Fundraising Radio

It's exactly how it sounds like - read the title:)Here are some of the specific questions we've covered during the interview:- Travel cards, let's start with the definition here - what is it and how is it different from a regular credit card?- How do the reward points work? Who offers them and why?- What actually happens when you click "redeem points" to, say, book a rental car for your trip? How do these funds settle on the backend?- If the cash equivalent is sent to the provider (car rental in this case), why is it more efficient for the consumer to redeem points through a provider rather than receiving cash-back?- Let's talk about people who are worried about getting new credit cards or overuse their existing cards. What are the key "unknown" factors that might affect the credit score of an individual?- expand on the topic if time permits.

Spencer Hurst, Founder of MercuryVote in this episode explains how stock voting rights operate, how they can be bought and sold (rented) and how the funds flow when a stock or a share of a mutual fund is purchased.Brace yourselves for a deep dive into the confusing space of STONKS.Spencer's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerhhurst/MercuryVote website: https://www.mercuryvote.com/AFT's website: https://www.aft.finance/AFT's substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/

Wesley Walton - CEO of Glendale Area Schools Credit Union [GASCU] in this episode takes a deep dive into the structure and operations of credit unions.GASCU's website: https://gascu.org/Our substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/Our website: https://www.aft.finance/How do credit unions make decisions, what are the key differences between commercial banks and credit unions, who should consider joining a CU and much more.Key notes that I took during the interview:Glendale Area Schools Credit Union was founded by 2 school teachers and has over 11,000 members now.514F - service based nonprofit.SEG - select employee groupinsured by NCUACredit unions decrease their numbers by 3-6% but as an industry in asset size and member numbers are growing every year.1400ish credit unions are on FedNowstanford credit union was the first to be an online banking website7 members are board memebers5 members of supervisory comities - watchdogs of the institutionCUSOs - aggregations of credit unions who want to adopt a new technology for themselves and want to share resourcesInterest rates on credit cards issued by credit unions are between 18%-21%9.9% interest on a credit cards is offered by GASCU. 9.9 people - freaking 9.9IF YOU HAVE CREDIT CARD DEBT - SWITCH TO A CREDIT UNION

Marshall Greenwald, the Founder of Ionia in this episode digs deep into the souls (backend) of card processing. Marshall's LinkedIn for those who don't know how to use hyperlinks: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshall-greenwald-9480351/Ionia's website: https://www.ioniapay.com/AFT's Substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/AFT's website: https://www.aft.finance/Here are the questions we've covered during the interview:- tell us the rough outline of how the current credit/debit card processing look like?- how many parties are involved in this process? What does inter-party communication look like and who is in charge of facilitating this communication?- how are the flows for debit and credit card processing different? Why?- why is it so expensive to accept credit or debit card payments?- do the higher time limits for chargebacks affect it or is it mostly related to the complexity of communications mentioned in the second question? Or does it have anything to do with the potential NSF issues?- key solutions that you see for all the problems we've discussed?

Terry Husayn (Talha), VP of Technical engagement and a member of the founding team at Orum. In this part Terry spoke about the process of building an early stage sales team - from the ground up. Specifically we focused on hiring, training and creating compensation plans for BDRs and SDRs. Some mentions from the episode: Winning an SDR interview, Terry's blog Betts recruiting - recruiting AlwaysHired - SDR school Shift Group - shiftgroup.io - recruiting Terry's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talhahusayn/ Link to Orum: https://www.orum.com/ And of course, keep an eye out on our articles through SubStack that you can check out here.

Terry Husayn (Talha), VP of Technical engagement and a member of the founding team at Orum in this episode talks about the following: - intro to cold-calling, who needs to do it and why - testing of the outreach strategy - specifics of outreach Databases of emails/phone numbers: Zoominfo Apollo LeadIQ Lusha Intent based signals tracking can be done here: Sixth Sense Tool to capture your website visitors: Warmly Terry's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talhahusayn/ Link to Orum: https://www.orum.com/ And of course, keep an eye out on our articles through SubStack that you can check out here.

Amjed Aboukhadijeh - head of sales at Socket. In this part he takes a deeper dive into the specific strategies included in the territory planning, more specifically - creating drip campaigns and running a POC (Proof Of Concept) that has a much greater success rate. Here is the link to a spreadsheet template that you can use to run your Proof Of Concept: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16RFCe-VnSILzZerdbdPsajKSsfNQHzbKxcVIG48ngYk/edit?usp=sharing This is the second episode of two that we've had with Amjed, you can listen to part 1 here.

