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Mark Fernandes began his career as part of the founding team of a display company, followed by product roles at Seagate and Cisco. After his MBA, he was a Wall Street research analyst covering the software sector at Robertson Stephens and Merrill Lynch. He joined Sierra Ventures in 2002 and focuses primarily on software.
Some of his prior investments include Sourcefire (IPO; M&A – Cisco $2.7B) and portfolio companies sold to leading tech companies like Microsoft, Cisco, VMWare, Palo Alto Networks, Telstra, and more.
Mark holds a BS from Mangalore University (India), an MS from UC Berkeley, and an MBA from Harvard University.
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Insights from Mark
You've usually led the seed or the Series A. What are you looking for in a founder?
A few things. First, somebody who understands the problem. I'm not concerned about whether they're a first-time entrepreneur. Marty was a first-time entrepreneur. What matters is a real grasp of the problem and some unique insight into it.
Second, intellectual curiosity. That one is essential. They don't need to be academic, but when we can talk about a whole range of things and I see that spark, it tells me a lot.
Third is something I learned from Amazon: the two-page or six-page document mindset. Plenty of entrepreneurs present really well. The question is whether they can articulate the problem in a document and be clear about what they're bringing to the table.
What advice do you have for founders?
Focus on inputs, not outputs – Too often we spend valuable time at board meetings or management reviews focused on the results instead of the decisions that were made weeks, months, or years ago which influenced them.
If you had to recommend one book to an entrepreneur what would it be?
Start with Why by Simon Sinek. Starting out my career as an engineer, I was so focused on the “How” and just did what my managers told me to do. As a product manager, I graduated to the “What” and focused on building the right mousetrap without much context. It was only after business school when I spent time as a Wall Street Research analyst that the importance of “Why” dawned on me. Why do some companies succeed? Why do the best founders hire like they do? Why do certain business models work best? For entrepreneurs, it’s critical to do your customer discovery, research the competitive landscape, and have a child-like curiosity about the reasons for tackling your market / problem.
