Startup Fundraising Office Hours Free Monthly Livestream for Entrepreneurs [Replay]
MasterMinds Startup Fundraising Video Office Hours help early stage company founders raise money for their startups.
The fun, friendly live video Q&A sessions answer financing and strategy questions from entrepreneurs from all over the world with FREE expert startup advice.
Startup Founder Discussion Questions
This month Startup Council CEO Scott Fox took questions from startup founders live on camera and via chat, including:
Ekapob (DC) about when an early stage, prototype level venture should begin talking to angel investors
Darius (Atlanta) about how venture investors look at high profit potential vs lack of revenue traction
Leslie (Pasadena) about how to test market with different customer segments to find the best product/market fit
Emmanuel (Grand Rapids MI) about how many active users it takes for a social app platform to attract interest from venture capital firms
And many more...
To watch this month’s Startup Office Hours replay click here.
And see a complete TRANSCRIPT BELOW.
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MasterMinds Startup Fundraising Office Hours are a free community service of the Startup Council.
MasterMinds Startup Fundraising Office Hours TRANSCRIPT for April 6, 2021:
00:00
startup fundraising office hours i'm
00:02
your host scott fox
00:03
we're here again to talk about
00:05
everybody's favorite topic which is
00:06
making money raising money building
00:08
startups well at least it's my favorite
00:10
topic so thanks for joining me
00:11
i'm here today to talk about um well a
00:14
lot of the benefits of my experience
00:15
i've been doing this for 20 plus years
00:17
i'm a serial internet entrepreneur
00:19
and i'm hoping to share with you some of
00:20
that experience
00:22
this is an addition to the monthly
00:23
masterminds workshops that i run every
00:25
month
00:25
which you can see sorry over there which
00:28
are worldwide um
00:30
audience participation nights where we
00:32
get entrepreneurs uh
00:33
startup founders investors uh service
00:36
providers everybody together
00:37
uh to talk about problems in a group
00:39
setting but today
00:40
this is office hours so it's really just
00:42
me here in my office turning on the
00:43
camera
00:44
to talk to you about questions that
00:45
you've sent in so we have several folks
00:47
who've written in some interesting
00:48
questions we're going to be talking
00:49
about raising money
00:51
how to navigate the difficulties of
00:53
working with investors
00:54
angel investors venture capital
00:56
investors the metrics that you need to
00:58
find
00:58
and build in your company so that people
01:00
are interested in investing
01:01
and of course alternatives and
01:04
strategies to survive
01:06
and build a business even without
01:07
raising money because of course raising
01:08
money isn't necessarily
01:10
the best way to build a business there's
01:13
lots of ways to build a business and in
01:14
fact venture capital is a pretty new
01:15
thing so it's not
01:16
quite the only option as it is presented
01:19
in the media
01:20
so um so this is fun and interactive
01:23
we've got chat rooms going you should be
01:25
seeing this hopefully live on
01:27
youtube linkedin live and somewhere else
01:30
facebook yes
01:31
it should be out on a bunch of places
01:33
but if you have uh questions or comments
01:35
as we talk
01:36
please go ahead and type in on those
01:37
respective platforms and it should show
01:39
up
01:40
uh here in our um in our chat room here
01:43
which will pop out once people start
01:45
using it so go ahead and say hello
01:46
um there we go there's a couple coming
01:48
in so we'll get back to that in a minute
01:50
there's my friend sandy hey sandy we
01:53
also have at least three folks in the
01:54
waiting room leslie ichabod and darius
01:57
who have questions for you
01:58
but first let me just tell you who i am
01:59
i'm the one with the microphone today
02:01
i'm scott fox i'm the founder and ceo of
02:04
the startup council which is a
02:05
organization dedicated to helping early
02:07
stage entrepreneurs
02:08
why well um i've spent 20 plus years
02:12
raising money building companies i'm
02:14
benefiting from the internet revolution
02:16
and i've benefited from a lot of things
02:18
in my life including being a white male
02:20
with a
02:21
excellent education lots of advantages
02:24
and for a long time i've thought that
02:25
the benefits of the silicon valley uh
02:28
gold rush
02:28
should be shared with people all over
02:30
the world and from different walks of
02:32
life
02:33
and that's why for example behind me
02:35
here over here
02:36
these are books i've written that's just
02:38
three books actually but they're in
02:39
multiple languages all over the world
02:41
those are specifically written for new
02:43
entrepreneurs trying to help people
02:45
learn how to get onto the information
02:47
superhighway and make money
02:48
like we do in silicon valley so if
02:50
that's of interest to you of course you
02:51
can go to amazon
02:53
in turkish or polish or japanese or
02:55
russian or vietnamese or
02:56
of course english and i'll be happy to
02:59
help you that way but we're here today
03:00
live to talk about
03:02
building businesses based on my 20 plus
03:04
years of uh working in new york and
03:06
silicon valley in los angeles and london
03:08
and um if you want to know more about me
03:11
it's enough about me you can check
03:12
there's a wikipedia page one of my
03:14
readers put up you can look up scott fox
03:16
there and learn more about me
03:17
so the real point here is that i'm here
03:19
to help entrepreneurs this is a
03:20
volunteer effort
03:21
and uh thanks everybody who's watching i
03:23
please um i do this
03:24
uh for free trying to help if you could
03:26
do me a favor by sharing this
03:28
commenting liking inviting your friends
03:31
all that sort of stuff
03:32
that way we can get the message out and
03:33
help as many people as possible because
03:34
that's my theory
03:36
is that entrepreneurs are the ones that
03:38
drive
03:39
success and progress in the world these
03:40
days um we can't leave it up to the
03:42
politicians
03:43
clearly it's time for those of us who
03:46
are ambitious creative people
03:47
to make a difference in our own ways
03:50
we're not all politicians we're not all
03:52
anything but everyone that listens to
03:54
these streams and reads my books and
03:56
comes to my workshops we're all
03:58
ambitious optimistic people and we're
04:00
trying to get things done
04:01
so if that sounds like you welcome i'm
04:02
glad you're here all right so um
04:04
let's get on with uh some questions a
04:06
couple quick caveats um i do have a law
04:08
degree and a financial background this
04:10
is not legal or financial advice this is
04:12
for entertainment only
04:14
okay so please verify with your own
04:16
financial advisors
04:17
and don't risk a bunch of money based on
04:19
anything that you heard on the internet
04:21
hopefully you're smart enough to know
04:22
that already and we're going to talk
04:24
today about um
04:26
questions from our folks uh and there's
04:28
darius is with us as well so
04:30
great um i've got your question darius
04:32
no worries um
04:34
let me just see if i've got uh
04:37
okay good so i think we're ready to go
04:39
that's all the preamble all right so as
04:42
i said we're going to talk about
04:44
questions that folks like you have about
04:47
real businesses this is not theory this
04:48
is not business school stuff
04:50
and we're going to work together to have
04:53
a good time here
04:54
and let's get going so all right so
04:56
first up i think let me look at the
04:58
questions here who we've got first
04:59
um all right my friend ekebob i think is
05:02
going to be first
05:03
let's just say hello let's see who we
05:04
got here we've got uh
05:06
there's darius and there's ikebob
05:09
and there's leslie so hello to all you
05:12
guys
05:13
can you hear me everything working yes
05:15
sir
05:16
yes sir yeah okay good all right sorry
05:18
this is these new systems they change
05:19
the interfaces all the time i need to
05:21
make sure they're working properly so
05:22
good to see each of you and we're gonna
05:24
get to uh some discussion here
05:26
shortly in each case and
05:30
uh hold on let me just all right so i
05:32
think we're gonna start with
05:34
ichabob like i said so darius we'll be
05:35
back to you and leslie as well
05:37
so iqbal my friend why don't you um i'm
05:40
saying my friend i met him once or twice
05:43
in these workshops that we hold um so if
05:45
uh
05:46
maybe um i guess he had enough time
