MACH37 typically invests in companies at their inception. With a lack of meaningful company history, our decisions are always based heavily on our assessment of the entrepreneurs behind ideas that we like. Consequently, we are often asked what we look for in MACH37 entrepreneurs.
While they come in all shapes and sizes, it has been my experience that there are principally two types of entrepreneurs: “horse traders” and “horse breeders”.
Horse traders are driven to create wealth for themselves by exploiting market inefficiencies. Their businesses are transaction oriented and rely on simple buy low and sell high principles. In technology, they often find success in understanding an application of an existing capability, negotiating attractive rights to that technology, then rapidly commercializing (or flipping) it. Horse traders are not typically technical and often lack a vision beyond the first implementation of their technologies.
“Horse breeders” are wholly different. They innovate to develop new breeds of capability – disrupting the status quo with better alternatives. Their innovations often eliminate market inefficiencies rather than exploit them. During this process, they create wealth for themselves and others by ultimately making the economic pie bigger. Horse breeders are often technophiles, but they also include musicians, artists, athletes, and anyone is who is driven by a passion for creating something that can make a significant positive impact.
MACH37 looks for horse breeders. Not only because they are far more fun to work with, but also because horse breeders create value where it never existed before – an underpinning of disruptive innovation. MACH37’s sole focus is to empower this type of entrepreneurship with the knowledge, exposure, access and validation (by the security buyer and venture communities) necessary to successfully take disruptive cyber security innovations to market.
If you think you are a horse breeder, send us an email or submit an application for the next cohort session.