself and my household.
To higher consider my choices, I made the choice to stop Google first and discover a solution to research the broader ecosystem of corporations earlier than selecting the place to go. Resolved to present myself a “blank slate” earlier than making a last selection, I left Google after I was three months pregnant and joined Accel Partners, a high Silicon Valley enterprise capital agency and an investor in my earlier startup, in a short lived position as CEO-in-residence.
In the months that adopted, I helped Accel consider funding alternatives throughout all kinds of digital sectors, with a selected deal with e-commerce, taking the chance to review these corporations I would be part of or consider ranging from scratch.
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Managing Editor Danny Crichton will interview Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, creator of “Choose Possibility,” on Twitter Spaces.
One of Accel’s key companions, Theresia Gouw, helped me brainstorm, becoming a member of my cadre {of professional} clergymen. We had identified each other for over a decade (I initially met her as a younger founder at Yodlee) and have been at comparable phases of our careers, so I knew she might establish personally with my profession quandaries. Like me, Theresia was pregnant along with her subsequent baby and at an analogous life stage — one more commonality.
Image Credits: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy
While at Accel, I spent a disproportionate period of time testing my macro thesis that on-line purchasing was about to blow up in new methods. I had seen the rise of e-tailers at Google (many of those corporations, equivalent to eBay and Amazon, have been Google’s largest advertisers on the time), however most of the main e-commerce websites like Amazon and Zappos nonetheless had a utilitarian really feel to them.
Meanwhile, new style and décor e-commerce websites equivalent to Rent the Runway, Gilt, Houzz, Wayfair and One Kings Lane have been popping up in every single place and rising quickly. These websites sought to faucet right into a extra aspirational and entertainment-oriented type of purchasing expertise and transfer it on-line.
Expert buyers like Accel and others have been funding them, and my very own observations advised that this space would yield one other huge wave of on-line client progress. These way of life classes of purchasing additionally appealed to me personally; I used to be the goal buyer for a lot of of them.
I began to work on an concept for a brand new e-commerce service, a luxurious model of eBay, whereas listening to the pitches of each e-commerce firm that was searching for funding and speaking to a number of that wanted early-stage CEOs. I continued to hearken to non-e-commerce pitches as effectively, merely to present myself a degree of reference for evaluating on-line purchasing alternatives.
At Yodlee and Google, I had been fortunate sufficient to work with extremely good and proficient individuals who shared my values, and I wished to do the identical at my subsequent enterprise.
I wished to work with nice…
