Karen Page

A few weeks back, I watched Maggie Hott, GTM leader at OpenAI, confidently navigate her first board meeting at Unify. Having worked with her through Emergence Capital's Operator in Residence (OIR) program, seeing her immediately contribute valuable insights made me think about how most board members receive virtually no training for this critical role. At Emergence, we've built our firm around developing board excellence. We grow all our partners from within and have established a culture of mentorship focused on board service. Junior investors aren't thrown into the deep end—we pair them with senior GPs to observe effective board dynamics firsthand. My initial experience was at DroneDeploy alongside my partner Kevin Spain, where I got great mentorship before taking on independent board responsibilities. We extend this methodology to our OIR program, where operators learn how to be effective board members. Based on my experience mentoring directors, here are the fundamental principles I share with first-timers for how board members can best support founders: 1. Reframe the purpose: Problem-solving, not reporting If your board meeting is primarily reporting, you're wasting your management team's time. Information sharing should happen asynchronously, with board members engaging with materials before the meeting. This enables the live session to leverage collective intelligence on critical challenges. This rarely happens because many directors overextend themselves across too many boards—another reason we maintain a disciplined investment pace. 2. Master the Socratic approach The most valuable contribution often comes through thoughtful questions rather than declarative statements. Your objective is to enhance the decision-making capability of management. I enter each meeting with 1-3 specific areas where I know I can add value, focusing questions on these topics. 3. Follow-through separates professionals from amateurs Diligently document your commitments, establish clear action items, and execute them. It's crazy how just doing this proactively makes a board member stand out. 4. Understand your unique contribution to the board ecosystem A high-functioning board resembles a great basketball team—you need complementary skills, not redundant ones. In every meeting, I stay conscious of my distinct value relative to others in the room, whether that's SaaS expertise, AI knowledge, or a particular relationship dynamic with the CEO. I calibrate my role based on needs—sometimes assertively addressing areas where others have less experience, other times asking probing questions where fellow members have deeper expertise. -- To my knowledge, Emergence is the only VC firm with a formalized program dedicated to board excellence. It's an investment that yields returns where they matter most—in bending the odds of success for our founders. Founders, I'm curious: What board member behaviors have you found most valuable?

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Founder Fellowship applications are open at South Park Commons and due Feb 2nd. We support founders in -1 to 0. How early is that? Just look at the numbers. Fellowship companies so far were: >99% pre-revenue (there was 1) 85% pre-product (nothing built) 59% pre-idea (not sure what to build) We mean it about -1 to 0. The Founder Fellowship is the only program that invests this early with the kind of terms we offer: $400k for 7% and $600k in the next round. For overwhelmingly pre-revenue/product/idea founders. This is possible when you specialize in -1 to 0. Or in SPC's case, define it. We've spent nearly 10 years developing the -1 to 0 philosophy because we firmly believe it's when your company actually starts. Not with an idea, but when ambition takes hold. -1 to 0 requires patient capital. The Fellowship isn't a sprint to demo day. The right idea can take time. We spend a median of >7 months with teams before they raise their Seed and continue to partner long after. We're on your timeline, not ours. First idea doesn't work? No problem. We're used to it. You still have access to the SPC community, offices, programming, and staff. So on to the next, bigger, better idea. Our whole structure gives you the time and support to discard good for GREAT. The size of each fellowship is also key. We average 2 companies per member of the investing team. Every partner will work with every company. I will work with every company. We love O(N^2) connectivity. Why do we want people to take more time? So they can take more risk and build the kinds of companies that excite us. More technical risk, more market risk. It’s the only path that makes sense at venture scale. Sector is irrelevant. Scale of ambition is what matters. Recent fellowships had novel foundation model architectures, automated manufacturing, AI gaming, humanoid robotics, agentic drones, and software for everything from law enforcement to construction to AI advertising. We built the SPC Founder Fellowship to support you at the earliest stage, when it matters most. 💰 $1M in funding 🤝 Bespoke support, small cohort, open timeline  �� SPC community membership, offices & programming Don't miss the deadline!

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Excited to announce our investment in Alta Resource Technologies alongside Leonardo Banchik (Voyager Ventures) with participation from Orion Resource Partners, Overture Ventures, and WovenEarth Ventures. Rare earths are critical in products from magnets to ceramics and it's important for the US to develop its own supply chain. While the US has some of the best rare earth resources, separating them has historically proven expensive and environmentally unfriendly. Alta through it's computationally designed and optimized proteins allows the US to bring back rare earth production with a cleaner, lower capex, and lower opex solution - and that's just the beginning. Congrats to Nathan Ratledge and the entire Alta team. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gbGnAJn3

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John Chambers’ ability to anticipate change and act with conviction continues to set the standard for visionary leadership. In his recent The Wall Street Journal interview with Marc Vartabedian, he shared a clear view of today’s venture landscape, one shaped by both disruption and opportunity. At Uniphore, we share John’s perspective that AI is the defining technology of our time, driving transformation across industries and fundamentally reshaping how businesses operate and succeed. Business AI sits at the top of the sphere of this transformative impact, shaping how we work, how societies function, how economies grow, and how businesses are built. To win in Business AI, it’s not just about predicting the future; it’s about having the conviction to move toward it with purpose. #BusinessAI https://shorturl.at/nDARz

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Where does consumer VC fit in Seattle’s tech-heavy landscape? On this week’s Sound Investments, I talk with Jason Stoffer, Partner at Maveron, one of the few funds in the Pacific Northwest focused exclusively on consumer. We cover: 🔹 Jason’s path into venture capital 🔹 How Maveron spots breakout consumer brands 🔹 The role of AI in shaping the next wave of consumer opportunities 🔹 Trends in edtech, wellness, and retail If you’re curious about where the next consumer breakthroughs will come from - or how a fund like Maveron thrives in a city dominated by enterprise and cloud - this one’s for you. 🎧 Listen here: https://pod.fo/e/319e2a #VentureCapital #ConsumerTech #Innovation #Seattle #Startups

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