List Your Principles, Then Live Them

David Rogier, MasterClass
In conversation with: Ravi Belani, Stanford University

MasterClass founder and CEO David Rogier stresses the importance of establishing clear principles for your venture. This can be particularly crucial, he finds, when it comes to choosing investors, and shares a story of turning down an attractive VC funding offer because of a values mismatch. Rogier also suggests that founders undertake careful back-channel references for potential funders, and particularly seek out references from founders whose companies struggled rather than thrived.