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Bill : Hi, and welcome to the next episode of soft land central, the home of market entry. So, today we are really thrilled to be getting into a topic around alternative funding for a US market entry and we have Brian from Berg and Nathan coffee here with us from venture out. Welcome, gentlemen.
Nathan : Thanks, Bill.
Brian : Thank you Bill, very excited.
Bill : Yeah this is it’s such a cool topic I have to maybe just set the stage a little bit and I, we all, it certainly in what you guys do and, and I get the privilege periodically of mentoring it in various programs overseas. And we’re always working with international companies coming into the US. And, and there’s this sort of notion that, that companies expand to the US to you know get us capital and get access to great venture capital and, and, in the various funding networks, and it’s, it’s so interesting because, obviously, that percentage of companies that actually ever get venture financing is so small, and it just seems like a really risky way to build a business plan based on such small percentages. So, what we really I think Model Explorer today is, so, you know, I think, probably twofold one is, you know, what’s the path. If that is the right path for you. You know what’s the optimal way to sort of go at it, and then to is, you know if that’s if maybe there’s a better path then having your first priority raising money. Instead, are you ready to raise money and, and, and all that. And how do you look to the US venture market in your current state, and how might that be, be improved. So, you know, let’s, let’s hop into it and maybe Brian I’ll start with you and that is, let’s talk a little bit about companies that are entering the US market I guess what do you see in terms of the challenges that they’re presented with in terms of funding.
Brian : A lot of them. And not to discourage, like a lot of what we focus on, and when I first started venture out the entire idea was built around, it’s really hard for companies to expand to the for startups, innovative tech startups to expand here, certainly to raise capital and there wasn’t anyone focused really on supporting them. Definitely not at scale, in the way that we started doing back in 2012 2013. And so trying to sort of break, you know, crack the nut of how does a company from Europe, South America, APAC come to the US successfully launch and raise, I think, you know, part of the like misconception of, you know, you have to come to the US to raise money is built around dynamics that have changed over that time. What I mean by that is the availability of risk capital outside of the United States has grown tremendously since I started doing this, and so the viability for a company to be able to raise at home or in a market that’s closer to home, where there’s less sort of like geographic risk in the eyes of their investors, has grown to like the ability the viability of that is much higher than it was when I, when I started doing this when I started doing this, there was very little risk capital, even in most of Europe, right, with the exception of like London, which was I think when I started doing like 25% of the VC deals and dollars that New York City was doing in New York City was 1/8 of Silicon Valley at that time. Right, and so that’s changed right and London was the biggest market outside the US, then that’s changed drastically by New York’s. More than half of San Francisco London’s exploded, as you have a lot of other communities in Europe and beyond that. But I think that’s that like legacy thought is the reason why that still lives within a lot of people as an assumption, but I think the first assumption you you mentioned, is really important one, it’s, it’s the risk of going down that path, And I think you had framed it as man that’s a really risky path to go down because it’s not likely. I think the success rate is really low. I would frame it differently. There are risks of working with venture funding, Right, if there was it I and I’m not going to attribute it to the right person. I don’t remember who I heard said this, it’s just, I’ll be honest and say it’s not me, but there was a metaphor for venture funding which was comparing it to life support. Right, and as long as you are dependent upon venture funding, you are dead in the water without us, you are unable to survive. And so if you are not able to leverage the funding you receive. Let’s, assuming you get your first round right if you aren’t able to leverage that funding to then hit the metrics needed to hit your next funding round. Your business is essentially done. And so, the first question we always ask is, should you raise money, because again, another big assumption is, oh well I’m starting a company I need money to fund it right and that’s just not true. It’s also highly expensive to have people take ownership of your business and it feels cheap. In the beginning, because you have no money. So money is of great value and your company’s worth, essentially zero, so the equity seems like it’s of low value, but that switches pretty quickly if you get traction and the perspective of founders immediately goes to like hoarding cap you know their equity. I’m in favor of taking money for it and so it’s just a really important question to ask at first because most companies aren’t a fit for venture funding right most companies aren’t going to scale in under eight years to be able to go public, or to a valuation of over 100 or 150 million or $300 million. And that’s what most like venture capital funds are looking for in terms of scale and then exit possibility for their investments and so, you know, the companies that really are a fit for it, we generally see fitting into one of two categories they need the funding in order to, They want to go on that rocket ship
that rocket ship halfway, they want to try to explode and build a billion dollar business, and the only way you can do that rapidly. Right, organic growth to a billion, is a slow game, and anyone that’s able to do it yet oh I’m like 90% of your company by the time you get there and you are as rich as anyone else on the planet ever has been. But it’s not going to happen fast and that is like talking about a small percentage, but for those that want to do that kind of rocket ship, you need venture funding in order to put the boosters on the back of the business to be able to take off, and the other is if you’re in a space where there is a time threat competitively. If we don’t attack and take market share. Now, we won’t have an opportunity to relator because other people will do it. And so we need to accelerate our path in the market to get a presence so that we can actually take it before someone else does, because the job of convincing a customer to switch from them to us is a lot harder than getting some of the switch from never having used anything to using us for the first time, it becomes a competitive pitch instead of a value add pitch. So I’ll pause there, because that was a bit, but like the false assumptions.
