Peer Effect

Unlocking Strategic Networking and Community Building, with Joshua Goodfield

• James Johnson • Season 3 • Episode 14

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What if one connection could change the trajectory of your business's future?

Today, we delve into the transformative power of community and networking with Joshua Goodfield, Executive Director of VC Platform. Discover how elite networks can turbocharge your growth and why nurturing these connections could be your ultimate growth hack.

In This Episode, We Explore:

  • The underestimated value of community roles in venture capital and how they catalyse growth and innovation.
  • Strategies for building and nurturing impactful networks that can dramatically elevate a business's trajectory.
  • Practical advice from Joshua on making the most of community connections to scale your venture.

Learn more about Joshua Goodfield's impactful initiatives at VC Platform and follow him on LinkedIn for further insights.

More from James:

Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com


Speaker 1:

Have you ever wondered how the most successful founders managed to stay connected and leverage their networks to skyrocket their businesses? Well, today we're diving deep into the world of venture capital communities and the power of strategic networking. I'm thrilled to have Joshua Goodfield with us. He's the Executive Director of VC Platform, a global community that's shaping the future of venture capital by connecting over 2,000 members across 1,000 funds. Josh's insights are not just about expanding your network. They're about making the right connections to amplify growth and innovation. You're listening to Peer Effect, the podcast that fuels you with new ideas and inspiration through interviews with founders and experts who've made it happen. Interviews with founders and experts who've made it happen. I'm your host, james Johnson, and I coach Series A plus founders to take back control so that they can take their business further and live a great life.

Speaker 2:

So the VC platform community started over a decade ago.

Speaker 2:

It was really informal, as I think many great grassroots communities are the platform role in venture capital, which I'm happy to kind of what was like a model that was maybe popularized by Andrews and Horowitz around, like the agency model, so it became the firm's job to help with all things related to like business development, talent, operations, etc.

Speaker 2:

And so they hired platform people. It really popularized and they got those people on board on their teams and as a result of that, there were a bunch of people who were teams of one who really didn't have a formula or a pathway to doing their job well, and so a group of them, mostly in Northeastern hubs in the US, so the predominantly New York and Boston area got together and started chatting on a Google group, and that is, I guess, what has today evolved into the VC platform community roots. As far as me, I'm not the founder of the community. The community hired me, a volunteer board of directors, as their first ever employee to help formalize the organization, expand our programming, offering our fundraising and yeah, so I've been in the role for over a year and a half now.

Speaker 1:

Wow, and just for context. So how many raffling people are in the community now, and what was your lead up to this role? It must have been a very interesting path.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so there are currently 2,100 members in the community. They represent over 1,000 venture funds. This is across 43 countries, so it's grown quite a lot. So my pathway there.

Speaker 2:

I previously spent about five years at an organization called C100, which was designed and built to help Canadians access Silicon Valley. So I live in Toronto, born and raised Canadian, silicon Valley. So I live in Toronto, born and raised Canadian, and Canada, while geographically a very large country, doesn't have a massive population, and so in order for our tech companies, our homegrown tech companies, to succeed, many of them need connectivity to international tech hubs. So it started in Silicon Valley and then expanded to New York, london, la, and then really became a global community of Canadians. And so I was doing that for a while and then, prior to that, worked at another organization where my responsibility was to make stakeholders in the transportation sector work together so the utilities companies, the local politicians, and so I've kind of accidentally been community building for a while and this job was leading this community has just been kind of what I think all of that led to real, real joy and pleasure.

Speaker 1:

So I'm imagining. So the first, the first question, which is sort of what's a unique insight you would share, is going to be something around community.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it definitely is. I mean, it's just what I know best and what I spend all day thinking about. And I would say, as someone who spends a lot of time connecting people, I've noticed a trend amongst founders, investors and operators that I talk to that many of them just do not mature their networks enough. And I can give a real example here. There's a very early stage founder I know who recently messaged me and he's like you know, you know all these VCs, like you have this whole network of them, like I'm trying to fundraise, like raise my seed round. I've been in like build, build, build mode and I'm finally ready to fundraise. Could you like help with introductions?