05:48
there to come here and ask another
05:50
question so that's a good sign
05:51
so iqbal why don't you i've got it here
05:53
but why don't you introduce us
05:54
uh to uh the question that you had
05:57
yeah thank you uh first of all thank you
05:59
so much scott um you know
06:00
again i really uh uh
06:03
got a lot of value out of the first uh
06:06
masterminds i attended and this that was
06:07
amazing
06:08
um thank you so much for everything you
06:09
do yeah thank you
06:11
um so my name is echopop and uh i'm
06:13
working on a platform called friend
06:15
tested
06:16
which allows users to save uh weeks of
06:18
time spent researching um
06:20
every year by allowing them to connect
06:21
create share and request
06:23
product reviews from the people they
06:24
trust the most their friends and family
06:27
um and we're currently at the prototype
06:30
idea
06:30
validation stage and i was kind of
06:33
wondering when
06:34
it would be a good time to start
06:35
fundraising uh one of the biggest issues
06:37
that my co-founder and i have
06:39
is that um you know we both have
06:40
full-time jobs we've got families
06:42
um and so we can only work on this you
06:44
know nights weekends and it's taking a
06:45
lot
06:46
a lot longer to develop than if we could
06:48
dedicate ourselves full-time
06:50
um do angel investors even invest in
06:52
startups at this stage
06:53
um with like part-time founders hoping
06:56
to be full-time founders
06:58
yeah well okay so that that is a
07:00
question on a lot of people's minds and
07:01
that's why we picked your question to
07:03
start
07:06
can you get money from third parties if
07:08
you don't really have a business yet
07:10
and honestly the answer these days is no
07:14
the world has changed um when i started
07:16
doing this 20
07:17
25 years ago the internet was new enough
07:20
that it was just pie in the sky and so
07:23
exciting um
07:24
and honestly it was such a green field
07:25
that the growth you know you could do
07:27
something and the growth would take off
07:28
so dramatically and everybody was so new
07:30
and excited that it you know led to
07:31
huge valuations lots of investment and
07:33
of course the um
07:35
the bubble that burst back in 2001. um
07:38
today
07:39
there's a lot more businesses it's well
07:41
accepted to build businesses you know
07:42
that are digital and there's lots of
07:44
venture funds
07:45
it's all become institutionalized
07:47
basically and what that's meant is that
07:49
for early stage entrepreneurs uh
07:51
somewhat unfortunately it means that
07:54
the investors have gotten more choosy
07:57
right so
07:58
they can really pick and choose and i'll
08:00
put myself in this category i'm part of
08:02
tech coast angels and i'm the chairman
08:03
of the stanford angels and entrepreneurs
08:06
in orange county california and i'm
08:08
involved in so i'm an lp in some
08:10
different
08:11
venture funds um and you know we we just
08:14
don't need to invest in ideas anymore we
08:16
can wait
08:16
until there's a business and
08:20
speaking as an entrepreneur myself it's
08:22
very disappointing because
08:24
when you know the idea stage is the
08:26
excitement stage right and you can see
08:27
all the potential
08:29
um but investors can pick and choose
08:31
right it's like in real estate is it a
08:33
buyer's market or a seller's market
08:34
right now it's a buyer's market because
08:36
there's just so many people with good
08:38
ideas
08:38
and it's not the ideas that are the hard
08:40
part anymore it's the execution and the
08:42
implementation
08:43
so the one uh caveat i would give to
08:45
that well there's
08:46
there's a thousand i could write another
08:47
book but um is that
08:50
investors is a really broad term right
08:52
it's like saying doctor well do you mean
08:54
you know a pediatrician or do you mean a
08:56
brain surgeon or do you mean you know a
08:58
gynecologist or
08:59
you know a podiatrist there's all
09:01
different specialties right so there's
09:02
different specialties and investors as
09:04
well
09:04
so if you're saying you know is google
09:07
ventures
09:08
interested probably not there is last i
09:10
heard anyway they're doing mostly b and
09:12
c
09:12
stage stuff meaning larger businesses
09:15
you know the demonstrated revenue stuff
09:17
just as it might be hard to get a loan
09:19
for an early stage business because you
09:20
don't have revenue to demonstrate a
09:22
credit history
09:23
and repayment capability but there's
09:25
other investors right
09:26
early stage angel investors may be
09:28
interested again
09:30
probably not if they're pros or semi-pro
09:32
angel investors
09:33
but there's also angel investors maybe
09:35
in your friends or family or one or two
09:37
degrees removed
09:39
especially if you look in a specific
09:40
industry so in your case you've got
09:42
social networks or
09:44
recommendation engines reviews like
09:47
maybe there are people
09:49
in that space that would have some
09:51
experience and
09:53
see what you're doing more than a cold
09:56
call
09:56
to a venture firm or some angel investor
09:59
you didn't know
10:00
right so this is my recommendation to
10:02
you and everybody
10:03
if you want to find early stage money
10:05
find a connection
10:07
in terms of that person's demonstrated
10:10
interest or expertise
10:11
or a personal relationship and ideally
10:13
all three right if you can find like a
10:15
third cousin
10:16
who made some money doing something in
10:18
your space
10:19
previously then that's the perfect
10:22
person to ask to lunch
10:24
uh and build a relationship with is that
10:27
helpful
10:28
um yeah no perfect thank you so much
10:30
scott i wasn't even sure kind of where
10:32
to start but
10:32
that's okay well that's that's a good
10:34
place to start and you know the the key
10:36
with all this stuff
10:37
for all of you is doing what ikebob's
10:39
doing is is
10:40
ask the question right because there are
10:43
some of us not a lot
10:44
but some of us out here who really do
10:46
want to help and we you know we have
10:47
other things we could be doing with our
10:48
time
10:49
and um it we do it because we want to
10:52
help and
10:53
we're trying to help right so if if if
10:55
you don't ask the question you're not
10:56
going to know
10:57
and the easiest way to get to the right
10:59
answers to ask someone rather than
11:01
reading 14
11:02
articles about it or or i see people do
11:04
this all the time they want to read
11:05
every book on the topic as if reading
11:07
books
11:08
was going to build you a company and i
11:09
write books so i'm kicking myself here
11:11
but
11:11
you know reading books isn't going to
11:12
build anything you got to get out there
11:14
and ask the questions
11:15
and do the work uh and and good job
11:18
i hope to see you at the next
11:19
masterminds workshop
11:21
yeah absolutely thank you so much scott
11:23
super okay so
11:25
like i said we've got a chat room uh
11:26
going in the uh
11:28
there's different uh places that i
11:30
mentioned so if you want to join us in
11:32
the chat
11:34
sandy and tech barbie and kim and
11:37
pm and uh some other folks that's moving
11:41
a little fast i can't keep up with them
11:42
all
11:43
um but say hello there it will show up
11:44
here on the screen if you want to join
11:46
the conversation literally physically
11:48
uh here on the screen we are here um
11:51
so next up we've got leslie leslie is
11:55
also a
11:56
friend from our workshops so leslie's
11:59
coming on camera here
12:00
there's leslie hey leslie so you want to
12:03
introduce people to your
12:05
issue there leslie and we'll see what we
12:06
can do to help you move it forward
12:11
oh looks like you're muted let's let's
12:12
try that again
12:14
yep muted there we go blowing going on
12:17
outside so
12:18
uh let me know if you can hear me sorry
12:21
i know you sound fine i don't hear
12:22
anything
12:22
well we'll see um so i'm leslie pound i
12:26
was in the artificial intelligence group
12:28
at sri
12:29
one of the first virtual assistants i am
12:31
doing something i wanted to do for a
12:33
while
12:34
now and i'm doing voice to animation
12:37
motion graphics
12:39
my company is called talk animate
12:42
um and what you do is you say something
12:44
and you see something move on screen
12:47
so our first market is a speech language
12:51
therapist
12:52
and i have a partner who lives somewhere
12:55
here
12:56
and he's been testing out the product
12:58
he's been using it with his kids
13:00
and their sponsor's been amazing i'm i'm
13:02
actually compared to other things that
13:03
i've done it's like wow awesome so we're
13:06
trying to tip