Bill : Yeah, no, no, that’s good stuff and Nathan, I guess, just to kick us off what what would you share in terms of the topic and what you said,
Nathan : I, I think my, my kind of thoughts listening to Brian there is it’s so important to think about this in terms of a process, right, you’re not just going to the US or wherever it is wherever the location is you’re raising money, Brian just spoke about, probably 15 different aspects of that, and without a process behind it. You’re never you’re never really going to know what like what’s going to be successful, where you’re going to be successful, where the best place to raise is and so I think really defining like Like Brian said, what’s your, what the outcome is where you want to be in eight years where you want to be in five years where you want to be in two years investigating your your sources from there I think that’s the most important step and it’s usually a step that we see companies not taking because they’re so just intrigued by US market the funding available and they see people signing checks and they go and take them so. So that’s, that’s, that’s where my immediate of my mind immediately goes, which is what Brian is saying is just kind of crazy, right, that there’s so much so much decision to make and it’s so important to just kind of take a step back, look at your process and go from there.
Bill : So I’m a sailor and so I kind of equate everything to maritime metaphors and so I’m thinking about that, that sort of sailor who is, you know, sees the mermaid, off, off in the distance and they go into the water to swim with the mermaid and, you know, you they end up drowning because the mermaid is sharks. Yeah, exactly. And so, it’s, I wonder how you would react to this. So, other than that, the industries that we know that are, you know, Heavy R & B Like, you know, some parts of life, life sciences and some parts of energy that are kind of exceptions and this. Would it be fair to say that the only place where investment comes before sales is in the dictionary.
Brian : Yes, as a rule that has few exceptions You listed a couple of them. So anything that needs like FDA clearance or technology is being developed out of a corporate or a university laboratory, you know, these are highly capital intensive, they’re not going to market until they have spent, you know what a software startup would consider a big round of investment. And so, that’s exception one exception two is, is, I’m seeing less and less frequently which is the explosive user growth and like let’s not think about business model, users user’s users that, you know, and that’s much more of like a Silicon Valley mindset. But, you know, even five years ago, when we ran a program in San Francisco, Almost all the early stage investors we were talking to were looking for, you know, 20k MRR for a million dollar seed round. So, even there that’s changed. I think that still exists right if you can prove to you know one of the big internet companies that you are able to acquire users on double unbelievably rapidly in a demographic that they care about. They will monetize it, they don’t need you to monetize it, they just need you to acquire those users and keep them engaged, and you know that’s like Instagram was making zero money when they were acquired for a billion dollars it’s there’s 100 examples of companies like that but that is such a small exception to the rule. And, you know, back to the, you know, sort of like false assumptions or like incorrect, thinking about the US market and funding, you know, sales, as you said sales comes before funding period, people want to come to the US. A lot of the time as a funding market, because, you know, so much of the world’s early stage risk capital is here. As I was saying before that, that early those early dollars were here and people needed to come for that those dollars are available more prevalently around the world but the later dollars are not, you know it’s not easy to find even in, in Europe, a large community of investors investing in a series B or A Series C. Either way, you don’t think about the US as a funding market, you think about the US as a sales market, and then if you’re able to sell here successfully, then you qualify for funding so you know we’re talking to companies all the time and we run a lot of programs to help companies rapidly sort of become US investor relevant, but the list is you need to be a Delaware C corporation as your parent entity, right, where all of the technology is owned by the US entity, and then whatever foreign entity you have the sub, you need to have