Every business is defined by its customers — but it’s not always obvious who an organization’s customers really are. When it comes to VC firms, investors have historically and unsurprisingly viewed their limited partners (LPs) — the source of VCs’ funding — as their customers.
Why VCs Should Use Net Promoter Scores with Founders
Four steps to help investors solicit clear feedback and build better relationships with entrepreneurs.
September 09, 2024
Boris Zhitkov/Getty Images
Summary.
Entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to provide innovative solutions to urgent challenges that require concentrated, collaborative effort. But to scale these solutions, founders need more than just capital — they need strong, effective support from their investors. As a result, in recent years, it’s become increasingly common for VCs to claim that they view startup founders as their customers. But what does it take for investors to move beyond platitudes and actually serve the entrepreneurs they fund as effectively as traditional companies serve their customers? Decades of research have shown that NPS, or Net Promoter Score, is a powerful methodology for soliciting and acting on customer feedback in traditional business environments. To truly serve entrepreneurs as customers, VCs should adopt the NPS methodology for their own organizations by following four steps: 1) Solicit feedback, 2) analyze the responses you get, 3) prioritize and implement improvement areas, and 4) communicate the changes back.