13:06
every step i know it's really it's
13:08
really interesting to see the kids are
13:10
such a fun odds
13:12
are as well and teachers are so my
13:15
question
13:16
is so when we look at the markets um
13:19
speech therapy is a natural one
13:21
encouraging kids speak by having to
13:24
engage with a little creature is very
13:28
compelling
13:29
um but also good actually
13:32
minimal changes it's good for elementary
13:34
culture okay it's good for english as a
13:36
second language
13:37
so my question is do we start doing
13:40
research into these other markets or do
13:41
we focus on one
13:43
and then try to conquer that and then go
13:44
to the next or do we
13:46
or do we kind of tried to do more than
13:48
one at once
13:50
that's fine yeah okay so um new market
13:53
new product
13:54
um or niche market i should say not
13:56
necessarily a new market but yeah new
13:57
ish right
13:58
it's a new product um so are you going
14:00
to tackle multiple markets at once or
14:02
concentrate on one
14:04
so there's no you you're smart you know
14:06
there's no
14:07
right answer here right that's why
14:08
you're asking so let's talk about it
14:10
um the
14:13
my instinct would be that you need to
14:16
talk to them all
14:18
but only long enough to figure out which
14:20
is the easy money
14:22
right or the easy growth because
14:25
thinking that this is a classic
14:27
entrepreneur mistake for everybody else
14:29
that's listening thinking you know what
14:30
the customer wants
14:32
now obviously you have to have some
14:33
confidence in that confidence in that to
14:35
begin with or you wouldn't have started
14:36
right
14:37
especially if you're from the industry
14:40
but especially if you have an
14:41
engineering background
14:42
no offense to all my good friends or
14:44
engineers um
14:45
you may not be tuned into things that
14:47
you know the customer wants if they're
14:49
more like in sales right or some other
14:51
diverse discipline right
14:52
and i've seen lots of engineers uh you
14:54
know get excited about features that
14:56
you know the customer didn't necessarily
14:58
want or designers who are more into the
14:59
design and the look of the thing than
15:01
the functionality right we all have our
15:02
blind spots
15:03
so that's why um the biggest mistake i
15:06
see honestly
15:07
i've been thinking about writing a blog
15:08
post about this or uh maybe even doing a
15:11
whole episode on it but
15:12
the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make
15:13
is not talking to the customers
15:15
you will learn more from talking to five
15:17
customers
15:18
or even one customer than you will from
15:21
listening to me
15:22
or other experts all day right because
15:24
they see things differently and you may
15:26
think you get it and you probably do
15:28
but there's you know that even if you
15:29
have like a 90 overlap
15:31
that 10 can totally change the business
15:34
so
15:35
getting out and talking to the customers
15:36
is what i would be doing you've got
15:38
multiple markets identified it sounds
15:40
like you're already like on the road
15:41
here you've made some really nice
15:42
progress
15:43
um and you know what the markets are but
15:46
how do you discriminate
15:47
talk to them right ask them and then the
15:50
rules that i run my business on
15:52
personally is
15:53
what can i do that will have the most
15:55
impact
15:56
in the shortest amount of time with the
15:58
least work
15:59
why i'm basically lazy right that's why
16:02
everybody uses software we're all lazy
16:04
right let's admit it
16:05
right so if you can figure out where the
16:07
sweet spot is
16:08
you talk to three four whatever it is
16:10
eight different markets right somebody's
16:12
gonna get more excited than the others
16:13
and it may not even be honestly it may
16:15
not even be here's some real world
16:17
may not even be because that market is
16:19
different but that person is personally
16:21
interested for whatever reason
16:23
right if you can just find the a good
16:25
partner that market may suddenly be the
16:27
best one because there's
16:28
somebody receptive who can be a champion
16:30
for you as opposed to you know some
16:32
other market which may technically on
16:33
paper
16:34
look better in terms of your projections
16:37
but
16:38
there's nobody that really that will
16:39
actually buy into it right
16:41
so there's that combination of like
16:43
personalities
16:44
and growth growth possibilities and then
16:47
of course revenue
16:48
so you have to balance all that in and
16:50
to me
16:51
that's a complicated and enough equation
16:53
that you're trying to decide without
16:54
enough data
16:55
right so the more data you have the
16:58
better decision you can make and
16:59
the place you're going to get that data
17:01
is not on google
17:02
it's talking to people how's that is
17:05
that helpful
17:06
that that's that's great i i like that
17:09
it resonates with me because i've
17:10
made mistakes in the past or i didn't do
17:13
enough people
17:14
so that that's perfect and i love um the
17:17
enthusiasm level too
17:19
not just judging the size of it but
17:21
because the go to market strategy has to
17:23
be
17:23
if you've got somebody who's really into
17:26
it
17:27
that can be a an opening point right
17:29
that's what you're saying
17:31
and later on perhaps once you're known
17:32
you can go to these other markets
17:34
but you can't substitute for enthusiasm
17:37
that's exactly right
17:38
the the buzzword if this is helpful to
17:39
folks that um people often use is land
17:42
and expand
17:43
so find your beachhead you know like a
17:47
battle you know like a normandy you take
17:49
to take the beach and then
17:51
gradually advance your way into the
17:52
countryside right or
17:54
um seth godin is a brilliant marketing
17:56
guy said something and i always mess it
17:58
up
17:58
like the king of your own island rather
18:01
than
18:01
than just mayor of a mid-sized city
18:05
right like something like that anyway
18:07
but like
18:08
go and own it right and then if you have
18:09
that not only do you get the confidence
18:12
but
18:12
honestly speaking as an entrepreneur you
18:14
have the cash flow right
18:16
because if you spread yourself too
18:17
thinly you got no you got no damn money
18:19
left right so what are you gonna do are
18:20
you gonna grow the business
18:22
you know on on potential potential
18:24
doesn't pay the rent
18:25
or or the team so yeah having partners
18:29
and this leads to a whole nother
18:30
discussion since today's topic is really
18:32
about fundraising
18:33
if you can find the other reason to do
18:35
this is if you can find partners that
18:36
are enthusiastic
18:37
they may actually help you pay your
18:38
bills because they could be first
18:40
customers
18:41
or even investors or both right there's
18:44
no reason that
18:44
people can't support you in lots of ways
18:47
and i
18:48
talk about that as being like a
18:49
scholarship right if you can find one
18:50
good customer
18:52
and they start paying you um or even
18:54
investing it's like a scholarship
18:56
to build the rest of your your product
18:57
team uh your product and team
18:59
out to grow so right so just a little
19:02
quick follow-up yeah um the temptation
19:05
always is is to
19:06
not close any doors but once you land
19:08
should you totally focus all your
19:10
marketing material
19:11
on that audience and not go like oh yes
19:13
we can also do this
19:15
you know which is always the temptation
19:16
right but
19:18
yeah yeah yeah that's a hard question
19:20
also no
19:21
particularly right answer but um
19:25
you're talking about feature creep and
19:27
scope creep a lot right which is
19:28
something this is again i'm not picking
19:30
on engineers it's just a fact
19:31
they want to build stuff so their answer
19:33
to growth is to
19:35
add more features where customers may be
19:37
overwhelmed by more features
19:39
they just like to three you had right
19:41
well i'm thinking about marketing
19:42
materials
19:43
specifically kind of addressing a wire
19:45
audience yeah
19:47
well uh i don't know yet you'd have to
19:49
give me more information i don't think
19:50
you do either right so um
19:52
again but the short answer would be ask
19:54
the customers right or
19:55
or even if they can't tell you look at
19:58
their reaction right
19:59
talk to a variety of them and test some
20:02
things you know the beta test is one of
20:03
the great gifts of the software industry
20:05
is teaching all of us to test
20:06
stuff we can test stuff in small doses
20:09
and see what the reaction is and adjust
20:10
and
20:11
