Sequoia Capital invests between $1M-$10M in startups addressing the energy, financial services, healthcare services, internet, mobile, outsourcing services and technology markets. The most successful venture stage companies embody the elements of a market leading company. The first element is clarity of purpose, when Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack at Cisco Systems stated “we network networks” or when Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google described how they wanted to “make the world’s information available in one click” it was immediately apparent that these individuals had a clear sense of the direction they wanted to head. Most of these founders were developing products they wanted to use themselves. Only later did they find out that a lot of other people in the world had the same need.
