The 7 Tips to Setting Yourself Apart During the Venture and Growth Stages with Atomico Irina Haivas, Partner @ Atomico Hillary Ball, Principal @ Atomico

1. Irina Haivas
Partner
Atomico
@irinahaivas
Hillary Ball
Principal
Atomico
@hillarywball
Tips to Stand Out at the
Venture and Growth Stages

2. Setting the scene: simplified framework of
what investors look for at each stage

3. ● Identify your addressable market
and your beachhead / initial focus
Scale of the opportunity
Venture Growth
● Build on proof points to
demonstrate market expansion
potential
Total Available Market
whole market
Serviceable Addressable
Market
target market segment
Serviceable Obtainable
Market
realistic market share
TAM
SAM
SOM
Original
market
Product
expansion
Biz Model
expansion
Geo
expansion
Addressable
Market
Expansion
Early Evangelists
first users

4. ● Identify the ‘secret sauce’ of your
product, and your unique ‘assets’
Product
Venture Growth
● Validating and building on the
‘secret sauce’ and translating it into
usage & engagement
User insights
Customer insights
Founder market insights
Insights
Product and roadmap
sequencing
Engagement and value

5. ● Identify the right indicators to prove
PMF, and the bar for these
Product-market-fit
Venture Growth
● Higher bar and focus on usage
translating into value
Number of
paying
customer
Usage
Community
traction
User
feedback
Elements
of PMF
Retention
Value

6. Repeatable playbooks that
can scale with your team
Sales channels across
inbounds, outbounds,
indirect distribution, etc.
● Identify early elements of GTM
strategy
Go-to-market fit
Venture Growth
● Identified sales channels and
repeatable sales playbooks
Early user identification Target distribution
ICPs
Users
Budget holders
Sales channels and
playbooks
Top-down
Bottom up

7. ● Identify the source of competitive
advantage
Competitive advantage
Venture Growth
● Proof points on the competitive
advantage
🪓
Execution
Category
creation
First Mover
Data
Tech
Brand
🚂
👩
💻
💻
👑
📦

8. ● Founder: unique insights (into the
market, product, customer...) 🕵🕵♀️
and early signs of talent magnet 🧲
● Deliberately build your culture and
D&I early on - very difficult to course
correct later 👩🧲💼👨🧲💼🧲🧲💼👩🧲💼
Founders & team
Venture Growth
● Founder: proof points on execution
ability and talent magnet 🧲
● Build an organisational structure &
culture that scales 🧲

9. ● Invest in building a compelling narrative for your company
○ All pieces that we outlined don’t necessarily need to be perfectly in place
○ Include in your narrative the gaps & areas to work on, and how you plan to
tackle them
● Align mission, culture and vision across all your stakeholders
And importantly… Own your narrative

10. THANK YOU!
Q&A