Speaker 2:

And you know this guy has a really compelling product. He's a technical founder, interesting person, but I'll admit it was hard to open relationships for this first time founder with the caliber of prospective funders at these prominent VCs that he was interested in. And I think this founder instantly had this light bulb moment and really just took stock of things and just you know I wow. I've put a lot of emphasis on internal development and operations work and just not enough on network and kind of thinking ahead and thinking who are the people that I'm going to need to know in like six months or a year or a couple years from now and just start like really building those relationships. Because while there are, of course, people like me that exist, who are ecosystem people, community oriented people, you know our job is to kind of build these matches and and build these. You know it's like birds of a feather.

Speaker 2:

But, real relationships of course require a lot of trust and maintenance and so, whether it's a founder looking to you know, build relationships for a next round of capital, or a founder you know who's going to expand their leadership team soon, as much as you can get in the right spaces and start nurturing those relationships earlier will just pay an abundance. Can get in the right spaces and start nurturing those relationships earlier will just pay an abundance of benefit in the future.

Speaker 1:

and and in my opinion, like there are many ways to to go faster in what you're building, but to me, community is the key to building companies like much you know, 10x faster for, for example, so you actually think that it does actually, I mean, given this is sort of the dream of most founders how to like go bigger or go faster you really feel that sort of building that community pays that dividend, that 10x on outcome.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I mean one person can change your entire trajectory right. And I don't necessarily mean like large industry events perhaps, although those could be beneficials. But if you find the right group of people going through similar stages or that are a couple steps ahead of you, that's where the real magic has happened. From my experience of you, that's where the real magic has happened from my experience.

Speaker 1:

So there's a benefit on the fundraising side, but actually in terms of business operations, business strategy, just being a better founder, that is where you'd focus your community building efforts if you're a founder listening to this.

Speaker 2:

Definitely. I mean, being a founder is an extremely isolating, alienating experience for many, especially in the earlier days, and so there are people going through very similar pain points as you, and I mean I got to see the real benefit of this in the very beginning of COVID when I was at my previous role role, and you know my job was how can we get the right founders going through really tough stuff like downsizing their teams, like, in some cases, mass layoffs, the inability to connect with people in person? How can we get them together in a way where they can share their experiences in a trusted environment? And, um, that's, that's really powerful when done right.

Speaker 1:

So if we look at it first like a time investment because obviously, first of all, I'm too busy building the business, I'm too busy in it what percentage of your time as a founder do you think could slash should be spent community building?

Speaker 2:

I think every person's going to be different. I mean, I've talked to CEOs who say that you know, 50% plus of their role is just engaging in external opportunities, whether that be like speaking engagement at you know at conferences, you know, joining a nonprofit board of directors, whether that's attending like local hiring events board of directors, whether that's attending like local hiring events. These are the mechanisms to kind of build awareness about your brand and to have, uh, to have interesting candidates applying for your roles. And so I don't want to be prescriptive in in assigning a number. I think every founder is. You know there's so many determinations of that. You know everyone has different schedules.

Speaker 1:

But for what it's worth, I've just seen a lot of value in people invest it, making that time investment it feels like quite a scary number at first, but it's probably it feels about right in terms of if you can build your team slightly. Different stages maybe more challenging when you're right at the beginning and you're right in the detail. But it sounds like making that time, even if it's not 50%, is going to pay off. It's just quite hard to justify in the moment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, and I would really just double down in saying not all community opportunities are made equal. The more niche a community is and I'm saying this as the current person running a very niche community the more beneficial. It's going to be right. And so there are these giant, you know 20,000 person technology conferences that exist, and there are also really fantastic gated communities. I'll also just add that, like some of the best, even people that may not even think they're in communities are likely in communities.

