David George

So what do you do to beat these people?

I think you would love to have some story that's like sensational in the moment where we did something crazy.

The reality of the growth stage business is we win deals based on years of relationship building.

We recently did a deal where the founder, we had worked the founder so hard that he called us and he was like, hey, I'm ready to do this.

I'll just talk to you.

And I'm like, oh, wow.

OK, fruits of my labor.

Two years of this.

This is good.

And then at that point, it's one of the best companies in the market.

And the dynamic that we are faced with is, OK, this is awesome.

I got a clean look.

I know for sure if he was going to market, he would get a higher price than what he just told me.

But can I bear the price?

So that's often the exercise that we have to go through as growth investors is what do we know differently about the product or the market or what are our expectations that will allow us to do it that maybe aren't as obvious?

What are you doing in those two years that earned you that right?

Maybe that's where the extreme measures are.

helping them as if we were already investors in their company.

So helping them with candidates, helping them with customers, spending quality time and showing that we understand their business.

Often that's the biggest thing.