This is a conversation about advising between Aleks Shamis, Managing Partner @ s16vc and a 3x product founder, and Miki Kuusi, Head of International at DoorDash and CEO at Wolt. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Follow Aleks on Twitter for more insights: @aleks_shamis

Aleks: At s16vc, we are big proponents of advising. Advisors have changed the trajectory of our companies; now we promote it as a core value proposition of the fund. However, we’ve noticed that many founders haven’t heard of this concept before. While there are many high-level materials online, one can find few personal stories or deep dives with founders who leveraged advising for the growth of their businesses.

You also haven’t had formal advisors at Wolt, but nevertheless, you rely on the knowledge and experience of your investors. Do you manage to get these investor/advisors to spend time with you consistently, or is your communication more spontaneous, ad hoc?

Miki: It depends on the person and what we’re working on. My thinking has been that all mission-critical tasks must be performed in-house. As a company, we have always used very little contracting for our product and technology. We have only used contractors for tasks that are more tactical and are outside of the core product and technology that we built. For example, if we need to build a world-class UX for a consumer application, we hire people to do that within Wolt instead of having UX advisors.

We seek advisors’ help when it doesn’t make sense to hire someone, but that person can help accelerate the learning of the Wolt employee doing that task and improve their performance. The main function of an advisor is to accelerate the learning process of people already in the company.

“The main function of an advisor is to accelerate the learning process of people already in the company”.

Aleks: If somebody’s building a company now and don’t have the money to hire an expert for every big challenge, should they consider hiring advisors?

Miki: I believe that it’s crucial to bring value-adding investors into the company as you build it. We’ve done this from the start, adding private individuals to each round based on the challenges we needed to tackle next.

For example, in our latest rounds, we added angel investors such as Mike Curtis, the former VP of Engineering at Airbnb, during its most important scaling phase. When we reached a point where our VP of Engineering, Niilo, needed guidance on scaling engineering operations, I reached out to our investors, including ICONIQ, who introduced us to Mike. Mike became Niilo’s mentor and later invested in our company. He helped us scale the engineering side of the organization.

Another example is when we brought on Jonathan Turner, founder of Qatalyst, during our C or D round to help us with strategic planning on a global level, including industry trends, consolidation, and more. We also added Lukasz Gadowski, founder of Delivery Hero, when we expanded to Germany, as he has extensive knowledge of German consumer businesses. He guided us on how to get Germany right and brought an interesting perspective on the industry.

Our Series A was led by EQT Ventures, with Kees Koolen as the lead partner. Koolen, who served as the CEO of Booking.com during its growth from 20 to 5,000 employees, was instrumental in forming our company’s strategy and philosophy, as well as guiding our expansion and growth. Laurel Bowden, who led our Series B, was an early investor in Just Eat and sat on its board until its IPO. She provided essential advice and support to us as a growth investor advisor.

During our Series D or E funding round, we brought Diego Piacentini who ran Amazon International for 16–17 years, because we were thinking about how we could go from one category for restaurants to multi-category, how we should think about the long-term strategy for global expansion?

Greg Stanger, CFO of Expedia during their IPO, joined our board through ICONIQ, a good fit for us as we were moving towards a public route.

When selecting investors, it’s important to be strategic. Look for people with relevant expertise for your next stage, whether they are private individuals or venture funds.

Aleks: That reminds me of Jack Ma’s famous quote, when he says, when you are twenty, pick the boss, not the company that you want to work for and learn from.

Miki: Exactly. It’s about people. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of chasing brands, but brands don’t build companies, people do. Having investors is all about the people in the room, whether it’s a one-on-one meeting or a board meeting. Their past experience and know-how contribute to the conversation about how to build something successful. That’s the most important thing.

Aleks: I had a similar experience in my early twenties while building my second company. I raised $700,000 from twenty-something angels, including partners of major banks and law firms. Whenever I needed their help, they always assisted, but I felt guilty for taking up their time. Besides, the problem with ad-hoc advising is that people lack context. I’m curious about how you use your angel investors, how much do you tap into their help?