From VC to Operator: 3 lessons from my first year at Toddle
What changed in me, and around me, when I stepped inside the engine room.
A year ago, when I joined Toddle, I said (only half in jest) - "This might be the first time I’ve been in the trenches."
I had worked at McKinsey. I had worked at Sequoia. Both were incredible places to learn, and I loved the work. They taught me how to think clearly, how to push hard, how to hold a high bar. But I was one step removed from the ground. I was advising more than building.
Toddle, naturally, was different. I came in as an entrepreneur-in-residence, working closely with CEO Deepanshu and COO Misbah. My seniors from the IITs, six years removed - and folks I’d worked with closely at Sequoia as part of our Series A investment. I wanted to learn how companies are built. What I learned was how they are held together.
Here are three lessons I’ll carry with me.
1. It’s all about the people
In many high-performance environments, the focus is on how good you can be on your own. That’s what I was trained in. Be fast. Be sharp. Be right.
But inside a company, that’s not really enough.
Organisations are made of people. And people move when they feel seen, understood, and supported. This became real when I started working with the SDR team.
When I joined, the team was doing 70 or 80 demos a quarter. It didn’t have much structure. The energy was flat.
I came in ready to fix that. And I moved too fast. The intent was noble, but I didn’t yet understand the emotional temperature of the room. In those early weeks, I stepped on a few toes. I unlearned the instinct to push, and learned instead how to tune in.
Once that clicked, everything changed.
We took time to understand each person. Some were driven by achievement. Some needed emotional anchoring. Some needed space from me, and a different kind of support. So we adjusted. We created a culture of trust, with no-holds-barred weekly Friday learning sessions. Slowly but steadily, the team started to move together. Today, the same team of 3 SDRs delivers nearly 200 demos a quarter. Not bad for 9 months together.
That same care showed up in how we ran the Toddle Advisory Board Conference in Amsterdam last month. We invited nearly 50 school leaders from around the world. It could have been just another event. But we wanted it to feel like something else.
We proactively planned for flight fatigue, with timely car pickups to ease the journey. We made sure rooms were ready, no matter what time someone landed. We designed unique experiences that felt intentional, not generic. We paid attention to food, to pacing, to quiet. We created a vibe.
The message we wanted to send was simple: Toddle cares. In tune with the company motto, “Do the small things right.”
And it’s not just a message. It’s the heart of everything. Whether you’re leading a team or serving a customer, it’s always about the people.
2. Systems scale
If people are the heart, systems are the bones.
One of the biggest reasons we’ve grown from 70-80 demos to nearly 200 this quarter is because we built the right systems - and then got out of the way.
The most important change was in SDR incentives. We scrapped the old model. No earning caps, no tiers. Just a clean, open structure that rewards you for the value you create. Inbound leads earned one amount. Revival leads earned more. Outbound leads earned the most.
It’s simple. It’s fair. And it works.
You could feel the shift the moment it landed. People had space to perform. The energy changed. And the numbers started rising.
We also moved outbound (and other mass emailing) to RevOps. Earlier, SDRs ran their own sequences. It worked - but not well. By handing it to a team built for process, we gave SDRs their time back and brought in more consistency.
Now they focus on what actually moves deals forward - calls, WhatsApp, LinkedIn. The high-leverage, human things.
And behind the scenes, we’ve started building quiet systems to support us as we grow. Like AI agents.
The first one we’re working on supports Account Executives. After a sales call, it drafts the follow-up email and keeps it in their inbox. If the client replies, it suggests a response. If they don’t, it writes a gentle nudge. It holds the thread, so the person doesn’t have to. And it ensures no customer or prospect is left hanging.
The same idea could support SDRs and school success teams - anyone working with care and cadence. It’s not automation for its own sake. It’s about giving people their minds back, by taking the tedium away. So they can focus on the work that matters. The work they enjoy. The human stuff.
We’re still early. But the foundation is in. Invisible systems in the background. Scaffolding that grows with the company.
3. It takes a village
The longer I stayed at Toddle, the more I began to see the company not as a set of teams, but as a living system.
A strong product doesn’t happen in isolation. Sales depends on support. Marketing depends on design. Content, engineering, ops - each one plays a role. And when it works, it feels like music.
Each team is like an instrument. Some loud, some quiet. Each one’s needed. But the magic only happens when they’re played in the right balance, under the right rhythm, in sync with the same beat.
It takes a village, as they say. And it takes a maestro to hold that rhythm together.
This year, I saw the symphony more clearly. And I started wondering - what if the next level of growth isn’t just about making each function stronger, but helping them learn from each other?
The IB talks about trans-disciplinary learning. I think the same holds true inside organisations.
What happens when marketing listens to sales calls? When sales tells content what customers are really asking? When support shares what users are finding hard - and that helps shape our message?
What if we stopped working in silos and started weaving a tighter fabric?
That’s the experiment I want to run next.
Closing
This year changed how I think about work. But more than that, it changed something in me.
These thoughts, these experiments, these systems - they didn’t just shape the team. They shaped me too.
I feel more empathetic now. More open. More in tune with people and how they move. And, perhaps because of it, more in tune with myself.
It’s been a year, and it still feels new. But I feel more steady now. More in step.
The music is just beginning to play.
.