Speaker 2:

Uh, a community can be, uh, like a discord group. It can be a WhatsApp group with five people. Um, I'm I'm talking about the term not just, you know, a formal like, oh, I pay a membership due to this organization, but just peers. And if it doesn't exist, find it and start it. I'm the executive director of a nonprofit and I seek almost daily and thinking to myself well, what, what are other nonprofit executive directors doing? It allows me to seek validation. It allows me to realize there are tricks and tools that I didn't even know were at my disposal, and so I think learning to, investing the time in connecting and learning from other people and giving first is just a massive way to scale yourself.

Speaker 1:

It feels like the role of Head of Platform as that community builder. It feels like different VCs value it differently. The focus of it. Community building is just one part of it, like skill sharing. But do you feel like that community building aspect is becoming wider and wider spread as kind of a standard part of the Head of Platform role?

Speaker 2:

It's a great question. So the way that we think about platform, I would say, is sixfold. So there's the marketing function, so those are the folks who are focused on brand content, pr, the creative, and that can be both for the firm or for your portfolio companies. The second, to your point, is the core community, and so that could mean advisor networks for the firm, digital spaces for connectivity, founder engagement, virtual or in-person events like summits and retreats. The third, I would say, is like investment operations, and that can be fund operations, investor enablement, like sourcing new deals, helping the firm with fundraising. The fourth would be on the talent side, so that could be recruiting, hiring people, culture, people operations and DEI. The fifth being business development, and from our research, we did an industry study and business development is the fastest growing segment of these platform roles that I'm mentioning, and so the BD side would be like go-to-market advisement, m&a support, strategic partnerships, customer networks and the last one which I find really interesting, is the ESG side, so helping portfolio companies and or your fund implement and measure environmental, social and governance measurements and reporting on key initiatives. So platform is often broader than people think.

Speaker 2:

I always encourage people when they're taking on a platform role. A lot of people reach out to me when they're either starting a role or trying to break into it. I think every platform person, especially on small or medium-sized teams, really needs a North Star, because you're never going to do all those six things like very well, and so really decide, like what is your funds differentiator? Maybe you're going to be the fund that does the best founder summit ever, or you know you're going to be the firm that has the best sustainability reporting, and so really figure out, like what your fund is interested in doing. Have a very clear North Star, because the odds are is that the GPs and the investing team is not going to always have a strong like grasp of what you're working on day to day as an operations or platform person, and so it's really up to you know, I think the platform teams that do it really well, they really have a North star, they have a clear focus, they have measurable KPIs, they're great builders.

Speaker 1:

It's a really nice insight. I think the other six focus on one probably the same advice you give to founders as well Temptation to focus on lots of things. But it feels like maybe some of the VC partners took on a head of platform roles at the beginning because, as you say, anton harrits did it. Therefore we should try it too, and so it was quite.

Speaker 2:

It was almost like a bit of FOMO going on, like we need a head of platform role without really having a clear strategy yeah, yeah, um, if I reflect on the content of our summit and you know the many events and webinars that we do in the community, burnout is like a real topic that is is discussed often.

Speaker 2:

I think you know there many events and webinars that we do in the community, burnout is like a real topic that is is discussed often. I think you know there's this expectation of anything that doesn't fall onto anything outside of writing checks falls into the platform person's role. So you know our social media presence, our our reporting to lps. You know there's know I could go on for ad nauseum, and so I think getting smart about you know, ruthless prioritization and figuring out what you know the firm is most interested in kind of being known for, is really important. And the other thing I'll say is that when your role is focused on portfolio support, what you're really doing is your main stakeholder ought to be the founders, right? How are we supporting our founders? And the best platform people are the ones that are in constant touch with their portfolio founders and really learning what value is to those founders.

Speaker 1:

It's almost like a business where you've got so VC is really like so that founder acquisition and founder success and your head of platform team is kind of founder success and investment team is kind of founder.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that makes total sense, yeah.