Amjed Aboukhadijeh - head of sales at Socket, talks about the importance of territory planning in the sales process. He explains what steps does territory planning consist of and how you should work on each step. This is the first episode of two that we'll have with Amjed - part 2 will be focused on very specific strategies that were mentioned in Pt 1 (this episode) so stay tuned!

Lucas Price, Founder and CEO at Yardstick in this episode talks about asking the right questions, using structured interviews and scorecards to identify sales talent. Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street https://a.co/d/fBJf66l A VP of Sales Hiring Scorecard For Startups…Get it Right the First Time https://avenuetalentpartners.com/2021/06/27/vp-sales-hiring-scorecard-startups/ What to Know Before You Interview Your Next Sales Candidate https://www.yardstick.team/post/what-to-know-before-you-interview-your-next-sales-candidate

For our long-standing followers asking if we haven't released any new episodes in the past 8 months because we died - no we haven't, still kicking it! This new season of Fundraising Radio will be still catered to our old listeners but this time the focus will be on sales for early stage startups that have nothing to their name. Why? Because with the ongoing recession and great fears for the future of the US economy, more and more investors become conservative and want to see sales before they invest in you. Let us know how you like the slightly updated format and most importantly - the subject! Links that I've promised to include in the episode description: Lisa Falzone - Co-Founder and President Athena Security. Athena Secruity's website Book recommended by Lisa: The Four Steps to the Epiphany Chat GPT for google sheets Fundraising Radio's Substack: we cover A TON of very-very specific strategies there

Jonny Price, VP of Fundraising at Community Round Fundraising (WeFunder) in this episode talks about equity crowdfunding, process that founders need to undergo to have a successful crowd-funded round and more. We've also talked about the major pitfalls in said process and how to prepare for those. Jonny's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonnyprice/ Community Round Fundraising's site: https://wefunder.com/ SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) explained by the CEO of Assure: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Jeremy-Neilson/ Extra resources that Jonny shared with me: Blog on how to raise $1M on Wefunder: https://twitter.com/JonnyCPrice/status/1503515916285493255 Podcast episode on fundraising strategy: https://www.spreaker.com/user/wefunder/justin-renfro Community Round website: communityround.com Wefunder Raise page: wefunder.com/raise Wefunder PBC charter: wefunder.com/charter Twitter: @jonnycprice; @wefunder

Hall Martin, Founder and CEO at TEN Capital Network that raised over $900 million for its clients, in this episode talks about hiring fundraising advisors who can connect you to the right capital. We spoke about different regulations around fundraising and of course, about hiring experts for your fundraising round and whether it's worth it or not. Hall's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/halltmartin/ TEN Capital Network - connecting investors with startups: https://tencapital.group/

Alyona Mysko, CEO & Founder at Fuelfinance in this episode talks about the story of her company and the effects that the war has on it and its future plans. Hint: no giving up in sight and Fuelfinance is preparing to raise soon while expanding! Fuelfinance website - https://fuelfinance.me Support Ukrainian Busines - here Here - how to open in Delaware a company, but it is in Ukrainian. If you want to read another way of opening a company (with Firstbase of course), you can check out our website: https://www.firstbase.io/ Here is the video Spend with Ukraine.

Sharmin Ali, Founder and CEO of Instoried tells her story of helping others write good stories. In this episode we go in-depth into the reasons why Instoried build all their tech in-house from scratch and how they use it as their competitive advantage to secure funding for the expansion. Sharmin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharmin-ali-5b6b4237/ Instoried website: https://www.linkedin.com/company/instoried/ I forgot what else I wanted to include in the description so here is the link to our course about fundraising for early stage startups: https://fundraising-courses.com/

Russ Wilcox, Partner at PillarVC talks about his experience running startups himself. Throughout his career he raised 10 times and 3 times these were down-rounds. In this episode Russ explains what down-rounds are bad, how they happened to him and how he managed to survive and thrive! Russ' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russ-wilcox-2005/ Pillar VC's website: https://www.pillar.vc/ For people who want to understand how to get in touch with the right investor, a course developed by Fundraising Radio's team and myself: https://fundraising-courses.com/ Some topics we have covered in this episode: - your fund invests in three fields, which one of those do you specialize in? - you've raised 10 rounds of funding and 3 of those were down-rounds with an eventual happy ending, can you tell us a bit more about that experience? - the unique trait of your fund is that most of your managers have experience building their own companies, how transferrable is that experience? - you're an investor who likes patents, why is that and when o you think it makes sense to patent an idea/technology? - you've recently closed your own raise for your 3rd fund - how did that go? How does that experience compare to fundraising for your own company? - are there any deep tech investments that you've recently made that excite you the most?

