Jeff Todd
Jeff Todd is a vice president on Sorenson’s Growth team. He joined Sorenson in 2021 and focuses on finding, evaluating, and supporting exceptional enterprise software companies. He believes that technology is fundamentally reshaping our lives and has the power to make the world a better place for everyone.
Prior to joining Sorenson, Jeff focused on investing in special situations for technology companies at Vector Capital where he was a board observer for companies in the cloud CPQ and live event ticketing industries.
Q&A
Q: What do you do when you're not working?
When I’m not working you may find me skiing, playing soccer, or watching college football. I also enjoy volunteering with the student startup incubator at BYU and working on Sourcehive, a social venture focused on helping individuals in Ghana earn an income by performing data entry for US-based businesses.
Q: What's your favorite sports team?
Georgia Bulldogs
Q: How do you wind down after a long day?
Taking a long walk or reading a good book.
Q: What advice would you give to founders?
Love the game of life. The most successful people I have observed are those that love the challenges that life (and building a startup) brings. The opportunity to build strong startups, families, friendships, habits, or any other aspect of life is an incredible privilege and those that are able to remember that tend to be successful in all aspects of life.
Bio
Prior to investing at Vector, Jeff was a senior analyst with Citigroup where he advised some of the world’s largest technology companies in the software, internet, semiconductor, and tech distribution industries. Jeff graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in finance. In addition to his studies, Jeff co-founded Sourcehive, a social venture focused on helping individuals in Ghana earn an income by performing data entry for US-based businesses.
“One valuable lesson I’ve learned is that it is easy to underestimate the size of a market when you are creating a new market. When we invested in LiveView, the outdoor security software market was very small but a major pain point for many organizations, particularly large retailers. The ensuing rapid growth at scale for LiveView after our investment is a strong testament to the importance of not underestimating an opportunity just because there isn’t a well-established market for that solution today.”
Jeff comes from a large extended family of engineers and is the first of his family to be part of the startup ecosystem. He has found that the combination of innovation, rapid iteration, and meritocracy in startups is incredibly compelling and he loves that there is no one-size-fits-all founder profile. Jeff believes the best founders have the rare combination of knowing an “earned secret” that will solve an urgent pain point for customers and possessing the ability to recruit and retain top-tier talent to aggressively pursue solving that pain point.
“I really enjoy helping teams figure out how to bring their magical product to market as quickly, efficiently, and broadly as possible while considering the inherent tradeoffs they must make in scaling efficiently.”
Jeff loves investing in enterprise software because of the rapid pace at which the industry moves. The enterprise software market is one of the most dynamic industries in the world and Jeff enjoys staying on top of all that is happening to find the next great company that will fundamentally alter how we all live our lives.
Blog
The portfolio companies listed above represent a subset of all investments made by Sorenson. It should not be assumed that future portfolio investments will be profitable or equal to the success of the companies in this list. A complete list of Sorenson investments is available upon request.
