Sarah Schaaf

Sarah Schaaf​

General Partner

    LinkedIn

I’ve worn various hats during my career – attorney, founder, CEO, advisor, investor, and executive. Above all else, I love building companies and being surrounded by founders and creative risk-takers. And never, ever taking myself too seriously.

I began my career as an attorney and left Google’s legal department to become an entrepreneur. I ultimately founded three venture-backed startups, the third of which was Headnote, a legal payments company. Under my leadership, Headnote was acquired twice by two separate private equity firms over a 5 year period, Alpine Investors and Francisco Partners respectively, for a combined exit value of over $400M. Over the past ten years, I’ve also advised and invested in dozens of start-ups across a variety of stages and sectors.

Notably, I have a special advantage when it comes to Enjoy The Work – while serving as CEO of Headnote, I was an ETW client. The ETW partners were my most trusted advisors, from seed stage through exit. I am the first former client to join the firm as a General Partner, and it is my ultimate pleasure to serve our startup founders on their journeys just as the firm did for me not long ago.

When I’m not helping founders, you can find me in San Francisco trying new restaurants, adventuring with my husband and kids on the Marin County coastline, and planning family trips to faraway places.