Tae Hea Nahm, Managing Director and Co-Founder at Storm Ventures in this episode talks about his experience working as an attorney and helping startup founders raise money for their companies, and eventually starting a VC fund of his own. We also spoke about his book "Survival To Thrival", why he wrote it and what was the affect on his fund. Tae's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tnahm/ Storm ventures: https://www.stormventures.com/ Here is the list of podcasts about fundraising (some of them are non-profit fundraisings but still) - https://blog.feedspot.com/fundraising_podcasts/

Koby Conrad, Head of Growth at Rupa Health and Founder of Channels of Growth talks about his experience building a company and pivoting 3 times. He also explains what growth management looks like and who should be dealing with that field. Koby's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kobyconrad/ Subscribe to Channels of Growth here: https://channelsofgrowth.substack.com/ Course on fundraising by Fundraising Radio team: https://fundraising-courses.com/ Rupa Health's site: https://www.rupahealth.com/ Some topics we have covered in this episode: - what does your day-to-day as a growth manager look like? - what do you think are the essential skills for a good growth manager to make growth really happen and to run a successful growth team? - you were previously a founder, your company got into YC and then you've raised $2 million for a completely different company, why did you decide to pivot? - how much of the current knowledge of the growth management field did you have back then?

Jeremy Neilson, CEO and Co-Founder of Assure in this episode explains how SPVs work and what they are, how founders can use them to make their rounds easier and what are the expected costs of creating an SPV and syndicating your own round. Assure's site: https://hubs.li/Q015d7j-0 Jeremy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyneilson/ Assure's bootcamp: https://boomstartup.com/ Assure's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4LhtX361MEw5l6nenLkWQ Some topics covered in this episode: - you've been the co-CEO of Assure for over 10 years until 2020, why did you decide to co-CEO a company and how did that play out? - Assure is best known for serving investors, but your head of partnership reached out to me to talk about founder-led SPV, how do those work? - why does such an SPV makes sense and what are the major benefits of it? Any downsides? Pricing? - does it work post-friends and family? - a lot of founders who have sold their previous companies frequently start investing in companies that align with the goals of their newly created startups, how would you recommend those founders structure such investments? P.S. Fundraising Radio is a non-profit organization, this episode is not sponsored by Assure. We are running ads for this particular episode as a part of the testing campaign to discover their effectiveness of increasing the number of active listeners of FR and that campaign is indeed sponsored by Assure.

Nick Desai - Founder and CEO at HeyRenee in this episode talks about how he started 5 companies and how many of them actually made it. He also explains why he chose to raise money from VCs for all his companies and how that decision affected the business. HeyRenee site: https://www.heyrenee.co/ Nick's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickdesaiheal/ Can your investors fire me? Here is an episode of Fundraising Radio explaining this question: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Jeb-Banner/ If you choose to go the other route, check out our course about reaching out to investors! https://www.fundraising-courses.com/

Dylan Kendall - candidate for Los Angeles City Council District in 2022 and a Founder of a for-profit and non-profit in this episode shares her experience of being a founder in Los Angeles. She explains how did it happen that fundraising for a non-profit turned out to be easier than for a for-profit company and how she got into politics. Learn more about Dylan as a candidate here: https://dylankendall2022.com/ Relevan episode where Claudine Emeott explains how impact funds work: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Claudine-Emeott/ Some of the questions covered in this episode: - you said that fundraising for your non-profit turned out to be easier than for a for-profit, how did that happen? - can you briefly tell us about your experience while raising for your for-profit? If you could go back in time and change that raise, what would you do? - you are the candidate for Los Angeles City Council District in 2022, how did you get into politics? - what do you think is the major strength of LA as a tech hub? Are there any particular government programs in LA specifically that can help startup founders at the early stages? - you've mentioned that one of your frustration with city of LA is that it's government is very slow and falling behind the development curve, how do you plan to fix this? - do you think there are any particular cities that have done a better job at this? (not necessarily in the US)

Jeb Banner, CEO and Co-Founder of Boardable explains how the governing boards really work and how founders can make sure that they don't get fired from the companies that they have started. He also spoke about the first steps that early stage founders should take to establish the board and explained the legal requirements around the board management. Jeb's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jebbanner/ Boardable: https://boardable.com/ Course by Fundraising Radio's team: https://www.fundraising-courses.com/

