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We’re thrilled to welcome Dan Nguyen-Huu to the Decibel team as our newest Partner. Dan was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 for venture capital in 2019 and was previously an investor at Battery Ventures where he helped lead investments in enterprise technology. Widely recognized in our entrepreneurial community for putting founders first, Dan will help us expand our reach and push the conventional boundaries of early stage investing. In his new role at Decibel, he will work closely with founders who are building next-generation B2B and infrastructure software companies.
I was born and raised in a small town right outside of Munich, Germany. My parents are first-generation immigrants from Vietnam who, like many during that time, fled a war-torn country to build a better life. Being a son to immigrant parents undoubtedly shaped who I am today. I have a deep appreciation for hard work, building something from nothing, and learning to make the most out of it along the way.
When you live in between two cultures as different as German and Vietnamese, you learn quickly to embrace and respect the traditions of both worlds. The experience inspired me to look abroad for opportunities and to have the courage to move to California for high school on my own. When I was growing up in Germany, the U.S. always seemed like the country of endless opportunity and after spending my formative high school and college years in the states, I quickly realized that I wanted to build my life here.
I was fortunate to grow up in and around technology. My father worked with computers and some of my fondest memories were tinkering with electronics and building desktop computers from the motherboard up, which my friends and I would test with bootlegged OS software. We built and sold a few desktop computers to our classmates which made for good pocket money. I guess you could say that was my first foray into entrepreneurship.
My true appreciation for startups began when I joined the VMware corporate development team and began to work with founders on a more regular basis as part of investment and acquisition processes. Most founders have an infectious energy when they talk about their company, and it was hard not to feel their passion. The decision to exit a company in an acquisition is always an emotional one, and it was not uncommon to hear these entrepreneurs reminisce about the early founding days in their basement or garage. Observing this entrepreneurial spirit led me to want to work with founders as early as possible.
Because my father was a founder, I observed entrepreneurship from a young age. He left one of his corporate software jobs and co-founded a company. It is something I deeply respect about his career and fortunately he still runs it today. When he founded his company years back, it was rather unusual to go the entrepreneurial route in Germany, and I remember that he and his co-founders, as is common with many startups, initially struggled and needed a lot of guidance. Professional venture capital was not as widely available as it is today and I have always wondered how much it could have helped him and his team to have had a strong investment partner from the beginning.
I found myself very fortunate to have had the chance to learn venture capital from some of the very best at Battery Ventures, and have always wanted to help our founders with all of the challenges that must be overcome to build a successful company. Creating a startup is hard. In the role of being a VC you have an opportunity and an obligation to founders to help them defy the odds. I have as much to learn from founders as anyone, and am doing everything I can to show up for them to do my small part when they need us most.
When I first met all of the founders at Decibel, we immediately aligned on a common vision: the venture industry, similar to all industries, is going through its own transformation. This pivotal point in the industry has created an opportunity to rethink what venture firms could do for the next generation of founders if you started with a clean sheet of paper. I think there are always unique advantages to being a fast and flexible startup in an industry that is going through dynamic change.
Decibel’s vision from day one was to try to bring the best of traditional venture capital with the best of what Cisco’s entrepreneurial network could provide to founders. We want to be able to support founders from the very beginning with a unique service that could help them solve their greatest challenge. For many software companies, the single greatest challenge is always getting access to notable early adopters. We thought Cisco’s global reach and scale could really help founders connect with ideal early adopters, and have been incredibly grateful to the team at Cisco for their long term support. There still is a lot of work to be done, but I’m excited to jump in and am already having a blast building something new.