anybody that's not doing that is missing
20:13
the opportunity some people still live
20:14
in this 20th century mindset of like
20:16
we're going to build this amazing thing
20:19
and then we're going to like
20:20
like a hollywood movie premiere we're
20:21
going to give it to the world and
20:22
everybody's going to be excited
20:24
it just doesn't work like that anymore
20:26
it's a it's a big mistake if you do that
20:28
so
20:28
the iterative process of engaging with
20:30
customers along the way uh even for
20:31
marketing materials is where i'd start
20:33
so
20:34
awesome all right nice to see you again
20:37
hope to see you at the next workshop
20:39
all right so that is our friend leslie
20:41
from pasadena california
20:43
let's see let's take a minute here and
20:45
look in the chat room so
20:47
hey if you're enjoying this please
20:48
invite your friends or click to like and
20:50
subscribe and all that
20:51
can anybody tell me actually if you're
20:53
on linkedin
20:54
this is the first time i got the
20:55
linkedin live going and i can't look
20:57
right now or maybe just email me or tell
20:59
me later i'll get distracted but
21:00
i'm this is should be on youtube and
21:02
linkedin and facebook at the same time
21:04
so if any of you are on any of those
21:06
platforms i'd love to hear about it
21:07
um because i can't tell as it's live
21:10
okay so let's see let me
21:12
and i saw some interesting things in the
21:13
chat room here give me a second to
21:14
scroll up and then we're going to get to
21:16
uh darius and emmanuel as well thanks
21:18
guys for waiting
21:20
um okay let me just grab some quick ones
21:22
here so
21:23
in the future uh folks in the chat room
21:25
if you have a question you'd like to
21:26
come on camera to really discuss
21:28
like i just did there with ikebob and
21:29
leslie please submit in advance
21:31
um and then you will come in as a form
21:34
to
21:35
to my office and we'll you know pick out
21:36
some of the best ones for coming on
21:38
camera and if you do then you get a free
21:40
ticket to our next masterminds workshop
21:42
so
21:42
that's kind of fun uh that's 10 or 20
21:44
it's not not the world but
21:46
it's not a new bmw but it's it's better
21:47
than nothing and be happy to have you at
21:49
our workshops
21:50
we always are looking for more people to
21:51
participate who ask good questions
21:53
so you're all invited and if you want to
21:55
be sure i answer your question
21:57
email it in in advance there's an rsvp
21:59
form in most of the promotions we do
22:01
okay but let me get back here um
22:04
okay so michael i see your question and
22:07
you're from linkedin i can see that in
22:09
your
22:09
excellent so this is working uh great
22:11
question about cutting through the
22:12
clutter that's a long one i can't do
22:14
right now
22:15
but we could do that at the next
22:17
workshop if you'd like
22:19
pm says is it safe to share your pitch
22:21
deck with investors who are not willing
22:22
to sign an nda
22:24
uh well okay i was gonna say absolutely
22:26
so there's two parts of this answer
22:28
one is no professional investors ever
22:30
sign ndas
22:31
and it will be embarrassing to you to
22:34
ask don't even ask
22:35
we don't do it i see dozens of
22:38
businesses every week and i could see
22:40
hundreds if i had the capacity right and
22:42
if you're talking to a venture firm
22:43
they're seeing hundreds maybe thousands
22:45
like
22:46
the danger of doing what i do is i hold
22:48
myself up and i just get flooded right
22:50
so no offense to any of you if i don't
22:52
answer you i just i
22:54
can't keep up okay so we don't sign ndas
22:58
because
22:58
you know it's we can't right this is our
23:01
business
23:02
so you should not ask except
23:06
if you don't know the investor and they
23:08
may be shady let's be honest there are
23:10
people out there pretending to be
23:11
legitimate investors and they're not
23:12
right they're just like there's people
23:14
pretending to be doctors and people
23:15
pretending to be auto mechanics or
23:17
whatever right
23:18
so um do your due diligence on somebody
23:20
don't just
23:22
spray and pray right sending out your
23:24
business plan and your wonderful ideas
23:26
to everybody
23:26
without checking on them right in fact
23:29
there's a whole
23:31
discussion to be had about maximizing
23:34
your impact as a
23:35
startup founder by investigating
23:39
and doing your appropriate due diligence
23:41
on the
23:42
um the firms you approach right don't
23:45
just send it to everybody because every
23:47
firm doesn't invest in every kind of
23:48
company right you need to investigate
23:50
what sector they invest in
23:52
what stage they invest in what the life
23:54
cycle is of their fund meaning how much
23:56
money they have left
23:58
you know who the people are in that fund
24:00
you'll get a much much higher hit rate
24:02
if you find the right woman at the right
24:05
fund at the right stage in their life
24:06
who has a background in your industry
24:08
of course that's going to work better
24:10
right and if you can find that
24:11
that person she's not going to she's not
24:14
going to sign an nda anyway
24:15
and you're probably not going to need to
24:16
ask her right if you're if your question
24:19
is based on approaching people you
24:20
really don't know and that you don't
24:22
trust
24:22
then honestly you're kind of doing it
24:24
wrong right you've got to know before
24:27
you send your stuff out that these
24:28
people are trustworthy
24:30
and then you also won't look like a
24:32
rookie uh by asking them to sign an nda
24:35
okay so there we go i hope that's
24:37
helpful too that was pm i think you were
24:38
here last time pm
24:40
nice to see you if so okay um
24:45
what approach bibi boff says what
24:47
approach when the startup has great
24:48
technology but not ready for
24:49
commercialization
24:50
and needs a few million dollars to go to
24:52
market in two years angels would not be
24:54
enough vcs want short return
24:56
and mvp exactly baby you i couldn't
24:59
i don't have an answer for that right
25:01
especially um this is especially true in
25:03
hardware or
25:04
physical products you need a lot of
25:06
capital to create the thing first
25:09
so of course nobody's going to invest
25:11
because these days everybody not only
25:12
wants it created they want it brought to
25:14
market and see revenues
25:15
there is not a good answer for that um
25:17
i'll be happy to explore
25:18
that more with you like it's a question
25:21
at one of our workshops or i run a forum
25:23
also the masterminds forum at
25:25
mastermindsforum.com i should put up
25:26
that
25:27
that caption um if you guys want to join
25:30
us in here
25:31
um you'll be welcome to discuss stuff
25:34
like that but there there's not a good
25:36
answer baby um it's a it's a more of a
25:38
strategic discussion about like how to
25:39
find the right people and so forth i'm
25:41
not trying to dissuade you it's just
25:43
it's it's hard so you know that would
25:46
need a longer
25:47
strat a longer discussion okay i saw
25:50
another one that i really wanted to hit
25:52
there from
25:54
tech barbie i can't see all the it's
25:56
slid away
25:57
okay so that's a note to myself okay the
26:00
chats don't i can't see them all they
26:02
slide off the screen anyway i think tech
26:03
barbie you asked
26:06
what to do when you don't have friends
26:08
and family who have any money
26:09
and this this is
26:12
the question right this is why i do what
26:15
i do
26:16
here because a lot of people don't have
26:20
any friends and family with any money i
26:21
certainly didn't i didn't know anybody
26:23
i mean what are you supposed to do right
26:25
people say
26:26
oh we'll just raise you know 50 grand
26:28
from your friends and your families like
26:30
well you know i'm the first one in my
26:32
family that went to college
26:33
right or you know i just came to this
26:35
country and you know i just taught
26:37
myself english i thought i was doing
26:38
pretty well right
26:39
i mean like what are you supposed to do
26:41
right because a lot of vcs
26:43
are are from fairly privileged
26:45
backgrounds or at least they've been at
26:47
it long enough that they forget what
26:48
it's like when you don't know anybody
26:49
that has
26:50
money right so um honestly that's why i
26:53
wrote my books because i got really
26:54
tired of hearing that discussion
26:56
and that that was some sort of solution
26:58
so um tech barbie and anybody else
27:00
that's listening
27:01
we need to be more inclusive about this
27:03
there are people that legitimately don't
27:04
know people
27:05
who have 50 grand lying around right so