a founder if not multiple on the ground here, attacking the US as their primary focus. You need to have a minimum level of traction. The next question we get is, well, How much of that has to be in the US, like if they require as I said before, 20k MRR in order to, you know, participate in a million dollar seed round does all of that have to be in the US, the answer’s no, and not even a lot of it really has to be in the US, you have to have enough to prove that whatever you got to work to generate that revenue at home. When we invest X dollars in into social media we acquire users that have a lifetime value of why when we reach out to 1000, you know b2b prospects we connect with this many and close this many deals, and this is how much it costs for us to do that and this how much we make on them and, and that is, you know, sort of the proof of we’re making, there’s a profit, we’re making more than we’re spending, as long as you can prove that that math that you got to work at home, also is starting to work in the US, and then it’s not like, you know, an anomaly or something that works in your market and not ours, then you still sort of, you know, check the box of traction, but without that you’re not able to raise here and, and
a lot of the time people throw that investor thinking of. I’m not investing outside the United States, as this ethnocentric, you know, not a phenomenon in the United States right of people that are like, oh America I invest in American companies because like America’s number one and that’s our attitude, that isn’t real, that’s not the reason why the market is that way that there may be a handful of idiots that have that opinion, which I clearly don’t share. The reason we build our business is because we knew there was like the we knew that there were so many innovators around the world that weren’t getting funded, and they needed to try to get here and we wanted to create more successes than failures because people were having such a hard time doing it, making what seemed like very logical decisions that were incorrect assumptions, and then failing on the way when otherwise they could have been successful. The reason why the market is that way is because in VC at an early stage is about relationships, it’s a, it’s a people game it is not like it is activist investing, right, this is not like I’m buying stock, and then, you know, closing my eyes and knowing that it’s gonna go up over five years. This is, I am going to help you. I need to be able to say as an early stage VC, your probability of success as a company has now increased because I will de risk it for you a little bit because of the things I know and the people I know. And so, when you are based right if you apples to apples. I’m in New York VC, I have a company that does in sports tech and whatever in the work, versus or even in Boston, versus in London. I can meet more often more of my timezone overlaps, I have lawyers already that are on, you know retainer that understand the complexities of owning equity here. I don’t have to worry about. Like, I understand how the market works here and I markets are all different, and we’re normally saying that talking to companies saying whatever you did at home might not work here like you have to find product market fit again, but also from an investor perspective, they know how the market works here, they don’t necessarily know how it works there. And so apples to apples, they’re gonna be able to help the company that’s near them. Right, they can take meetings with the people that they know, you know, around New York in the tri state area more than they can someone from another market, so their success of their portfolio is higher if they invest in companies that are closer to them and their fiduciary responsibility is to their investors to their LPs and that is the reason that the market is that way. Adventure is a local game, and you’ll see the same is true for investors outside the United States, because that holds for those markets as well.
Nathan : Just, just on that Brian, do you think you can convince and I’ve seen some success and I’m curious your opinion here. When you speak about, you know, becoming flipping as a Delaware State C Corp, and that kind of that notion is really important for investors, but can you convince investors that flipping as a Delaware C Corp is just another maturity metric like monthly revenue and traction is that something you think is, is possible as an outside entity because I’ve seen some success and some kind of, and sometimes it doesn’t work. So, given your background I’m kind of curious.
