SaaStr 329: How Renewals and Discounting Will Be Impacted by COVID & How Enterprise Founders Should Approach Capital Allocation & Efficiency Today with Navin Chaddha, Managing Director @ Mayfield

Navin Chaddha is the Managing Director @ Mayfield who just last month announced $750M in new funds split across their core and select funds. As for Navin, under his leadership Mayfield has raised over $2.2Bn in new funds and he has backed some of the best of the last decade including Poshmark, Lyft, Hashicorp, CloudGenix and more. During his career Navin has invested in 50 companies, 17 have gone public, 20 have been acquired. Prior to VC, Navin was an entrepreneur where he co-founded or led 3 startups, all of which had successful exits with one being acquired by Microsoft. 

 In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

• How did Navin make his way into the world of venture from successfully founding and exiting 3 businesses? What made him take the jump into investing full-time from being an EiR?
• How does Navin expect the B2B landscape to be impacted by COVID-19? How does Navin advise B2B founders to think about how renewals will be impacted? How does Navin advise founders to think through how to approach the topic of discounting with their customers? In what situations does Navin agree to provide discounts to customers?
• How does Navin foresee the B2C landscape to be impacted? How does Navin advise founders to think through the level of aggression with which they pursue traditional marketing channels, now with much lower CACs? Will these CACs remain low priced? How does Navin expect company pricing to change over the next few months?
• How has Navin seen himself evolve and change as a board member over the last decade? What have been his major moments of learning? What advice would he give to new board members joining their first boards? What can board members do to build a relationship of trust and intimacy with their founders? What works? What does not?

Navin’s 60 Second SaaStr:

1. What does Navin know now that he wishes he had known when he entered the world of venture with Mayfield in 2004?
2. What is the hardest element of Navin’s role with Mayfield today?
3. What would Navin most like to change about the world of venture? Why?

Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-mayfield-and-tripactions-may-1-2020/

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Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Navin Chaddha