27:07
what do you do
27:08
well there's not an easy answer and
27:11
i get excited about this issue because i
27:13
think it's a real flaw in our economy
27:15
um so i just the short answer is
27:19
you've just gotta you gotta work right
27:21
you gotta go out meet people
27:22
you gotta go to events uh virtually
27:25
these days or or on
27:26
uh you know face to face when you can um
27:29
it's better
27:29
the more specific the events are that
27:31
you can find you know don't just go to
27:32
small business stuff
27:34
if you're a sas software entrepreneur in
27:36
the b2b aerospace sector right then
27:38
find those people right and and you've
27:41
got to niche down
27:42
and find the people that might be
27:44
supportive of that or if you have
27:46
another angle to play
27:47
through you know your your town you live
27:49
in cincinnati
27:50
or you live in singapore and they have
27:52
an incubator you know
27:53
then you've got the local card to play
27:55
or you're a veteran or
27:57
a female or a uh latino or
28:00
whatever a basketball player right for
28:02
you know find the alumni association for
28:04
those people
28:05
and and make friends um there's no easy
28:07
answer of course
28:08
great thing that's happening in this
28:10
past year there's a lot more
28:11
funds dedicated to early stage
28:13
entrepreneurs trying to
28:15
build more on-ramps and reduce barriers
28:17
for for new entrepreneurs so you can
28:19
look up uh look
28:20
for those
28:24
and that's it right i mean it's it's not
28:25
easy so uh
28:27
i share your pain i have been there
28:28
personally and that's why i'm here
28:31
trying to help
28:31
so i hope that's helpful and if anybody
28:33
here actually here's a great point
28:34
if anybody in the chat room excuse me
28:37
has suggestions for tech barbie or for
28:39
each other
28:40
um help each other right that's that's
28:42
part of why i do this i'd like you all
28:43
to help each other
28:44
and it looks like uh uh lewis is all
28:47
right well you made a friend anyway
28:48
louis is helping her
28:49
or him i hope that's useful um
28:53
okay let me uh all right we gotta get on
28:55
to uh i'll get back to the chat room in
28:57
a minute here let's get on to um
28:59
let's see let's let's talk to who we got
29:00
in we've got uh
29:02
darius and emmanuel okay so darius was
29:05
here
29:05
uh next let's talk to uh okay here comes
29:09
darius there's hey darius nice to meet
29:12
you
29:13
hi there yeah you can hear me excellent
29:15
okay um
29:16
okay so cool do you want to walk through
29:18
your question or i have it here oh you
29:20
said you forgot it right
29:21
okay yeah i don't remember it at all
29:23
fair enough um so darius used the form
29:25
as i encourage all of you to do
29:27
so there's an rsvp form and you can send
29:29
in your questions in advance
29:31
and then like i said we can discuss it
29:33
and then also you get a ticket to my
29:34
next workshop which uh
29:36
for this month it's uh next wednesday
29:38
april 14th so if you're watching
29:40
april 14th at 5 o'clock pacific i'm in
29:43
california so
29:44
work on pacific time and be happy to see
29:46
any and all of you there
29:48
okay so darius's question is about
29:49
traction what factors are most important
29:52
to investors
29:53
uh looks like darius you're debating
29:55
between um a business has a lot of
29:57
potential
29:58
and its uniqueness and extreme profit
30:00
versus the proven traction
30:02
is that the right yes idea so okay yeah
30:05
the ideology behind the question was
30:09
do i want to do investors want to
30:13
would are they more willing to um invest
30:16
into companies that
30:17
have traction like you what you've been
30:20
saying the whole time
30:21
or a company that has first to market
30:24
potential that has no one else
30:26
in the market right yeah
30:29
and push forward inside of that market
30:32
being the first
30:33
similar to a airbnb type company
30:36
right or yeah
30:39
and another question would um
30:43
do investors fund mvps or would that be
30:47
something that i would have to fund on
30:48
my own
30:50
yeah i think you you've heard what i've
30:51
been saying it sounds like you're
30:52
listening
30:53
the answer in both cases is kind of no
30:56
which is which sucks totally sucks
31:00
um the world has changed
31:03
yeah um telling me to go out into the
31:06
ecosystem in which my uh company is
31:09
inside of and make friends in that area
31:11
to gain access to the people that will
31:13
actually have the money
31:14
in that area exactly my friend that's
31:19
yeah that's the only answer
31:20
unfortunately it's just not that easy
31:22
and you know to be honest i was raising
31:23
money during the first.com boom
31:26
it's never that easy you know the me you
31:27
know the media plays up everything right
31:30
so they love the story of everybody gets
31:31
rich and this is so easy don't be hard
31:33
on yourselves guys
31:34
during the first.com boom i was raising
31:36
money and having a hell of a time of it
31:38
almost bankrupted myself the company
31:40
failed by the way
31:41
um so i'm not perfect by any means um
31:44
and all the media was full of you know
31:45
oh it's so easy to raise money
31:47
everybody's getting rich blah blah and i
31:48
was out there every damn day with
31:50
you know trying to make take meetings
31:51
and meet people and
31:53
and i and i didn't make it basically um
31:56
that's a it's a fiction so don't beat
31:58
yourself up that you're somehow
32:00
missing the boat you know entirely of
32:02
course there's a few people
32:03
you know there's always the exception
32:04
proves the rule right there's a few
32:06
clowns who
32:07
have the right connect the right family
32:08
the right school the right idea at the
32:10
right time
32:11
and play golf with the right dude and
32:13
suddenly they get you know funded and
32:14
then that ends up in the paper and you
32:16
know and everybody feels jealous right
32:18
most of us work our butts off right and
32:20
it takes years so don't be too hard on
32:22
yourselves
32:22
um so um just on the specifics of your
32:26
point there darius the um
32:27
the uniqueness of the business and the
32:29
potential for extreme profit are
32:31
absolutely important it's not not
32:32
downplaying that at all
32:34
it's just that investors are pickier
32:36
these days
32:37
and if you look at it from the investors
32:39
point of view
32:40
we see lots of stuff and if we if
32:42
there's something for ex
32:43
with extreme profit potential that's
32:46
interesting but if it's totally unproven
32:49
there's another word for that and it's
32:50
called a lottery right
32:52
and i if i want to go buy a lottery
32:53
ticket i go buy lottery tickets right
32:55
but i don't have to do that i'll wait
32:57
until
32:58
you or the rest of our friends here you
33:00
know build a business with some traction
33:02
and or i already understand the business
33:04
and i can say oh i
33:05
i see what you're doing here because i'm
33:07
from that industry
33:08
you know and i get that this is really a
33:10
problem that will make money
33:11
you know you find those people and
33:13
that's when those two lines cross of
33:14
like potential plus
33:16
proven provenness that's not a word but
33:19
you know what i mean like demonstrations
33:21
um and that's when people start to start
33:23
nodding their heads
33:24
and and they'll ask you to lunch instead
33:26
of you asking them at lunch and then
33:27
that's with the money
33:29
yeah investors don't gamble and
33:32
they like proven they like something
33:34
proven nicely said you said
33:36
i took 100 words to say that as i said
33:39
um yeah you know that's the big thing i
33:41
was um
33:42
i was writing a thing a blog post
33:45
yesterday
33:45
about that and you know there's this
33:46
fiction that venture capitalists are
33:48
gamblers right
33:49
it's seen as this risky thing and it and
33:52
it is
33:53
like compare that's the problem like
33:55
compared to the rest of the investing
33:56
world venture capital is very risky
33:58
like if you're going to give money to
34:01
darius you know or to ikebob or leslie
34:03
wow that's risky compared to buying ibm
34:06
stock
34:07
right it's a big company
34:10
you're not saying that i have to gain a
34:12
million dollars you're saying that
34:14
if you show some sort of potential
34:17
anyone may be able to pick it up
34:19
depending on what the background and
34:22
your
34:23
market and everything else depending as
34:25
you said the right place at the right
34:26
time
34:27
absolutely yes the game plan is to try
34:30
to make some money inside of your area
34:33
that's exactly
34:33
actually has the potential yes very
