Tribe Ventures · Operating Partner
Eric Tribe
You built something good.
Now it has to break through.
You bought the AI and no one uses it. You built the product and it won't scale. I'm the operator who helps you close that gap, in it with you.
Ex-Flashfood CRO, 4 → 2,000+ stores · McKinsey LEAP & BCG venture builder
Professional Background
Recent work
Honda · A Fortune 15 telecom
For the ones carrying the weight
Building something real is a lonely, hard thing. Your investors judge from the outside. Your team is often doing this for the first time. The weight of getting it right sits on you, and mostly you carry it alone. You shouldn't have to.
I've sat in that seat, and I've done the work of taking something to real scale. When I'm in, I'm all the way in.
Why it matters now
If it stays stuck
The window closes. The budget gets written off. A competitor scales the thing you saw first. The team that believed in it burns out and drifts. Potential does not wait.
If it breaks through
The product finds its market and starts to compound. The AI changes how the work actually gets done. The bet you fought for becomes a real business, and you are the one who got it there. Not alone.
Questions I get asked
Each one began as a real question from a leader I work with. The answer became the work.
The 30-Point AI Vendor Test
“My meetings go well. So why isn't the deal moving?”
A read on buyer readiness: the scorecard the buyer runs on you, in six gates. Built to be run, not just read.
The Operating Rhythm
“I never trained at a place like McKinsey. How do you operate at that level?”
An ex-consultant's daily, weekly, and monthly operating system, adapted from the McKinsey playbook.
A bad number is not a decision.
“Half our strategic bets are underperforming. Which do we cut, fund, or double down on?”
Underperformance can't tell you whether to cut, fund, or double down. Only a pre-committed gate can.
AI can do the work. It can't own it.
“AI writes half our code now. Do we still need the senior people?”
As AI eats execution, the scarce thing isn't producing the work. It's owning the call, and being the name on the result.
Working through a version of your own?
What's on your mind?Recent engagements
The operator record · Flashfood, 2019–2022
How we work together
Four ways to partner. One discipline.
Whether you arrive with a sharp question or a mandate bigger than any one project, the work runs on the same discipline. Where you start depends on where you are.
Where to start
Not sure which fits? Tell me what's on your mind, and if I'm not the right fit, I'll point you to who is.
The discipline behind every engagement
Get to the real question, pressure-test the path, make it real, build or buy, and drive it through to results.
Start the conversation
What's top of your mind?
The hardest part of most big moves is naming the real question. Send me a question, a decision, or a challenge you're working through. Some become a conversation, some the next brief, and I read and reply to every one. A lower-stakes first step than booking a call.
A note on calls: I sometimes use an AI notetaker to capture action items. I always ask first, and you can opt out anytime, before or during the call. See the Privacy Policy.