Brian : This is what let those events. When you put the person in the audience and the question you really want to get asked, you know, and then they raise their hand. So, what the answer is, is yes. Um, not always, a lot of investors are just, we have our process, it’s a numbers game, a lot of investors are looking at 1000 companies for every one check they got right and so they’re just cranking the process and running the process and they’re not trying to change anything in it, it seems like it may make sense for those that are a little more open minded. One of the things build that we try to convince us investors of to Nathan’s point is that you. Here are all the requirements that you have. We understand them because we’ve spent, you know, eight years figuring out the requirements that US VCs have, whether it’s geographic or traction when or whatever. These are requirements, this much revenue, this kind of entity blah blah blah blah blah. We know that you’re meeting with companies that are earlier than that, because you’re filling your pipeline, and because you generally take 6 to 12 months after meeting a company to invest in them. Right, so you’re meeting companies that are earlier that don’t figure requirements yet. We are trying to get investors to look at their geographic location Delaware C Corp provement, you know, proving traction in the US market, as a metric that can mature in that period of time and so don’t exclude these companies because they don’t, they haven’t done that yet, you’re meeting with companies that are doing zero revenue requiring them to get the 20k recurring monthly. I’m trying to introduce you to companies that have actually already gone beyond that and just need to become a Delaware C Company and prove it that also works in the US, I can achieve that in under three months. Your company with zero revenue is going to take at least the next year to get to that number. And so look at geography as another maturity metric, and that you can meet companies that are earlier to fill your pipeline deals, as long as they otherwise are in the industry that you care about have the maturity that you care about, Right, as long as it otherwise fits. It’s really just another maturity metric and often one that takes less time than the others, that you’re sort of forgiving companies for when you’re meeting them for the first time.
Bill : That makes a lot of sense. So, so this is great and Ben great So Nathan, Brian sort of started us down the road of talking about, You know, if we’re looking at various alternative paths for companies coming into the US to to fund it, Brian’s taking us down the path of how do we prepare and and attract the VC investment, but maybe you could identify other alternatives that a company might look to to be able to fund their US market entry
Nathan : for sure. I mean, there’s, there’s plenty of other opportunities one one comes to mind is, you know, crowd equity, can, can you, you know for A B C and D, can you get the crowd involved at A and and get them more involved A B and C and D and and really see how you go there, otherwise the the the other obvious one that comes to mind which is really attractive for early stage companies is, is the angel investors right it’s reaching out to those people who qualify for a not because essentially they’re, they’re actively investing because they’re so so relevant to your company, because of ABCDEFG for a few different reasons they can support you not only possibly financially but with advice and with with other kind of network support I think that’s a huge opportunity in terms of alternative funding opportunities.
Bill : So what I’m hearing is sort of a strategic type investor whose value is well beyond the money could be advice or connections that fit.
Nathan : Yeah for sure it’s yeah it’s all about finding that person who is going to springboard the startup to that next level right without essentially without the argument is we don’t really need your money really we need your, your support and help and if, if there is a partnership down the line and that’s great,
Bill : Brilliant. That’s great.
Brian : I think it’s such a good point and one of the things that we see is its founders, or even organizations like ours that are meant to help companies with identifying investors and setting a fundraising strategy that angel aspect is almost always untapped. And so the degree to which they run down, angel investors, is, is, is wholly incomplete. From what we’ve seen. And what I mean by that is, they’re going to go find angel groups, which are the biggest hubs and like that’s where we start to, And we’ve worked with, you know, New York is is great and unique in that it actually has the biggest Angel community in the country, even though people think it’s in Silicon Valley, it’s not there are I think like 10x the number of angels in the tri state area, because we have 10x The population of San Francisco, but it’s, it’s, you know, and then you’re going to go find the angels that have invested in other companies before and you’re going to find them on CrunchBase if you can or wherever else, there’s like a much larger world we see this done really well within finance in New York, where you have someone that like worked in whatever aspect of finance, they were in trading and they weren’t asset management or they were whatever, and there’s an understanding that in that industry people generally make enough money to be able to invest in things, and so they’ll reach out to like everyone they’ve ever known or worked with, or anyone that worked in their industry, and say like, Hey, you get what I’m doing, you know you’re an asset management we’re building some asset management solution, become an investor and they’ll find 1000 people or more, like, on LinkedIn, that fit that and go tap that that exists in every single market, and is almost always untapped. And so one of the things that we’ve started doing as a part of the like this really good process, which Nathan was talking about earlier and he is our program director but he’s really also our ops director and has built the entire like database that our business is built upon. And this is an important part, where the process for, for finding angels for us now is like also includes identifying hundreds of companies that are in the market of the company that we’re working with, but are non competitive, and then finding their senior senior leadership and reaching out to them and saying, you should consider being an angel investor and funding. By the way, worst case scenario, if not, like maybe being an advisor, because he knows so much about the space and could be a great strategic partner for us.