34:36
you're good at this
34:37
i have to ask what what is that what i
34:39
can't read the flags on your wall behind
34:40
is that a school flag or
34:42
oh yes i'm well at my friend's my uh
34:45
cousin's house and
34:46
i went to a couple colleges and he's an
34:49
army
34:49
so he just has it hanging up in the
34:50
background cool and where where are you
34:52
calling from
34:53
today um i'm from atlanta right now
34:55
atlanta okay cool
34:57
all right well good well you get this
34:59
you're you're hearing me and then that's
35:00
exactly the right idea
35:01
i would add another piece to what you're
35:03
saying and for everybody else too
35:04
the revenue of course is the first thing
35:07
right the way to prove that your money
35:09
product has potential is that it makes
35:10
money
35:11
everybody that's like ta-da right the
35:13
other thing is
35:14
um that investors like to see the growth
35:16
curve right so if you made a hundred
35:18
dollars this month
35:19
and a year from now you're still making
35:21
a hundred dollars a month
35:23
not so exciting right you're not
35:24
progressing yeah you're not figuring it
35:26
out
35:26
exactly so that's always been figuring
35:29
it out
35:30
in yep improving adoption continue to
35:33
grow
35:33
exactly proving adoption and excitement
35:35
by the customers because that's the way
35:37
to prove we can all talk you know i'm a
35:39
good talker but that doesn't raise money
35:40
it's the numbers you know that investors
35:42
are excited about so
35:43
great to meet you i hope to see you
35:44
again we're having a like i said uh
35:46
email me and
35:48
um i'll try to remember but email me if
35:50
you'd like to come to our next
35:50
masterminds workshop
35:52
be happy to have you cool all right that
35:55
was our friend uh
35:56
you too thanks for being here so that
35:58
was our friend darius
36:00
and as i said let's see there it is
36:02
there's the workshops
36:04
uh okay so we have one more uh question
36:06
here emmanuel
36:07
we're going to get to a manual here in a
36:09
second let me um
36:11
let's see pm's keeps asking for my email
36:14
i don't give out my email address for
36:15
obvious reasons but you're welcome to
36:16
contact me through
36:18
the contact form on scottfox.com or i'm
36:21
pretty easy to find i don't just share
36:23
it publicly though because otherwise it
36:25
makes my life even harder i get almost a
36:28
thousand emails a day as it is so
36:30
okay um lowest risk with highest
36:32
possible return says kim exactly right
36:34
uh kim says she doesn't see the live on
36:36
linkedin thank you for telling me there
36:38
i think there were people here earlier
36:40
if you uh other folks do see it i'd
36:42
appreciate uh hearing about it um
36:45
let's see stephen says if we have a
36:49
provisional patent
36:50
isn't it appropriate to get an nda for
36:52
disclosing it okay um
36:54
uh leslie confirms it on linkedin thank
36:56
you leslie
36:57
uh stephen about the provisional patent
36:59
okay so thank you stephen that is a good
37:01
question
37:01
if you have something that is truly
37:04
worth protecting
37:05
yes an nda might be appropriate you
37:07
caught me i'm painting with a pretty
37:09
broad brush
37:12
i don't i'm trying to say this concisely
37:16
you shouldn't put anything that
37:18
sensitive in anything you're sharing
37:20
publicly
37:20
anyway i guess is what i'm driving at
37:22
right it is quite okay
37:24
i've i've helped i've counseled people
37:26
to do this i've seen it done
37:28
and it's legitimate to do when you are
37:30
talking to investors
37:32
to cut them off at a certain point which
37:35
is uh
37:36
you tell them about your business we do
37:37
this we make money like this we yes
37:39
it's it's this kind of thing it's kind
37:41
of thing and then they keep asking and
37:43
digging you can say
37:45
you know what that's our secret sauce
37:47
i'd be happy to tell you more
37:49
if you're serious about investing and
37:50
maybe we'll even need to sign an nda
37:53
so that is an okay thing to say
37:55
investors should respect that
37:56
especially if you are in a field where
37:59
patents are common
38:00
um they will understand that a patent is
38:02
a thing right um and a patent that
38:04
hasn't been filed yet right it's
38:05
pending right so it isn't isn't
38:07
completely publicly published and
38:09
everything
38:10
at the same time you have to remember
38:11
that if you file a patent it is going to
38:13
be public right
38:14
so it's not um that's not quite the same
38:18
answer as a trade secret would be many
38:20
companies keep their
38:22
secret sauce as literally a secret a
38:24
trade secret and they don't tell anybody
38:26
and then before revealing that to
38:28
investors or even to your own employees
38:30
you make them sign a whole bunch of
38:32
scary legal documentation
38:35
that keeps them from disclosing it or
38:37
sharing it and that is absolutely
38:38
something you can and should do if you
38:40
have something
38:41
that is that is as easily understandable
38:44
that it might escape you know and get
38:47
copied
38:48
uh most of this discussion uh
38:51
has been about a little earlier stage
38:53
not as technical so your point is a good
38:55
one
38:56
okay let's see pm says would you suggest
39:00
any lawyers or legal help
39:01
who uh could form a llc or c corp
39:04
uh oh you're in orange county okay well
39:07
that's where i am
39:08
so please go to the orange county
39:09
startup council oc startupcouncil.org
39:12
pm yeah and we have recommendations uh
39:14
we have uh our sponsors
39:15
uh are most of the uh top startup law
39:18
firms
39:19
and i can get you a good deal and all
39:20
that kind of stuff because i know these
39:22
people personally so
39:23
yes absolutely um and uh you can find
39:26
that
39:26
at oc startupcouncil.org
39:31
all right so let's get on to emmanuel's
39:33
been waiting patiently
39:35
and here he comes there he is hey manuel
39:39
hi hi scott how's it going good nice to
39:41
see you
39:42
nice to see you too yeah i just want to
39:44
say i really appreciate what you're
39:45
doing not many investors actually take
39:47
the time
39:48
to help out veneers great well thank you
39:51
i appreciate it yeah so um yeah so uh
39:55
my question was uh on average
39:58
how many daily active users is
40:01
sufficient
40:01
uh for angels or or tech or tech
40:05
uh investors to be interested in an app
40:07
platform
40:08
so i think tech barbie just kind of
40:11
posted that question too
40:12
you know and like almost it's almost
40:14
similar to that
40:16
but on uh the question kind of had like
40:18
it has two parts
40:20
so um i'm gonna just say a little bit
40:22
about myself and like what uh
40:24
my company like us derp is doing okay so
40:27
don't make it though focus on the
40:29
question okay on the question yes
40:31
yes uh so like we are building like a
40:33
social like networking app
40:35
and uh it provides like youth uh
40:38
uh content for you it's in the form of
40:40
employment like brief messages you know
40:42
so they know what's happening with like
40:43
their
40:43
parents and families so uh we are like a
40:46
social media
40:47
like application in the social media
40:48
space so
40:50
uh the question i had has two parts i
40:53
know uh
40:54
what investors are interested in is like
40:56
revenue you know that's kind of like the
40:57
most important thing
40:58
yeah of what you are telling me but like
41:01
on in the social media space you know
41:02
revenue is gonna come from like uh
41:04
targeted advertisements like uh
41:07
instagram facebook snapchat
41:10
so all that's really how our revenue
41:11
will be uh coming and uh
41:14
what's going to make us really uh a big
41:16
platform is based on
41:18
the daily active users so
41:21
i wanted to know um so the two parts of
41:24
the question is
41:25
do you know like what estimated number
41:27
of daily active users would you think
41:29
is sufficient to attract
41:32
or to like gain attention from investors
41:36
and the second part of the question is
41:38
more of like
41:39
the investors entrepreneur so like what
41:41
estimated number of daily active users
41:43
will you
41:44
think is sufficient where investors
41:47
begin to
41:48
look for the entrepreneur or start
41:49
searching for the entrepreneur
41:51
right yeah right right okay so
41:55
um this is a it's a relative the answer
41:59
is relative right
42:00
relative to your niche so if you're
42:03
targeting uh you know
42:07
women that's more than half the planet
42:09
right so you need a
42:11
a boatload of users to make any dent or
42:13
get anybody's attention right
42:15
if you're targeting uh i don't know
