Builder, Inventor, or Operator? The 0-1-2 Framework for Evaluating Founders| Andre Charoo (Maple VC)

Andre Charoo is Founding Partner of Maple VC, a first-check venture firm, and an executive fellow at Harvard Business School. Before venture, he was employee number 25 at Uber and an early employee at Hired.com, and built or joined four seed-stage startups between 2009 and 2016. Amrit Rao, General Partner at Village Global, sits down with Andre to unpack the framework he's developed for evaluating founders: builders, inventors, and operators, and how he uses it to make sense of teams when there's little else to underwrite at the earliest stages. Andre traces the framework back to studying Uber's early team and the founders of Clay, walking through how he identifies which archetype he's actually talking to, why the most enduring companies almost always attract all three types eventually, and why founders with illegible, non-obvious backgrounds are often the ones VCs miss. He shares his personal test for conviction, deliberately seeking out smart people who disagree with a founder's vision, and breaks down real examples from his portfolio, including Clay, Stadium Live, and Inference.ai. The conversation closes with Andre's reflections on bringing new partners Jane Lee and John Edgar into Maple, the firm's newly codified investment philosophy, and the personal and professional moments where he felt truly seen at a time he least expected it. Timestamps: [00:00] Cold open [00:52] Welcome to the Village Global Podcast [02:09] Andre's journey from Canada to Silicon Valley [03:18] Landing in San Francisco in 2007, and the day Lehman collapsed [06:01] Joining early-stage startups, including Uber and Hired.com [08:31] The builders, inventors, and operators framework [13:11] Can a founder be more than one archetype? [16:06] Meeting Clay's founders 10 years ago [19:29] Why builders are illegible to early-stage capital [30:53] Assessing a founder's "right to win" [36:07] The difference between a vision and a dream [40:26] Why Andre knew he was a "builder" for Maple [43:29] Fund 4: expanding beyond backing Canadian founders [45:00] Breakout wins: Stadium Live and Inference.ai [49:39] Why Andre seeks out investors who disagree with him [55:04] The "hybrid" founders that break the framework [56:41] Bringing on partners Jane Lee and John Edgar [1:05:31] How the three partners communicate and work together [1:08:42] Mapping Jane and John onto the builder/inventor/operator framework [1:10:54] Advice for founders on when to bring in an operator [1:19:07] The moments Andre felt most seen, personally and professionally [1:26:17] Closing thoughts