Journey of a entrepreneur, one step at a time
I cannot speak for all incubators or accelerators, but I can talk to the two that I have been apart of thus far in my startup journey. From my experience of working out of a co-working/incubator space, the single point of failure is consumerism. Yes, you read that correctly, but maybe not in the way you think.
My first employee fell into my lap. In August 2018, I had this crazy idea that there was all this “free” and “non-dilutive” money out there through foundation and government grants that we could take advantage of if we only knew how. I had too much on my plate and wasn’t going to have time to take this on, so I went looking for someone to help.
From my searching, I stumbled upon this article written by Rahul Vohra, the founder and CEO of Superhuman. He boldly states that “product/market fit drives startup success – and the lack thereof is what’s lucking behind almost every failure.” This point is well taken and very real to me. The quest to find and achieve true product/market fit is the single most worrisome milestone for founders. Until you hit this point, there is no clear way to drive growth, revenue, success of your company.
The investor call ended, and on cue, my partner called me to discuss.
“Sales 101, get a face to face meeting with them.” He forcefully said. “They have expertise in the industry, understand the problem, and have experience in startups. They check all the boxes.”
In 1950, my Grandpa moved from his childhood hometown of Pittsburgh, PA to Wilmington, NC in search of a career. He was a trained optometrist who was seeking to open a new practice, yet he realized that his hometown already had its fill of optometrists and he needed to find a new home for his practice. He had a few characteristics of the ideal
OSI Network Model Color Coded by TCP/IP
What is one ride that every carnival has? The one that stands out from miles away in the night’s sky, with glimmering lights and fun sounds? The last hint is that the first one was built in Chicago, IL.
My company is slowly running out of money again. It is the ongoing struggle of starting a startup when the incoming revenue does not meet or even exceed the outgoing expenses. This situation, unfortunately, means that it is time to raise money yet again.
I had a conversation with my co-founder about how I could raise better, or faster this time around. For context, I tried to raise this round of $500k back in January. The result was a significant amount of interest and intrigue, but little conversion to investment dollars. Since then, I have been racking my brain about why I was not able to raise. I have analyzed, and microanalyzer each part of my pitch, about my product, my financials, and market size, and have been coming up with no apparent weak spot. My co-founder said that the pitch is fine, “you have improved greatly in the pitch, but I still have not seen you put effort into getting comfortable with the numbers.”
The numbers, there were a lot of them. The financial figures in the deck, what did they all mean, how were they going to work as we scale, unit metrics, and all. Then there are the other numbers, the investment and the ROI. On calls I had with potential investors, I would lean on my co-founder to answer those questions because he had a background in finance. But now he is saying it is my turn, “you are the CEO, if the investors can’t believe in you talking about the numbers then they will not feel comfortable placing their money in your pocket.” Well, that does makes sense, but where to start.
After thinking about this problem for a while, this week, I finally made a plan and started to take action.
Goal: To be able to confidently walk through the numbers in the model and the investment opportunity with an investor
Action Items
This week I started attacking the investor books. I am a visual learner, so when I read, I often draw diagrams or write notes while reading. After 162 pages into the VC handbook, I finally understood their perspective and investment. Investors want to get in early on the ground floor, ride the ride for the ups and downs and all-around a then get off at the top. It hit me; it’s just like a Ferris Wheel.
This concept may be simple and understood by most, but for me, everything finally clicked. I get it now, and I get what my job is; to sell investors a ticket to ride the Ferris Wheel. Among all the other rides at the carnival who claim to get as high as the Ferris Wheel, none do. I need to position my startup as the company that stands out from the rest and goes the highest.
It is February 11th at 11:53pm and I just finished an hour and a half weight lifting session alone in the gym in my building. Oh and today was Monday, the start to another week for most people, for others it is just another day from the continuous grind of the last weeks of days.
Dear Ernesto,
It’s not you, it’s me. It must be me the crazy one right. It’s like this fine line of crazy or brilliance. Some say there is overlap between the two while others see it more black and white. Regardless what’s it matter, you have ruled me crazy and that means our conversation is over (for now).
More“You’re on the 10-yard line.” The man said, sitting across from me at the Starbucks in Kenosha, Wisconsin. After many coffees with other executives, I have learned to just listen when they talk because they typically have more experience and insight than I have. Plus interrupting mid thought is never a good idea, so I just sat there nodding my head from time to time and opened my ears. The man continued, “I don’t mean to be harsh, but just giving you my honest read of your situation. You should be proud because you have completed 90 yards, but you are stuck on the 10-yard line. This is the place where so many startups land and hover until their next move. Take it or leave it, but a word of advice is to consider your next move carefully as it will be predictive of your startup’s success.” It took me a few minutes to fully grasp what he was saying. Were we in a good place? Heading down the right direction? Or completely off base? At this point, I was intrigued partly because this was only our 3rd time interacting since I first sent him a cold email and because he spoke with such clarity and understanding on where my startup was and where we were going. As he continued to talk, I started to comprehend what he was saying. The man was laying out the options of how to move the company forward and how he could help.