Speaker 1:

To the second question, like what's? What's an external insight that's kind of really landed with you recently that you'd share with others?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say I'm really inspired to kind of think about community more in a more like scientific way, I would say, and just learning how community can help like scale up entrepreneurs. To the earlier part of our conversation, and so I've been really inspired by Priya Parker and the way that she thinks about community and she has a book that I actually keep on my nightstand called the Art of Gathering, because it's a bit of a Bible for me. So, having the privilege myself of leading this very large group, I'm very much existentially focused on the why. So why are we getting this group together? What's the purpose of this group? Should that purpose evolve over time?

Speaker 2:

And what I think Priya does really well is making your gatherings intentional, and so you do not have to view yourself as a community professional, like I do, in order to gather people. Every company fund is getting people together in some sort of way, whether it's your customer basis to like build loyalty. Or, you know, like where I am in Toronto there's a giant Shopify event going on to like evangelize customers and their employees Like. This stuff happens every day, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and so I think the things that she really emphasizes that stick out to me were, you know, markers, and also on breaking, on designing spaces to build convention and to build connections. I should say sorry, how can we share more openly and intimately is? I'm very obsessed with that topic.

Speaker 1:

How can you share more intimately?

Speaker 2:

I'll use the example. We do an annual summit, which is like the preeminent flagship moment of our community. We are a 24-7 online community and we do do many like regional events and happy hours, which are really nice because then folks can connect because they live in Boston or because they're at South by Southwest or, you know, they're at London Tech Week, etc. But we do have this annual summit where hundreds of our members flock to our host city and my board of directors and I kind of felt like we were at this place where we could continue with the model that we were already doing. But it was a model that was designed when this was like a small event a few years ago. And you know what a great problem we have and I'm sure many founders can relate to this. It's like it's growing so quickly and what worked, you know, four years ago, maybe before the pandemic, is not something that makes sense for the right now. And so you know, as we opened registration for our summit and got hundreds of people registering in the first like few weeks, we said okay, we got to rethink how we're doing this program and so what we did and I'm really proud of it and it was a huge risk and I definitely lost a lot of sleep ahead of completing it. But we took all the data that we had on our attendees and we said, all right, how can we create? Let's create different tables and we'll match people with a number based on a weighted formula that we can create and that factored in like their seniority, their, the fund size, their geographic focus, like what areas they invest in, their like number of years in the in in the industry, and then what it did is that we, we, we kind of spit out like a number for everyone. And then they got to that table and realized, ok, I think I know why we're talking together. You know, like we're both talent professionals at you know billion dollar plus funds. Or you know, oh, we're a table of, like recent college grads and this is all of our first you know, breakout jobs and platform, and so it was really cool to get to build that and see that.

Speaker 2:

And my hope was, you know, we have some community members who have been in the community for maybe like eight plus years or something like that, and you know I don't want them ever to say, oh, you know, I remember when it was a small group and it was, you know, more intimate and more, of course, you know things will change as we become bigger. But I do believe that there are clever ways to kind of retain your, your community's, cultures and norms at scale, and I think it involves a good amount of effort but it is certainly, uh, certainly possible. So, you know, I like to kind of break the mold as much as I can and try to whether it's, um, doing less panels and doing more like small breakout sessions, just so everyone feels seen and heard, I think are really important to me and how does that tie into sort of what Priya would say around the art of gathering?

Speaker 2:

it's really just about the. It's about intention to critically look at this every year and say is this achieving our goals? Are we just doing it because we feel like it's the thing that we, you know, ought to do? Maybe it makes sense to break that summit up into five smaller events, or maybe it makes sense to move that summit to the other side of the world. There could be, you know, no shortage of possibilities. But I think what I really admire and take away from her work is just being very intentional and defining why as clearly as possible.

Speaker 1:

And so who would help you with that? Why? Because it feels like there's a danger like if you're sort of the top of a big community that is like being the founder of a big company it can be quite an isolated place to be and not being isolated in a community. So who provides you the support?

Speaker 2:

So currently I'm a solo operator. We're about to expand our team, and so I get to write on my resume that I grew 100% headcount 100% growth.

