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Greg Butterfield discusses how his newest venture, SageCreek Partners, will help emerging companies succeed.

Silicon Slopes: You’ve been busy since you left Symantec in mid 2008. What prompted you to start a new business?

Greg Butterfield: Having been directly involved in technology companies ranging from start-ups to one of the world’s largest software firms, I realized that the fun and the challenge of helping technology companies succeed is something I and the other partners at SageCreek Partners enjoy. In talking to several of my counterparts, we realized that rather than start a product company, we could work together synergistically to provide “mentor capital” to many other technology companies. It’s actually very energizing—and whereas we were once wholly consumed by our responsibilities for a single company, we now have the chance to use the lessons we’ve learned to help a number of other companies succeed.

Silicon Slopes:What exactly is “Mentor Capital”?

Greg Butterfield: The concept and term of Mentor Capital has been floated around in various contexts for years. But in a nutshell, we’re defining a new category of business assistance that instead of investing money in other companies, provides the strategy guidance, the executive mentoring, and even the connections to help emerging companies succeed.

Whereas the term has been used in the past to describe executive mentoring as a value-add along with capital investment, we’re unique in that we’re providing the collective strategy coaching for all of the C-level functions as needed to meet a particular company’s needs.

SCP is compensated by a combination of a cash retainer plus equity, with the terms depending on how much support is needed in any particular company’s case. With our combined backgrounds, we’re able to look at a company and identify that the critical need is funding, for example, or setting up a compensation plan, or finding that next powerful sales VP hire. We can help with any of those elements, or provide combinations of support to meet all of those needs, generally for no more than the compensation package for a single C-level hire.

Silicon Slopes: What geographic areas are you serving? Is SageCreek working primarily for Utah companies?

Greg Butterfield:We have strong representations in the U.S., EMEA and most recently, Latin America. You can see the whole list of our partners and managing directors on our website at www.sagecreekpartners.com/about.php. These are all individuals who’ve led multiple technology companies from launch to leadership to exit. We’ve established a presence in EMEA and Latin America and we have plans to expand within the Asia Pacific as well. We have current customers in Australia, India and Europe as well as North America.

Silicon Slopes:  How many partners do you have and who are they?

Greg Butterfield: In addition to myself, SCP includes Dwain Kinghorn, Steve Erickson, Tracy Tolbert and Mark Bonham.

Silicon Slopes: We all know about your track record with Altiris and Symantec. But what about SageCreek Partners? What have you accomplished there, and what size companies are you typically working with now?

Greg Butterfield: We’ve actually established a success record with 6-8 companies already, ranging from small start-ups like LiveLoop Technologies, out of Burbank, California, to some significant established ventures such as Venafi and Move Networks and even larger companies (one of the most significant of which we’ll be announcing within the next 1-2 weeks).

You can look at our website at www.sagecreekpartners.com to get more specific information on the companies we’re representing and what we’ve accomplished for them. This was actually the reason we were purposely quiet for our first six or so months – we felt we could help the market best understand what mentor capital is about and what it can accomplish when we had a few concrete examples to share. Now we’re there.

Silicon Slopes:  Who within a company typically engages with SCP? Is it the CEO? Or is it the investors that bring you in?

Greg Butterfield: Actually, some of both. It’s quite typical for investor groups to bring us in and recommend engagements with the companies they’re invested in, or that they’re considering making investment in. It’s good for them, because even in the cases where VCs offer mentoring as a value-add, they don’t have the level of comprehensive background and synergy we can provide to the entire C-level team or the ability to make a larger time commitment.

Sometimes companies bring us in directly, as an affordable resource that can help prepare them for funding or even help them find the funding. Unlike the investor or board discussion that a CEO may dread having, we can work with the CEO and the C-level team as an ally to help those other discussions succeed.

Silicon Slopes:  Do you serve on the board of your client companies?

Greg Butterfield: In some cases, I or other of the SageCreek Partners may also serve on the company’s board. AxisPointe, Venafi and Move Networks are a few of those examples. In those cases, those are two levels of involvement and discussion we’re having with those companies, although a board position isn’t a mandatory part of the SageCreek relationship, and those two decisions are not directly connected.

Silicon Slopes:  What are some of your early achievements?

Greg Butterfield: Overall, we’re striving to improve the statistics of business success. (Currently 50 percent of start up and growth companies fail.) Of our early client base of eight companies, not one company has failed, and most have achieved successes that are directly linked to our help. 

In early partnerships, SageCreek has helped clients prepare for and achieve funding in less than six months, even during the recession, make key hires, and identify important trends and take action in response.

Silicon Slopes: What do you foresee for the future?

Greg Butterfield: Taken to its ultimate conclusion, we would like to drive the model of mentor capital to a level that changes the face of how technology companies launch and operate, and that improves the returns and the measurable statistics of how well technology companies can expect to succeed.