For context: I have worked with Delian for about 18 months now as an investor in our company. He did not lead our round, but offered to and then was willing to participate as a following investor (still 25% of the round) when we asked him to. Delian's greatest strength is his brutal honesty and the fact that he does not pull punches. When we weren't growing fast enough, he told us. When he saw weaknesses in our business or how we were approaching growth, he told us. Without this direct feedback, and as a first time founder, I likely would not have realized these errors until much later. Meanwhile, our lead investor, while brilliant, was too nice to call out these issues directly and would have taken much longer to say what we needed to hear. This style is, of course, not for everyone. If you don't like hearing your weakest parts called out, then you won't enjoy working with Delian. But if you prefer to identify weaknesses as soon as possible and bring them into the light so that you can fix them rapidly, Delian is great for that. It also helps that he is younger and easier to talk to as a peer / equal instead of being a "big wig" in Silicon Valley that you are afraid to level with and share what is really on your mind. While his direct experience in startup operations may be relatively limited, his experience as a "failed" founder still translates and he has done a great job absorbing knowledge from Keith and the dozens of companies he has worked with in his short career.

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