USV Network Guiding Principles

We expose frameworks and ideas, not prescriptive solutions: As VCs and not operators, we know we don’t have all the answers. We seek to expose a wide variety of options to our companies, but never the only way to do something.
We support each company differently: Our companies each benefit from our network in different ways, so we offer versatility in our interactions. Our programming is designed to support high leverage points within our network based on the most common questions. This is not a “one size fits all” model.
We offer opt-in, rather than opt-out participation: It is ultimately up to each company to decide which network activities, events, and communications are useful to them.
We work for our companies (not the other way around): The worst thing we can do is to distract our entrepreneurs and colleagues from building their businesses. We approach all requests for information, introductions, and time with sensitivity and avoid asking them to do more work on our behalf.
We offer safe spaces for sharing, then curate aggregate trends. The collective information assets that our network captures are powerful. We seek out ways to surface patterns through this data while still protecting the privacy of our network members. We encourage individuals to share, but will never disclose proprietary information about people or companies without permission.