Our Promise to Entrepreneurs
We invest in relationships from inception to iconic.
Inception stage investing is our DNA since our founding over 50 years ago.
We invest at the earliest stages of company formation, and since 1969, we have partnered with scores of legendary entrepreneurs. We have invested at the inception stage in 100+ companies over the last decade, helping them grow into flourishing companies.
We know that company building is a marathon, not a sprint. Here’s what it means to partner with the Mayfield team.
We are your partners for life, investing in your success beyond money.
Putting people first is our number one core value. We get that the only relationship that matters is human to human.
We go early and we go deep.
We embrace taking risk as you shape your idea into a company. We partner with pioneers who create trends vs imitators chasing existing trends.
We understand company building is not a straight line.
We are a team of founders backing founders. Our lived experience makes us truly empathetic to your journey and gives us the imagination to invest in the things we might not be able to see today. And as we’ve been through the company building marathon ourselves, we are not surprised by team changes, pivots, PMF and GTM experiments.
We know it takes a team to build a company.
We are one team and work with you from day zero through iconic. At the founding stage, we partner with angel and seed-stage investors who bring complementary expertise and networks.
We scale with you.
We help you evolve from founder to CEO and partner with proven coaches to guide your journey. Our Mayfield Value-Add Platform is designed to accelerate your path from idea to escape velocity. Our network of operators and advisors complements your team and brings expertise that matches your company stage.
Accelerating Your Path from Idea to Escape Velocity
We designed the Mayfield Value-Add Platform, or MVP, to cater to the unique needs of early-stage companies, providing support in three key areas of talent, marketing and business development. We follow a unique approach that is results-driven and delivered by a senior team of founder amplification leaders. MVP is an immersive process to help you jumpstart the journey from inception to becoming an iconic company. Over 50 of our portfolio companies have already leveraged the platform to accelerate their path from idea to escape velocity.
Our proven process includes:
- Initial Setup: Get started with curated partner recommendations for services ranging from legal, to office space, to outsourced HR, to fractional CFOs.
- Your Team, Beyond Founders: Your first few hires will define your culture, and impact your outlook, growth, and future referrals. Get trained on recruiting and building your early people infrastructure, including successfully making your first few foundational hires.
- Product-Market Discovery: Having a clear and concise value proposition will enable you to quickly bring a product to market that customers need. Work with our team to meet domain experts who will assist you with finding early product-market fit.
- Story-Market Fit: Before you’re ready for launch, you need to define your vision, mission, and positioning, including developing a strong POV. Story-Market Fit is our end-to-end process to articulate a memorable narrative that takes you from stealth to debut.
- Early Customer Access: Armed with a clear narrative and customer focus, meet early leads who can potentially sign on as design partners or customers.
- Follow-on Investment: After proving out your product thesis with early lighthouse customers, get warm introductions to potential follow-on investors in our network.
To learn more about the MVP program, reach out to our team.