Bill : It seems like this is an area of opportunity because I, you know, I guess my impression is that most of the investing process is, is sort of one direction, in other words the company that’s looking for investment, you know, is building a great pitch deck and they’re doing all, you know, sort of the the presentation and the responding to questions. But I’m wondering if they’re if part of this, you know area that we should talk about as well or what are the top questions that a founder should ask other, an investor particularly thinking that an investor is, well, really a couple things. One is, they’re, they’re certainly worth much more than the money they represent, but it’s also probably very important that they see that you appreciate the fact that they’re worth much more than the money that they might, they might bring to the party and and so I guess when you think of sort of the key questions that a founder might, might ask of an investor what what comes to mind for you. I got nothing. Yeah,
Nathan : I think number one is, is, like, Where have you seen successes and failures in the space, like at what point, have you seen companies succeed, I know, not, not, not so much competitors to us but generally in this space and at what point, have you seen them fail. And I think that is that perspective of someone who has seen so many companies, most likely fail, right, is, is vital and I think that’s a fantastic place to start.
Brian : I love this question Bill and I think it’s one that founders don’t ask themselves, I think that, like one of the things we try to coach founders to do is to act as if they are going to be the company that’s turning away investors, act as if you have choice that kind of choice you never imagined because most people come at this and they’re looking at like the end of their runway they’re looking at what when their funding runs out. Oh my god you have money, can we talk, because like you. Even if it’s six months it’s like that’s just an uncomfortable feeling of like all this is dead in six months. And, and you need to think about it more strategically for a lot of reasons one is because investors want to know that you’re actually thinking about it, like why is that a good investor for you, but they get stuck in that headspace and they don’t flip over to the other side which is, well, why are you a good fit for me other than your money and it reminds me of, like, when, when co working spaces were exploding sort of like post we work success in every co working spaces like we’re not office we’re community right and VC and like being a recovering VC and having been on the other side I can tell you this is, you know, they’re like, we’re not money we’re value we’re partners right we’re like a network and we have experience and the percentage of investors that actually do that effectively is tiny. It is tiny. Most of them do not live up to the promises that are made, and it’s not a lot of time it’s like a dishonest thing if they want to, but they’re busy, right, they have a lot of things to focus on wanting to venture funds in an easy thing to do successfully like the percentage of funds that are successful is actually also really small, it’s like less than 20. And so, it’s really important to ask those questions, and I think, you know, the first. There’s an aspect of the questions that I think are process focused, and there’s another aspect of the questions that should be like sort of market focus related to your business. So the first ones are. What is your normal process for evaluating a company and making a decision to cut a check, and you want them to verbalize that for you because then you’re going to hold them to it. Right, what’s the normal timeline. And then when you ask them the normal timeline, they’re gonna probably quote the fastest deal they’ve ever done. Like, oh well you know like our partners have our meeting on Monday and we will be talking about all the companies that we met and then, you know if everyone’s on board, then we’ll probably have a meeting like within one or two weeks after that, then we’ll do due diligence after that for probably like another, you know 2, 3, 4 weeks and like then we’ll be ready and most investors are meeting a founder and they’re not in, if we looked at a big cut of venture funds that we work with, and then we were talking to them to identify the first day they met, and then the day they cut the check, right, and the average for funds is between six and 12 months. It’s not that super fast process timeline, it’s just not how it works most of the time. And so understanding that process because if you because like every founder is often coming into this with like we’re closing in July. Right and if we don’t close in July everyone that we talked to is like well why didn’t you close in July. What’s wrong, what you know and that kind of stuff can like tank, your, your round. And so being able to run a type process and manage. It’s one of the hardest things to do with fundraising for a founder is to create urgency, and manage the clothes to get investors to take action when they always would prefer to wait another month, almost always, and so it’s really hard so understanding the process and then asking them to like tell you about the process for the last few deals that they’ve done, like make it real, because that’s not like what they are dreaming, it’s what actually happened, you’ll get more honest answers, and always talk to existing portfolio company founders before, and it’s not hard to do, like, reaching out to a CEO and saying hey you raise money from XYZ fund three