Speaker 2:

So I'm really excited about that. But you know, as a solo operator, I've uh checks and balances on my thinking and, and you know we have a volunteer board of directors. They are very actively involved and I could not do any of the work I do without them. They guide me on on their perspectives and we're very intentional about who's on the board. You know, geographic diversity, like um, fun size diversity, diversity of thought, like different profiles, uh and so that's uh, you know, immensely helpful.

Speaker 2:

And then the second is is um, you know I've become very data obsessed with this job, and so I you know I'm not going to decide the location that we hold our summit.

Speaker 2:

I am going to pull the community and figure out what people want or what dates make sense for people, and so just the more I mean I am going to pull the community and figure out what people want or what dates make sense for people, and so just the more I mean I'm not saying anything that's rocket science here, but just the more data that you can pull out of your community and the more decisions you can make just makes for a better performance on my end, because I'm listening to them. People like to see that you're interested in what they're thinking, and so if I'm listening to them, people like to see that you're interested in what they're thinking. And so if I'm a part of a community and no one from that leadership team if there is one is reaching out to me and asking for feedback, I would probably question why I'm a part of the community and if I'm truly valued here.

Speaker 1:

It's really about that theme of intimacy again, doesn't it? It's kind of like the temptation, as you grow, to like, oh well, for sake of speed, I just invite quicker decisions by myself. But actually I feel that there's an intimacy to like going out to community and going, okay, what would you like, what do you want? And actually it gives an opportunity to really connect still.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and maybe this organization in 2015 or 2016 would have been like I'm scheduling office hours with anyone who wants to talk. Now I probably can't do that for 2000 people and do my job well, and so you know you rely on type forms and surveys and um, but yeah, I mean, I feel very blessed to. This. Community is so giving and um, people answer questions before I even have the opportunity to, and people answer questions before I even have the opportunity to, and they're very forthcoming. I think venture is not a zero-sum game. People are invested in the same portfolio companies. Industry success is all of our success and I think platform people are inherently collaborative and good and want to help each other.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I work with quite a few sort of head of platform where I was a family coach. I just they are. Everyone I've worked so far has been uniformly just very positive and very like. They're always like value creation. It's not about value taking, it's very much about value creation. That there is this idea that you like we can all win together, which makes it really good fun and that behavior transcends into the way in which they act in the community.

Speaker 2:

I mean, one of the biggest problems I have is that everyone raises their hand to help you know like oh, can I help you plan the summit, can I help you with programming ideas, can I help speak, and can I help? And I wish I could just say yes to everything and everyone. Uh, they're just very, very, very generous with their time and with the energy that they put into this community. So I think these are all people who say yes to requests all the time and give their energy to their founders and just really fundamentally believe in entrepreneurship and that, you see, that behavior transcend into the day-to-day of the community as well.

Speaker 1:

And for founders, if you would give them one tip around really maximizing. There's a relationship slash outcome from working with the heads of platform. What would it be?

Speaker 2:

There's a couple investor memos that you know, like email lists that I've been privileged to be a part of, and I think what what are so special about those are that the asks are just so clear and anyone in a value creation portfolio support role, they're there to help you.

Speaker 2:

But you just you know they're also some of my members have 50 other portfolio companies. Some of them have hundreds of other portfolio companies, and so I would just say, be as clear as possible with your asks and what you're looking for and what you'd benefit from, and also I would recommend share feedback. You know most, most venture backed companies are funded by multiple venture funds. What venture funds have been really helpful to you and why? Maybe venture fund X can learn from venture funds Y and the way that they help you find C-suite talent, or the way that they help connect you to other founders at a similar stage and you're able to have peer learning circles that are off the record and helpful to your growth. So every fund is going to feel a little different and I think founders should explore that and make that part of their decision on where they take capital from.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like also, if you're going to the six parts of the role to head a platform, if you've got five or six VC backing, you figure out which head of platform focus on which parts of that could. Potentially you might have a great coverage across all six or nearly across all six. So it's kind of like a do your due diligence on what the head of platform specializes in totally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, there's often someone with the title like director of platform and operations and community. I'm just like, wow, you know you have more hours in the day than I do, uh, and so, uh, there's some real superheroes in our community that just do awesome work, and I don't know how they do it. But my recommendation is at least maybe the way I work is I like to drill down and pick a couple things that I know I can knock out of the park, and unfortunately that means sometimes it feels like you're just kind of keeping balls afloat versus digging as deep as you want on something. But I just think the most important thing is just be in lockstep with your founders and your investment, your team, your GPs, about what the focus ought to be. That's how you win at your role.