Anthony Zhang, Co-founder and CEO at Vinovest talks about how his company helps "regular" people invest in wine - an asset class that was previously only accessible to the wealthy people with free time on their hands. He also spoke about their most recent Series A and how they had to change their business model to close the round successfully. Anthony's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-zhang-988a2375/ Link to Vinovest that will get you 3 months of no management fees: https://vinovest.co/signup?grsf=lr4ndv&utm_campaign=Dec_2021_LTO_Referral (this episode is not sponsored by Vinovest and the referral link yields no commissions for Fundraising Radio) Get our course at a huge discount here: https://www.fundraising-courses.com/ Some of the questions covered in this episode: - tell us a little bit more about how vinovest operate - you said that your series A was much easier than seed, why is that? - when you "removed yourself from the day to day operations" in order to raise series A, who replaced you? - on our pre-interview you've mentioned that you got a few counter-offers on your initial round in series A, how did you manage to do that? - why didn't you follow the same strategy for your Seed? - how did your pre-seed round go compared to the two following? - you said that on your series A you had to switch your customer acquisition model and switch from the organic to paid, why is that? - when did this transition happen and how do you feel about it

Jordi Hays, Co-Founder & CEO at Party Round in this episode talks about the legal side of fundraising and how it looks like now VS what it actually should be. We've also discussed the need for actual lawyers in some fundraising rounds and the importance of friends and family round in a life of a startup. Jordi's email for those who want to skip the line of over 30k users and use Party Round now: jordi@partyround.com Jordi's LinekedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordi-hays-559199113/ And of course, Party Round's website: https://partyround.com/ Our course on fundraising for early stage startups can be found here for only $19.99: https://www.fundraising-courses.com/ Here are some of the questions asked in this episode: - you've mentioned the importance of social capital in fundraising - how does partyround help with that? - many founders try to avoid raising from friends of family out of fear of ruining relationships, do you think it's worth the risk? - many of our listeners are already over the friends and family round, is partyround applicable to later stages or do you recommend founders to reach out to lawyers to draft more custom documentation? - you've mentioned that you've gone viral numerous times on twitter, how did you do this? Was it worth it? - pricing of partyround. It seems like you've taken the non-traditional approach to your go-to-market strategy, how did it help you with your fundraising? - you've raised from a16z, how long did it take you to close the round and how did this process look like?

Duy Vo, Founder and CEO at Productfy talks about being a sole founder and yet having great Co-Founders (in a way) who have helped him lead the company to the success instead of selling early on. He also explains how Productfy works and how it can transform any organization into a complex financial organization in a span of a few weeks. Duy Vo's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duybvo/ Productfy's site: https://www.productfy.io/ Course on fundraising for early stage startups: https://www.fundraising-courses.com/

Sid Viswanathan Co-Founder & President at Truepill talks about raising a Series D and how it is different from earlier rounds. We've also touched onto the story of how prior to Truepill, Sid founded CardMunch, a business-card scanning app that was acquired by LinkedIn soon after its founding. Sid's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidviswanathan Truepill's site: www.truepill.com And of course, link to our course on fundraising at 70% discount (only until the 15th of January): https://bit.ly/StartupFundingCourse Questions covered in this episode: - you've spent 4 years at linkedin, when was the moment when did you decide to start the second company and how did you bump into the idea? - how did you meet your co-founder? - you recently raised a round D of 142 million dollars, how did you get there? - at round D, what's the major problem for a company? - looking back at your post-YC seed round, what do you think was your major mistake while raising it? - how much of Truepill's success is due to the fact that it got into YC a year after it was started? - you've recently expanded into diagnostics, did you raise any money to fund the expansion specifically?

