Alberta Chapter President on The Founder's Role

Emmet McGonagle

Jul 26, 2022

Mark Mitchell, Alberta chapter president at Valhalla Private Capital, principal and director at Red Thread Ventures and managing partner at Weave VC, has elaborated on the significant role of founders in the investability of a company.


Discussing “how to invest in early stage companies in Western Canada” with
Tyler Chisholm, host and founder of Collisions YYC on episode 168 of the Current & Critical podcast, Mark claimed that a company is just as important as the person behind it.


He explained: “Who are the people that have started this thing? What are their backgrounds? Do they have experienced being entrepreneurs before? Do they have customers with it? What's the traction like? How fast can they ramp up? Is there logic behind their scaling model? These initial checks are all based on people.”


“When investing at early stages you're always very biased towards the people,” Mark continued, “the offering is important because people have to pay for it, but if the people are the wrong people, it's not getting anywhere."


Likewise, Mark credited the success of a company to the “balance” of its core team - specifically a “strong, technical co-founder”.


“That shouldn't be an issue,” Mark elaborated, claiming that “if we ever saw a company like that we would probably give them some feedback, and hopefully they're there super early to find that complimentary co-founder to strengthen the offering and make sure that they're not getting too deep into the weeds”.


Grant Lawrence, president of Valhalla Angels Kelowna and co-president of Valhalla Angels Vancouver, has also discussed which
personality traits angel investors are looking for in early stage company founders.


On a previous episode of the Current & Critical podcast,
Randy Stewart Thompson – chairman and CEO of Valhalla Private Capital, managing director of Old Kent Road Financial and co-owner of Peterborough United Football Club – outlined how not to become Silicon Valley.


Do you have a question about angel investing? Get in touch with Valhalla Private Capital via our
contact page.

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