Speaker 2:

I really believe in staying as active as possible.

Speaker 2:

I am one of those people that, in order to do good work, need to be very active, and I recently purchased a standing desk but I got a walking pad to go under it and so that I can just like it allows me to just focus so much better.

Speaker 2:

I have no skin in the game. I have no like affiliate link or like anything to share with anyone, but I have a great work setup, getting my my steps in every day on my Apple watch, like, for me, that's like it's my physical health, you know, I think, like many, gained a few COVID pounds and you want to, like you know, just get better and better shape. And, uh, walking, for me it's like good cardiovascular health, like muscle strength, like better posture. I feel like my energy levels are better. I just think it's it's criminal how much time we in our industry spend sitting. Um, and I also, like mentally, it helps me a lot too, like I find I'm. It reduces my stress, any anxiety I feel in this role. I just get such better clarity and focus and so, um, I would say that would be my my weird practical hack that I absolutely swear by.

Speaker 2:

The other thing I'll say is, as a solo operator, I've really tried to learn as much as possible. How can I automate as many things as possible? And I will say, the majority of people I talk to do not realize and I'm not fully there. I rely on developers and no code experts to help me on this stuff. But, um, the amount of stuff that you can automate in your life, professionally and personally, but I'll focus on on professionally is incredible. I mean, you can, um, you know, if you become strong with, like, zapier skills and and you know different no code tools, like are the events we run in our community the calendar invite automatically sent to guests. Local participants are notified of a happy hour in their region. They get a reminder 24 hours in advance. The host gets a guide onto how to host it 48 hours in advance.

Speaker 2:

They get a follow-up survey the day after and I don't touch any of those so like that's a nice example of kind of how, uh, you can do more things to kind of reduce the manual load.

Speaker 1:

So I'm also very obsessed with with automation and efficiency and so if someone wants to try and do that that you think they're, how are they? What would be the first step? They there are experts who have helped with that. Is that so if they can upwork, kind of thing, or is that just?

Speaker 2:

so certainly, I think those platforms over time have become easier for regular people to uh build and adopt. It's kind of like the no code, you know, uh platforms that, um, you can drag and drop a lot of stuff, um. The second thing I would say is my natural reaction to anything is there's got to be a YouTube video that explains this to me, and so you know, I've probably watched a lot of those. There's different channels and stuff that people focus on automation, and then you know, if you really want to dig deep, like, and you don't have a giant time investment to learn how to go deep in different technologies, is there's no shortage of vendors who can build this stuff up for you. But you know, don't underestimate what like the investment of someone's time for, like you know, a few hundred or a couple thousand dollars could do in time saved overall.

Speaker 2:

So there's just lots of ways that you can make your life a lot easier.

Speaker 1:

In today's insightful episode with Josh, we uncover the profound impact that strategic networking and community engagement can have on a founder's trajectory, and how the right connection can fast track your company's success. If there's one thing that stood out, it's that community is about much more than just numbers. It's about building meaningful relationships, trust and mutual support and, as Josh pointed out, investing time in building and nurturing these connections can propel your business to new heights much faster than you think. Join us next time on Peer Effect, where we'll continue to explore groundbreaking strategies and stories from founders and industry experts. Until then, keep building, keep connecting and keep making it happen.

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