years ago. We’re in the midst of due diligence conversations with them now like how’s it been having them, you know, involved are they on your board, you know, have they been really active, and you’ll get candid feedback. A lot of the time. So, So, process, super important. And then, if they’re gonna say they’re going to be able to bring value go talk to a company that’s like your media tech company and go talk to some media tech companies invested in before and understand how much value they were really able to add because again it’s like most aren’t really bringing the value. And so that kind of homework can be really valuable and choosing the right team because it’s not just like a cut a check because I need to survive, it’s like you’re kind of like handcuffing yourself to these people for the next eight to 10 years. It’s, we always talk about how it’s not like finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend, it’s like finding a husband or a wife, right, this is like a really is a serious long term commitment. So,
Bill : yeah, as you were talking, it’s so much to me feels like the process, and I’m always amazed when I interview people, how few people have questions, you know, so, you know, tell me about, about the business and you know what’s the ethos here and you know what happens if and all those types of things were to do exactly what you’re saying is the it’s has to be a mutually beneficial process and there’s got to be it. It’s got to be much deeper than a paycheck on Friday or or funding in terms of how we’re going to relate because we’re going to spend a lot of time together and, and there and there are a variety of expectations that are going to be there and if we, if we, if we’re not going into it. Eyes open, it probably won’t work very well.
Brian : It’s dynamic. Yeah right, you have a community of people that cut checks in, you have a community of founders that are chasing dollars right so you have like, and and so the power dynamic is dollars and founders. What’s hard to get into founders heads, is that a lot of the time, like, it actually, the reality is, it’ll get closer to here for the deals that investors want to do, if not even founders have advantage, because you’re the ones that create opportunity and value for them, right, and, and at the top of the game they’re competing for deals, and, and it’s hard to get out of that mindset because everyone’s going to pitch events and run up afterwards to go talk to the investor on the panel, you know, in a line of people that are waiting to talk to them and they’re used to saying no all the time because they’re getting asked for so many things from so many people and they have to say no, in order to just create efficiency, to be able to even get their job done, but when you get in the room, and it’s a human and human interaction, like you have to let that go. If you want to run the process really well and that kind of confidence will take you really far in those conversations as well. And the one thing that we you know, for people that say well, like how do I get there. It’s like anything else, like, get educated, you know, understand what the dynamics of seed versus Series B are, you know, what is the process run like there’s so many blogs, there’s so many books there’s so many people like you and me, that have been there and done that 1000 times they can help find a lawyer, that’s like actually a venture tech lawyer that does, you know, hundreds of deals a year that that understands that there’s a lot of ways to get there. And if you come in more sophisticated. It takes you a long way and that costs, like, you know, 50 hours on YouTube, instead of watching whatever, you know, cat video bullshit you’re watching, you know, to get boned up on it.
Bill : Have you really feel
Brian : loved. By the way, have you.
Bill : So Nathan maybe, maybe one question for you to close this up here on this topic is. So I remember this finance teacher I had, who is one of my favorite teachers ever, and he had this saying when he was talking about raising capital and he said, always look for money before you need it, and, you know, as Brian was talking about, you know that this time timeline that often is quite short for companies raising money, how does a company really think further ahead in the process and make sure that, yeah, it seems to me that you’re least attractive when you’re desperate for money right if you’re missing, that the more desperate you are that sort of that, that least, then the less attractive, you look so how does a company sort of avoid that Pitfall
Nathan : 100% And it’s it’s all about just aligning your US expansion plan and your fundraising plan with the business plan, right so if in two or three years, you, you hope that profits that are actually monthly revenues at Why stop making those decisions start not only thinking about fundraising start thinking about, when’s the right time to incorporate right start thinking about getting your immigration plan in line so that when you’re given the state of the world right now that’s a very, very important, very important thing to think about and making sure all of those little steps are in line so when it does come, come, come down to the fact when you’re on the ground, you finally get some meetings, you’ve already ticked 10 boxes, and you’re kind of ready to have those, you know high level compensations right and so I think it’s really like instead of talking about where the business is going to be the trajectory of the business and aligning all the little puzzle pieces we’ve kind of got to today.
Bill : Fantastic.
