Sarah Smith

Founder and Managing Partner

2022 - Current

Sarah Smith Fund is a differentiated pre-seed/seed fund built on a thesis that early feedback for founder CEOs gives them a significant advantage to go the distance and create top performing companies. I write $150 - $500K+ collaborative checks into marketplaces, fintech, future of work, dev tools, and more. In return for my allocation, founders get access to a comprehensive CEO 360 review process and people operations office hours. Current investments include: Pika, Casca, Bandana, TakeoffAI, Costa Security, Soulside, Flitch, Scope Zero, Pinnacle, Momentum, Grupago, SellOut, and Concept Art.

Teaching Team

2023

ENGR 245: Lean Launchpad

Angel Investor and Limited Partner

2013

Personal investments include Airtable, Sorare, Pocus, OnDeck, Winnie, Biobot, Truehold, Arc, HeyJane, and more.

Senior Advisor

2022

Active board member and serving portfolio founders.

Partner

2018 - 2022

-Led investments out of BCV's $1B fund into future of work, fintech, marketplaces, dev tools, and more primarily at pre-seed and seed. -Current announced investments include Lime, Rightfoot, Mathison, Specto (acq: Sentry), Archive, Truehold, Arc, Disclo, and Perksy. -Board Member of Lime and Mathison; Board Observer of Archive. Previously Board Member of AllyO (acq: HireVue). -Led Seed Fund Manager program, backing 50+ emerging managers and micro-VCs focused on collaborative pre-seed and seed investments.

Board Member

2020

Board Observer

2021

Board Member

2020 - 2024

Partner

2015 - 2018

Seed stage investment firm at http://www.graphventures.com/ Our partnership backs a variety of companies at Seed and Series A stage across diverse industries. Sourced and led 20+ seed investments including: BetterUp, LunchClub, Winnie, Knoetic (fka Twine), Strive (acquired), Heartbeat, Stel, Kurbo (acquired), Sapling (acquired), Simpl, ELSA, OhmniLabs and more.

Advisory Director

2017 - 2018

VP, Advertising Sales and Operations

2016 - 2017

VP, Recruiting, HR, & User Operations

2012 - 2016

- Member of executive team responsible for HR, recruiting, and operations scaling company from 40 to 160+ employees in 3.5 years - Managed and grew recruiting team to ~5 members, streamlining candidate evaluation process, implementing Lever ATS, determining prioritization of roles, overseeing deployment of time and budget to achieve annual hiring targets - Directly recruited and closed all levels of positions from entry level to executives in all functions (engineering, data, design, product management, sales, operations, G&A) totaling ~65 hires in four years including Parlio team acquisition - Oversaw headcount and compensation planning including development and roll-out of equity refresher program resulting in one of the most competitive, pro-employee programs in market - Hired HR team and developed processes and programs including onboarding, employee engagement survey, performance review process, benefits and broker selection, employee handbook, HRIS, retention tracking, coaching, and training for managers - Organized diversity and inclusion initiatives including unconscious bias trainings with Paradigm consulting, Grace Hopper conference, Women Who Code, hosting women's events - Grew operations team to ~7 members, assisting ops leaders in building user support queues and quality workflows including moderation at scale - Pushed longer-term strategy to contract with various vendor partners resulting in efficient global coverage maintaining critical product standards

Director of SMB Growth - North America

2011 - 2012

- Directly managed SMB Growth North America team including 20+ team members across Menlo Park and Austin offices; represented global SMB teams (EMEA, APAC, Latam) at HQ - Led strategic shift from reactive support channel to proactive data-driven sales team designing test and control service treatments to drive sustainable revenue growth and customer satisfaction - Surpassed all quarterly targets building team revenue to over $1bn ARR, 33% greater customer satisfaction, 9% churn reduction - Proposed and led first Global SMB Growth Summit to bring together 80+ global team members and XFN partners - Spearheaded transfer of Ad Review workflow into Risk Operations resulting in greater efficiency and capacity

Director of Online Operations and Head of Office - Austin

2010 - 2012

- Coordinated office opening, recruiting, and training to scale site to 185+ employees in less than two years with solid and dotted line management of all teams - Oversaw daily operations and culture of Austin office including User Operations, Risk & Payments, Mid-Market Sales, SMB Growth, Ad Operations, Finance, Recruiting, IT, Training, and Hardware Engineering teams - Represented office and company with external print/broadcast press and speaking events at national conferences - Helped build a culture and management team resulting in site scoring above company average in employee engagement survey on 78% of questions; scored significantly above on 50% of questions

Head of Online Sales Operations - Account Management

2009 - 2010

- Launched North America AM team and support strategy for mid-market advertisers acquired by Inside Sales - Grew team to 10 reps managing ~35% of company revenue including clients Zynga, Groupon, Playfish - Developed specs for early infrastructure projects including CRM, online invoicing, and reporting working with XFN teams of engineering, product, legal, finance, marketing, and biz ops through implementation - Promoted Facebook Marketplace Ads adoption as external speaker at conferences and gathered market feedback to influence ad product development

Manager of Online Operations

2008 - 2009

- Coordinated opening of Dublin office including landing team launch, tax implications, and communications - Built operational and risk models for future credits business accurately predicting 3 year headcount needs