Before becoming an investor, Dayakar Puskoor ran Motorola's paging business, started his own wireless email company for Palm devices (which he later sold to Good Technology), and then ran a $350 million hosting business at Microsoft—so his approach to venture capital comes from years of actually building and running companies, not just studying markets from the outside. That hands-on background shows up in how he invests today: he pushes founders to treat their first paying customer as their most important milestone, believes many startups need a real reset or reinvention as they grow rather than just scaling straight up, and personally helps make introductions to executives at large companies to drive real business deals rather than just offering advice from the sidelines.