Brian : There’s one tactical thing that we do related to that bill that I’ll throw in there quickly and I think like the other way of saying what you said is that you know something we are founders say which is like you’re never not fundraising. And when you think about the fact that investors want it like, you know whether they want it or not they’re meeting us 6 to 12 months before they cut their first check in you, it’s like okay well then how do I like I’m not raising for 6 – 12 months so like how do I do that. Well, we’ve started doing, and helping companies do and it’s something that I learned like probably six, seven years ago, just from a couple companies that I saw doing it and then we copied it and made it ours is running a newsletter that goes out to prospective investors and influencers, and it is really simple. It is people are like, Man, how am I going to send an update on my company I don’t make progress every month or every six weeks, you do. There’s enough going on there to do it for everybody, everyone we’ve ever tried to do this with, and what you’re doing is you’re just sending out basically metric updates, which are showing progress, and you’re creating the thought in someone’s mind of growth, it’s like, oh well when I saw this newsletter, it was here and now it’s here, right like wow, they’re actually like executing on that plan. And then the other is you’re putting asks out to a very influential connected and intelligent community and people generally innately like to help if they can, it’s easy. And so we’ve created something called the investor prospecting newsletter, and we help companies create a template for it, and then coach them on how to update it regularly so that it’s not a big lift. And what it does is just really it’s almost like the fundraising version of a marketing nurturing campaign right when I’m raising it sales when I’m not raising it’s nurturing, it’s marketing and all you’re doing is staying top of mind and you’re reminding them of who you are and what you’re doing and also setting yourself apart from the 1000 other founders that they met who aren’t organized enough to put something like this together to keep them up to date.
Bill : You know it’s funny that you say that because I, I’m on a few of those lists right I get those.
Brian : They’re always the best founders, aren’t they, it’s always
Bill : Oh my gosh, I mean, as you said, it’s, it’s better to do it. It’s a very small number, as you said that do it, but those that do it stand out. It’s like people that write a handwritten thank you note or anything like that, it’s so separate you and I have an old boss who he ran, many offices, and his evaluation of the office. When he first walked in, you know, wherever you was traveling to was actually to go in the bathroom and the assessment was, if these people can keep the bathroom clean, they’re probably doing a pretty good job. And, and, in, by and large, it was a pretty good metric for how people managed the business, and it worked out really well but I think, I think you say a lot about yourself and about your organization when, when you’re, when you have that kind of organization where you can communicate not just consistently but also with thoughtful information that that helps people get insight as to your progress. I think that’s a. It’s such a great, great tip for sure.
Brian : Follow up
Bill : 100% Yeah, yeah,
Brian : effectively and continuously, it’s just a game changing how people view you
Bill : know, there’s, I mean there’s statistics around follow up or, yeah, as you said consistently
Brian : all sales managers, just shake their head.
Bill : So, before we close up let’s take a couple minutes on venture out and and make sure the audience knows what you guys do and, and who your program is appropriate for but do you want to kind of give us a thumbnail in terms of venture out and who you serve.