42:18
billionaires who are at least seven feet
42:20
tall
42:20
that's probably a pretty small market
42:22
right so if you had 50 of those
42:24
that would probably be enough because
42:25
they each control a billion dollars
42:27
right so it's a lot about who you're
42:29
targeting so if
42:30
it sounds like you're going reasonably
42:32
broad so you probably need a pretty big
42:34
number
42:34
so what i would do is i'd because i
42:36
don't know um
42:38
but what i would do is i would look at
42:41
you know five or six or
42:42
ten apps that you think have similar
42:45
demographics of yours even if what they
42:47
do isn't the same
42:48
right right they are hitting the same
42:51
sort of
42:51
market customers and kind of try to
42:54
figure out
42:55
how many they had and how they grew and
42:58
what kind of
42:59
funding that they might have needed and
43:02
raised and then of course who they
43:03
raised it from
43:04
um that's that's where i'd start the the
43:07
other point is
43:08
um that word grow because a lot of what
43:10
you're talking about
43:12
if you want to know what interests
43:13
investors it is the total addressable
43:16
market they call that the tam
43:17
the total addressable market but then
43:19
there's also the serviceable addressable
43:21
market the sam
43:22
so you can take like it's all women but
43:24
you're really talking about women
43:26
who speak english who own a smartphone
43:28
who
43:29
live in north america right it's not
43:31
just all women it's kind of really these
43:33
kind of women right
43:35
that that market has to be big enough to
43:37
spin off a lot of money right
43:40
um and then the key is everybody starts
43:43
with one user and it's probably you
43:45
right and then you sign up your brother
43:46
and your mom
43:47
right but right everybody takes those
43:49
initial steps so what they're really
43:51
looking at
43:51
is the growth and this is what we're
43:53
talking about derek okay
43:55
yeah so if you if you already have a
43:57
million users
43:59
awesome of course um but what we're
44:03
gonna look at is
44:04
um how fast is that million growing
44:07
right
44:08
so like i said in the example darius you
44:10
know if you had
44:11
a million users this january and next
44:13
january you still have a million users
44:16
okay you've kind of topped out or you've
44:17
lost enthusiasm or
44:20
whatever you know something isn't
44:21
working and
44:23
investors especially early stage
44:24
investors are really looking at the
44:25
growth as much as
44:27
the um the asset you've already built
44:29
they want to see where that asset is
44:31
going to be
44:32
in three five ten years when it when it
44:35
reaches full market penetration and
44:36
and revenue potential so is that useful
44:40
yeah that's yeah that's really helpful
44:41
though so yeah you you're saying like
44:43
the good percentage you know every day
44:46
the number of users that are coming into
44:47
like the platform
44:49
yeah and monkey that makes so much sense
44:52
i mean i do read a lot about other like
44:54
uh
44:54
like other like applications like maybe
44:56
snapchat facebook you know like how this
44:58
started
44:59
and uh like like application like
45:01
snapchat you know um
45:02
the investor who invested like in the
45:04
early stages he found out like
45:06
his daughter was using the application
45:08
so that's kind of like
45:09
right that story yeah yeah yeah so
45:12
yeah i just wanted to yeah so i just
45:14
wanted to was like okay is there like a
45:16
point where
45:17
investors instead of searching for
45:19
investors investors are searching for me
45:21
yeah that's the kind of like part like
45:23
entrepreneurs want to be at
45:25
for sure yeah yeah yeah i wish i had the
45:27
easy answer for you
45:29
yeah no that's exactly right and you're
45:31
thinking about this the right way but it
45:33
is those growth percentages that make
45:35
uh things interesting for everybody here
45:37
uh
45:38
and an interesting way to think about
45:40
this is that
45:41
increasingly companies are not getting
45:43
funded so much
45:45
on the idea they're getting funded on
45:47
their growth strategy
45:49
right so you may have a crappy idea
45:52
but if you can spread it like crazy then
45:56
people probably invest because you don't
45:58
necessarily that's that's the
45:59
frustrating thing as an entrepreneur you
46:01
hear about companies raising money when
46:02
they don't even know how they're gonna
46:03
monetize
46:04
and here you're scrapping scrabbling
46:07
scramblings
46:08
to you know even make the first dollar
46:10
or the first thousand dollars
46:13
but what they're doing is just amassing
46:15
such a large audience
46:16
that they'll figure it out later right
46:18
so that growth is actually
46:20
maybe even more important than the idea
46:22
itself uh because
46:23
as we all we've all seen you know bad
46:25
products can be good products
46:26
if they just get enough adoption and
46:28
that's really frustrating when you're
46:30
the entrepreneur with a good product but
46:31
it's it's reality
46:33
i see do you have like a a time frame of
46:35
the growth
46:36
um that you think like is it gonna be
46:39
like uh
46:40
two to like four months if you like
46:42
you're growing let's say uh 50
46:45
like every week you know do you think i
46:48
just want to get an estimate too like
46:49
with the time frame
46:50
that you're thinking of yeah um
46:54
i i don't have a good answer for that
46:56
you know there's a lot of really good
46:58
writers about growth online i think if
47:00
you googled that
47:01
um you'd get a bunch of better ideas
47:04
than i could give you
47:05
in 10 minutes okay you know but the key
47:08
is you already
47:08
well and let me point out there's a book
47:10
by sean ellis named
47:11
called growth hacking he invented the
47:13
term growth hacking and that's kind of
47:15
like the bible that
47:16
the first time was written down that
47:18
book is probably half dozen years old
47:20
now so i don't know how up to date it is
47:22
but um if you went to sean alice's uh
47:24
website i'm sure he's still blogging
47:25
about it because i know he consults on
47:27
those things these days
47:28
um but the key is what a word you
47:30
mentioned there is you know each month
47:32
right the compounding is what matters
47:34
right so even a small
47:36
amount you know if it's two percent a
47:38
month is not
47:39
huge growth but two percent a month
47:41
every month or two percent
47:43
a week right this starts to really
47:46
get somewhere right and if you can bump
47:48
up two percent to six percent
47:50
and then you do that every week you're
47:52
you're taking off right so it doesn't
47:54
have to be that's the interesting thing
47:56
is that
47:56
you know it can be really discouraging
47:58
when you start out you only have
48:00
you know 10 or 50 and then you have a
48:02
hundred like am i ever going to get from
48:03
100 to 120 followers or
48:06
likes or subscribers or whatever your
48:08
metric is right
48:09
or customers right but the trick is to
48:12
build in the virality
48:13
of what you're doing so that people want
48:15
to invite their friends
48:17
they tell their friends so that if you
48:19
haven't
48:20
okay it took you six months to get to
48:21
100 but then that
48:23
compounding kicks in and you get to 150
48:25
in only three months you know and then
48:27
you get to 300 in two months
48:29
and you can see where i'm going right
48:31
pretty soon it's a cycle right and
48:33
that's the liftoff that everybody wants
48:35
to see so don't be discouraged if it's
48:37
only
48:38
if it's only some small percentage
48:41
uh as long as it's positive and you keep
48:43
reinforcing it
48:44
hopefully you you know you get there
48:49
thank you very much scott yeah yeah we
48:51
are hoping to launch this weekend
48:53
up in two weeks so we're just trying to
48:55
get ready to think of the future thank
48:56
you very much
48:57
excellent yeah yeah yeah good to see you
48:59
again all right so
49:00
hey since i've got a bunch of you here
49:02
let me can we take a group picture
49:04
you're such a good-looking bunch let's
49:06
see here on it just
49:08
this is a social media thing right look
49:09
at that let me see i've got some tools
49:11
here i've never used let's see oh there
49:12
you go that's nice
49:13
sorry can you guys hang on once i just
49:15
want to take a couple pictures
49:17
because i'm testing out this format
49:20
there we go
49:21
that's nice this is in case anybody's
49:23
interested this is a tool called
49:24
restream
49:25
and uh it's i've been doing this kind of
49:27
thing on and off for years
49:29
and this is the best one i found this
