Victoria Treyger
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I love the challenge that comes when someone says something is going to be too hard or not possible. I get really excited to break through for my companies.
As a General Partner at Felicis, Victoria is focused on the reinvention of financial services, infrastructure, security, enterprise, and health tech. She led Felicis investments in Dovetail, SentiLink, Alloy, Maze, Midi, and others. Victoria's angel investment and advising track record includes Roadie (acquired by UPS), Faire, Betterment, Galileo Health. Previously, Victoria served as Chief Revenue Officer of Kabbage (acquired by American Express) and CMO at Ring Central. At Kabbage Victoria was responsible for building the company's revenue and go-to-market teams, resulting in nearly $300 million in revenue after six years of 100%+ annual growth. Victoria’s deep operating experience includes sales, marketing, partnership, and product management functions. Victoria served as CMO of RingCentral and General Manager at Amazon. Victoria holds a double degree with distinction in Business and International Studies from the University of Washington and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
I love the challenge that comes when someone says something is going to be too hard or not possible. I get really excited to break through for my companies.
What effect did your upbringing and first job have on your mindset?
I came to the US as an immigrant and learned grit from a young age. I paid for part of my college bills by working in sales. Even though I was in school full-time, I consistently beat all sales targets because I didn’t know what normal was—I just worked hard. This hustle continued when I was a CMO and CRO; I always told my teams to block out the noise and go for the moon. We set tough goals, aimed high, and hit them most of the time. I know what it takes to run a go-to-market strategy at scale. Across all company stages and business models, success comes down to founder and team drive and relentless focus. That’s why I always appreciate meeting people who have had to walk through walls because I had to do that too.
How have you worked with founders directly?
I believe three critical underappreciated functions are channel/distribution partnerships, sales and revenue operations, and PR. I love to work with founders on getting one or more of these off the ground. I also work closely with founders on their sales motions. One set of founders wanted to develop a PLG motion to lead into an enterprise sales motion, so I worked on that framework with them. I’ve also helped them think through what questions to ask in interviewing potential leaders, incentive structures for salespeople, and how to set leading KPIs. Partnerships are another area where I’ve helped companies directly unlock massive benefits. Several times I have helped broker a partnership for a portfolio company which allowed the company to reach many customers at scale and build a distribution advantage.
If you could teach one lesson about marketing or revenue to all founders, what would it be?
Founder-led sales are crucial during the early stages. It enables founders to collaborate closely with their customers to find the right product-market fit, fine-tune the product, and establish repeatable processes. The relationship between the founder and their customers is vital, as it provides valuable feedback about the product. That's why, especially during the seed stage through series A, it's advantageous for the founder to continue to lead sales. So don’t hire your CRO too early!
Who is someone you admire and why?
My parents, because they came to the US with nothing from Ukraine and built a life from scratch. My dad is an engineer, a literal bridge builder. Within five days of arriving in the states, he cold-called seven firms and detailed his experience and three engineering degrees. He got five job offers right away. Now he runs the bridge practice at his firm and has won awards for his work around the globe.
What’s a lesson you want to impart to your child?
I want to teach my daughter about grit. I try not to let her just give up, whether it’s soccer, basketball, voice, dance, etc. I am trying to teach her that with commitment and perseverance, she can achieve anything she wants.