Brian : Yeah, and I always long winded, it’s probably fair to anyone that’s watching this. So I’ll do my best to keep it, keep it quick. So we’ve been around since 2012. You know our original focus and still our primary focus has been promising entrepreneurs from around the world that are looking to break into new markets specifically into the United States were running our programs in person in New York City. We have, you know, simple short, small ways of engaging with companies we’re running, you know, virtual two day intensive programs for companies built around specific sectors. We are running one week sector focus programs in person in New York once the world opens back up, we’ve run that kind of program that was sort of our first offering the run it like 160 times for almost 1000 companies so you know we’ve got a lot of experience and a big network that we bring to the table to help companies when they’re really trying to figure out, breaking into a specific sector market and who the thought leaders are the investors are in New York or if they’re trying to figure out breaking into the US market from abroad. And then we run a three month accelerator, which is really a US launch accelerator for foreign companies where as a part of that program. If you’re not already willing, we will incorporate you. We will get you on a path to your business immigration visa to be able to stay in work here. If you don’t have traction in the market, we’ll help you gain that initial traction and we’ll help you set the stage for being able to raise from US investors, which again always starts with the sales and the traction and the corporation. And then, something that we developed, we always worked with cohorts of companies, either that we put together or that were put together by our partners and our clients who are often foreign governments or foreign investors. But in the midst of the pandemic. We started working much more closely one to one with companies and so, you know, with that, you know, over the last year we’ve developed an advisory and growth practice where no matter what your company, you know, what aspects of tech whether you’re trying to break into a new market or not. If you’re looking to figure out how to scale, sales, marketing, fundraising, you’re looking for us expansion plan, you’re looking for, like, you know, when I break what are the first things I do to break in, how do I start selling before I have to move all of that stuff. If you’re looking for an hour of help or, you know we have like ongoing engagements that are now, you know over six, seven months long, you know any level of engagement and that’s been super fun because like we talk so much about things like the investor prospecting newsletter and I’ve written four of them over the last three weeks for companies. And so like we’re so much more in the weeds, and it’s like, it’s so much less academic and more tactical which has been a lot of fun. So, anyway, you know, early stage tech companies to companies that have 30, 40, 50, 60 employees and are looking to break into the US market. I’m focused on, you know, helping as a mentor and advisor and consultant to a lot of the companies and engaging with some of our biggest clients Nathan is our program manager, director he runs all of the programs, you know, as a project manager he goes. He’s also our ops manager so he built like our air table database which powers like every single thing that we do in a really structured and organized way, which is like we could do a whole nother thing on that get me started.
Bill : Yet, we just can’t. Nathan, you can’t take, do, Do any high risk sports because we can’t afford to lose you because
Brian : exactly this is one of those like classic scenarios of like if someone gets hit by a bus, what’s your plan, like a plan is, I don’t know.
Bill : Yeah, Nathan. No more, no, no matter there’s high risk sports for you.
Nathan :I’m gonna stop hanging out with Brian because the risk comes when he’s involved.
Bill : There you go.
Brian : So, high risk tolerance.
Bill : Exactly. Or we can just put you in bubble wrap, it’s that there are alternatives to this. So Nathan anything that you’d want to comment on with regard to the program
Nathan : Last, a lot there’s a million things I’d like to comment on but Brian covered that really well. The last thing I would say is that we’d love what we do and fun doing it, adventure out. And so, you know, at all the logistics points that Brian made, we’d love it. We have fun, if every day of the day becomes you come to our New York office well. We also show you great time and really enjoy working with you. So that’s what that’s all.
Bill : Brilliant, well good. So, when we publish this will certainly put links for you all in and tagged and all that kind of fun stuff. But is is there a preferred mode of contact,
Brian : email, social media, carrier pigeon, we’re easy to get in touch with our email address or all adventure out, calm, you can hit us up on social media we’re easy to get it’s Brian at its Nathan app, it’s, you know, we’re it’s pretty straightforward stuff. But you know, for people that like, whether they want to get directly in touch that’s easy if they’re not sure, you know, we, you can sign up for our newsletter we have events going on every few weeks that people can just sign into because everything’s you know online virtual now and we’ll be going forward, even when the world gets back to normal. So, it’s easy. Come, come Come hang out, we, yeah, like Nathan said we want to have fun people are like this game of venture in startups, it’s like all consuming, there’s like a very, a lot of the time it’s a problem there’s like not a good balance between working like they kind of blend together. And so, like my whole philosophy has always been, if that’s the case, we better be having fun while we’re doing it because otherwise My life sucks. And so we’re you know, even in the midst of the hardest most challenging stuff that we have going on, you know, personal professional smile on the face, if I’m in the office and let’s go make some shit happen.
Bill : Absolutely, no it’s, you got to stir the pot for sure. Well, this has been great and to our, to our audience, thank you for being a part of this podcast, and please. Tag us and like and subscribe and all that fun stuff
Nathan : so thank you so much for setting this up it’s awesome what you’re doing
Brian : And you bill, this, this, appreciate all together, it’s, you know, some organization, and can be in community, a real community and it has been eating for a long time and the work you’re doing is great and we’re super grateful thank you for the opportunity.
Bill : It is very kind of you to say and you guys are such an important part of it so all we care about is helping companies get into new countries as safely and productively as possible so it’s all good stuff. I wish you guys a great rest of your day and a great weekend, and thanks so much for sharing all of this wonderful wisdom with the audience.