14
Aug
Fri
in-person
One Vertical or Many? FounderNexus Roundtable, T.A. McCann, Pioneer Square Labs
When is the right time to enter a new vertical, and does pursuing several at once ever make sense?
One vertical starts working and the pull comes almost immediately, an inbound lead from a different industry, an investor asking how big this really gets. Go deeper and you win a market but stay small. Go wider and you risk winning none of them. Most of the advice is written by people who already know how it turned out.
We're joined by T.A. McCann, Managing Director at Pioneer Square Labs and founder of Lev, who has watched this decision play out across a portfolio and comes in with a firm view.
What we'll cover
- Is running multiple verticals at once ever the smart move, or just a slower way to win none of them
- What winning a vertical actually looks like, and the signals that tell you you've earned the right to leave it
- What carries over to vertical two and what quietly doesn't, from product and pricing to references and sales cycles
Small group by design, so this is a conversation rather than a presentation. Come with whatever is actually on your mind.
Speaker
“
T.A. McCann
Managing Director. Pioneer Square Labs.
Hey, I’m T.A. McCann, an entrepreneur living and working in Seattle, WA.
I am currently a managing director at Pioneer Square Labs (@psl), a startup studio and venture capital firm. We partner with entrepreneurs to turn ideas into venture-scale companies. Since 2015, we’ve created over 30 companies and raised over 200M in funding.
Previously, I was a co-founder and CEO of Senosis (acquired by Google), using the sensors on the phone to deliver clinical diagnostics and a successful spinout of the University of Washington.
I was a co-founder of Rival IQ (acquired by Netbase) focused on active online marketers who want to get ahead, Rival IQ saves you time and delivers key insights about your competitors’ marketing activity/success (web, search, social…).
I was VP of Product Strategy at Blackberry, focused on BBM (Blackberry Messenger), social applications (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare…) as well as the native Contacts apps after Blackberry acquired Gist. I was the founder and CEO of Gist.com, a social address book and personal CRM tool, as well as Jump2Go and 3 other web-based companies.
I’m on the boards of Remarkably, TeamSense, Volt-Athletics, TheZeroCard, Doxa7 and Splash. I also spent 4 years at Microsoft in various roles on Exchange and Mobile Service Delivery Platforms. I like B2B and mobile stuff!
I’m an active angel investor and have made investments in Creative Live, SkillJar, Innervate as well as Founders Co-op, LogosFund and SKV. I plan to do more angel investments in productivity tools (see my list here), education and “quantified health” (using mobile, big data and machine-learning to improve health and human performance), so connect with me here.
I host two podcasts including How to Live to 200 (focus on health and longevity) and Beyond the Blue Badge (focus on founders who spent time at Microsoft). Lots of great lessons in both of these.
I like sharing my experience and ideas, so I spend lots of time at Techstars (active mentor), Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington (on the board) and was previously on the board of Lake Washington Girls Middle School. I learn by mentoring, coaching and teaching.
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