49:30
looks pretty it looks like i know what
49:31
i'm doing doesn't it no that's nice
49:33
look at that okay
49:37
all right cool well thank you for your
49:38
patience all right so um
49:40
let's go back to the chat room and we'll
49:42
wrap this up for been almost an hour
49:44
already great to see each of you
49:45
thank you for being here like i said
49:46
email me if you'd like to come to the
49:48
next um
49:49
masterminds workshop i'll send you a
49:50
coupon code and if you want to ask a
49:52
question next time also
49:54
rsvp like my friends there did
49:57
let's hit the chat room here again let's
49:58
see um let me put the chat back on there
50:02
let's just show you where our users
50:07
okay yeah so tech barbie that was a
50:08
similar question to you um
50:11
emmanuel okay
50:15
paypal oh kim that's interesting kim
50:16
says paypal had seven percent daily
50:18
growth once
50:19
wow okay so you see a daily right so
50:22
this is that compounding thing
50:24
that's how you really know you've got
50:25
something uh how do you find app
50:27
developers on an equity basis okay so pm
50:29
that's a
50:30
that is a recurring question i hear a
50:31
lot um
50:33
the uh the ability to find app
50:37
developers
50:38
app developers on an equity basis is
50:40
pretty much gone
50:41
i have not heard anybody lately um who's
50:44
succeeded in that
50:46
uh it's the same kind of market pressure
50:48
that people have had
50:49
trying to raise money with just an idea
50:51
there's just too many people out there
50:53
making money so investors are waiting
50:55
for companies with traction
50:56
and developers are in such demand that
50:58
they don't need to work for equity they
51:00
can work for cash
51:01
and in a lot of cases they can get
51:02
equity and cash right
51:04
so it's really quite hard
51:07
there are firms that might be newer to
51:10
the market
51:11
that you could talk to i don't have any
51:13
specific recommendations
51:15
although there are recommendations on on
51:17
the oc startup council.org website for
51:19
developers there are several firms there
51:21
but i wouldn't and they're good ones but
51:23
i don't know that they would work for
51:24
equity anymore i just haven't heard that
51:25
happening very much
51:26
if any of you in the chat room know
51:28
otherwise that sounds like pm could use
51:29
referral
51:30
uh and tech barbie or tech barbie's
51:32
agreeing with me i heard they want to be
51:33
paid now yeah that's what i'm hearing
51:34
too
51:35
it's just that kind of world there's
51:37
just too many um
51:38
too many competing ideas and too many
51:41
opportunities
51:42
for developers to make real money
51:46
they can always come and get a job with
51:47
you later right so
51:49
unfortunately that's how it it's kind of
51:51
like um
51:53
you know the internet or the startup
51:55
world has kind of grown up it's kind of
51:57
like a real business now
51:58
you used to kind of just have an idea
52:00
and people might kind of get in to
52:02
get involved either as investors or as
52:04
developers because it was a new idea
52:06
or a new sector a new way of working and
52:09
the exciting potential of the
52:11
wide open digital economy but the
52:14
digital economy is
52:15
pretty well established now and uh it's
52:17
not that easy anymore
52:19
so um okay so i hope that's helpful um
52:23
don't want to end on a downer note let's
52:25
see let's see um let me tell you about
52:27
there is a cool thing i saw this week
52:30
um on the startup um angel list this is
52:34
a
52:34
there's a new funding i didn't prepare
52:36
this uh i should have prepared it anyway
52:38
angel list is a platform where angels
52:42
invest in early stage companies so any
52:44
of you who are
52:45
raising money you might go look at angel
52:47
list their url is angel.co
52:50
angel.co but they unveiled a new
52:53
kind of investment vehicle this week so
52:56
you may have you've heard about
52:58
raising equity or using convertible
52:59
notes you may have heard about safes
53:02
and kisses and there's different kinds
53:03
of structures that entrepreneurs can use
53:06
you know the documents i mean the
53:08
contracts that underlie
53:10
an investment and then there's
53:12
crowdfunding which is where you
53:14
raise money from a whole bunch of people
53:16
but that gets very complicated and
53:17
expensive
53:19
so angel angel list this week announced
53:21
something called a roll
53:23
up safe no a roll up
53:26
what they call it roll-up vehicle i
53:28
guess roll-up vehicle and this is a new
53:30
kind of instrument
53:31
that i'm very intrigued about and you
53:33
guys might look into this yourselves you
53:34
probably need a lawyer but it's a new
53:36
thing
53:36
and you should be aware of it because it
53:38
means that a whole bunch of people
53:40
can invest like a crowd funding
53:43
but you as a ceo as a company owner only
53:46
have one
53:47
document and one entry on your
53:50
capitalization table
53:51
so the capitalization table is the
53:53
spreadsheet where you keep track of all
53:55
your investors and who owns how much
53:57
and that has to be managed constantly
53:59
because every time you
54:00
hire people or bring in more money it
54:02
changes how much everybody owes right
54:04
so this new doc the problem with
54:06
crowdfunding is that if you had 300
54:07
people invest you'd have 300 lines on
54:09
your cap table
54:10
and you have to keep in touch with all
54:11
those people and and update their
54:12
percentages and it's a big hassle
54:14
so this new roll-up vehicle from angel
54:16
list is a new kind of document
54:18
that means you can have a whole bunch of
54:20
people but they only come under your cap
54:22
table as one line
54:23
so this used to be a very expensive kind
54:26
of a premium thing to do
54:28
because you had to create a separate
54:29
company to absorb all those investors
54:32
but they're doing that for startups now
54:34
for like
54:35
nine thousand dollars or something like
54:37
so it's not free right but this is a
54:39
service
54:39
that can make your um make your life a
54:42
lot easier as a ceo
54:44
uh and i thought it was really cool and
54:46
um we'll be posting about it on the
54:48
oc startup council uh blog fairly soon
54:51
if that's helpful or you could probably
54:52
google it
54:53
so anyway i think that's cool i'm i'm
54:55
that i'm into that kind of stuff though
54:57
so
54:58
if you're not you can you can fast
55:00
forward and hire an attorney
55:01
so okay so uh i think that's our show
55:05
for today let me look uh let me just see
55:07
my notes have anything else i'm supposed
55:08
to tell you
55:09
um where's the rest of my script
55:12
um so i do this uh to try to help
55:15
hopefully you found that helpful i'm
55:16
scott fox if you liked it please like
55:18
please subscribe if you see this on
55:21
social media please share it because
55:22
that gets the word out
55:23
as you can see i'm trying to help people
55:26
and
55:27
i have a little bit of background i
55:28
don't have all the answers
55:30
but i can at least help point you in the
55:32
right direction uh the
55:33
the idea here is to help more people uh
55:36
play the game and and hopefully win um
55:39
and
55:39
the more at bats we get the more often
55:41
we're gonna have winners and i'd like to
55:43
invite you into the winner's circle with
55:44
me
55:45
um and uh echebob says in the chat room
55:48
thank you so much to all the other
55:49
founders here that's right thank you for
55:50
being here
55:51
please uh share the love and pay it
55:53
forward
55:54
and all that sort of stuff so thanks for
55:56
being here i'll be here again
55:57
um next month so please watch your email
56:00
oh by the way if you haven't already
56:02
go to startupcouncil.org and join the
56:04
email list and then you'll get
56:06
notifications
56:07
because i don't know quite how these
56:08
show up on youtube and linkedin and
56:10
i don't know where the notifications are
56:12
but i hope that's all helpful and i'd be
56:13
happy to connect with any of you on
56:15
linkedin as well please
56:16
i get a lot of inbound though so please
56:18
just put a little note like
56:19
who you are or why you're connecting
56:21
right because i get lots of just random
56:22
ones
56:23
and if you tell me who you are i'd be
56:24
happy to connect uh and help if i can
56:27
all right there we go that's masterminds
56:29
for uh
56:30
startup office hours for what is it
56:32
april
56:33
april 2021 let's hope this pandemic
56:36
wraps up soon
56:36
and uh thank you all for watching and
56:38
listening and hope to see you again soon
56:40
good luck with your startups
56:41
let's go make it happen
56:47
bye