In 2012, I met a young man named Dan Berger at a Starbucks in Bethesda. He was passionate about this stupid idea he called Social Tables. It was a wacky idea… I didn’t have as much faith in it as Dan did, but just like there was something about Mary… there was something about Dan.
About three months later, I invested in Social Tables and joined the board of Directors. Two years later, Dan had Bessemer Ventures knocking on his door with an impressive valuation.
I had a heated conversation with Dan: why do that? You could sell your company in the next 8 months and be wealthy. You could sell your company in the next year for close to that valuation, and I would do pretty well on that investment. If you take that money, you’ll have to shoot for a $100 million or more exit, and you’d push back that exit 6 years or so. Do you know the risk of all the things that could happen in six years? Competitors, market downturns, technology disruption…
That same guy who I invested in pretty much said, damn, the torpedos full speed ahead. Once again, I wasn’t quite behind that wacky idea, but… 6 years later… he did it.
Congratulations Dan Berger and the entire Social Tables team, on what Andy Medici of the Washington Business Journal reports is a $100 million exit. You beat the odds and did something special! Congratulations, Cvent, you just picked up a winner!!!