Stephen Cobbe, co-founder and CEO at Opal talks about his journey with Opal, ups and downs and how to handle them. He also shares some recommendations on how to find a good co-founder and shares his personal experience in that field along with two great books. Stephen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scobbe/ Opal's website: https://opal.dev/ Two great books in question: 1. Never Split the Difference: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805 2. The Founder's Dilemmas: https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691158304 The course on reaching out to investors that Fundraising Radio's team is developing: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Alex Simon, CEO Co-Founder of Elude in this episode talks about the new strategies that modern founders can employ while fundraising for their startups. We also spoke about some key things that founders should have on hand before starting to raise and about other things that I forgot to write down. Alex' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexnsimon/ Elude website: https://elude.co/ Episode with the founder of DocSend: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Russ-Heddleston/ 70% off (for less than a month) Fundraising Radio's course on how to get in front of investors: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Brett Goldstein, Co-Founder at Launch House talks about focusing on the new values instead of pushing old shit through accelerators and how exactly he approaches it. We spoke a lot about how the fundraising field has changed over the past years and why many accelerators are going obsolete with founders needing a better alternative. We also discussed some of the fundraising tactics that Launch House implements to help its participants fundraise. Brett's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bgoldstein3/ Brett's Twitter: https://twitter.com/thatguyBG Launch House: https://www.launchhouse.co/ Fundraising Radio's course on how to get in front of investors: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Amy Malin, Co-Founder at Trueheart talks about how by making simple search requests you give money to non-profits instead of monopolistic corporate giants. We spoke about how fundraising for non-profits looks like and how is it different from fundraising for for-profit companies and how should one approach fundraising for such projects. Amy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amymalin/ Trueheart - change the world with every search: https://trueheart.com/ SMB bonds that we've touched on during the episode: https://www.thesmbx.com/

Russ Heddleston, Co-Founder and CEO talks about the story of DocSend and how the decision to increase their prices led to an increased conversion rate for their customers and how exactly this magic worked. We've also discussed how DocSend became so essential for the startup founders and how was the product taking shape. In this episode Russ touched onto the acquisition of DocSend by Dropbox and explained how exactly they got to a $150 million acquisition with just $15 million raised. Russ' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heddleston/ Russ' Twitter: https://twitter.com/rheddleston DocSend site: https://www.docsend.com/ Our fundraising course pre-sales: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Michel Tricot Co-Founder at Airbyte talks about raising capital for an open-source startup. We talked about how Airbyte plans to monetize and how they managed to get into Y-Combinator. We also touched onto the effect that a good background in a relevant field has on your fundraising efforts (spoiler: it makes fundraising too easy) Michel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micheltricot/ Airbyte's website: https://airbyte.io/ Link to our course on fundraising - The Science of Getting in front of Investors: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Bryan Clayton, CEO and Cofounder at GreenPal talks about how his company outlived dozens of his competitors by NOT raising money from investors. We also discussed the future plans of the company and why their strategy might change and actually include fundraising in some form. But the major focus of the interview is on the reasons to not fundraise and on discussions of cases in which it is applicable. Bryan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-clayton-a96b33214/ GreenPal's website: https://www.yourgreenpal.com/ Our course on fundraising: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Karl Hughes, Founder and CEO at Draft.dev talks about content marketing, specifically focused on targeting developers. We discussed some strategies that can be applied and budget for good content marketing along with some use-cases. Karl's personal site: https://www.karllhughes.com/ Promotion checklist: https://draft.dev/learn/promotion Low-cost content marketing ideas (forgot to mention this, but might be helpful for early-stage founders on a budget): https://draft.dev/learn/low-cost-marketing-ideas

Kirk Marple, Founder and CEO at Unstruk Data talks about their fundraising round and how they doubled their valuation in less than 4 months. We also spoke about some useful techniques that can help founders fundraise. Kirk's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkmarple/ Unstruk Data: https://www.unstruk.com/

Paul Martino, founder at Bullpen capital talks about investing in founders who are "falling out of pattern", making post-seed investments and how such investments are different from bridge rounds. We also spoke about how founders should view such post-seed rounds and how to approach them. Paul's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljmartino/ Bullpen capital: https://bullpencap.com/ Work is still very much in progress, but you can preview the upcoming course on outreach to investors created by Fundraising Radio team here: https://fundraise.thinkific.com/

Taylor Burton, Co-Founder of Till Financial talks about the creation and fundraising of it and how they have gathered analyzed and later presented the feedback to the investors. Taylor also touched onto the major problems that they faced while building the company and some mistakes they've made early on. Taylor's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-burton-93073215/ Till Financial's website: https://www.tillfinancial.io/ Fundraising Radio's course preview: https://fundraise.thinkific.com/

Casey Fenton, co-founder at the legendary Couchsurfing and currently founder and CEO at Upstock.io talks about what RSUs are and how are they different from standard stock options. We also discussed why exactly Casey hates stock options so much and what is so wrong about them. And of course we talked about Casey's experience with couchsurfing and its transition from a non-profit into a for-profit company. Upstock: https://www.upstock.io/ Casey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyfenton/ Casey's email if you want to discuss equity: casey@upstock.io Couchsurfing: https://www.couchsurfing.com/

Thomas Li, Co-Founder and CEO at Daloopa talks about explaining complicated tech in simple terms and selling it to investors and buyers. We also discussed deep tech in greater detail and who are the primary targets for fundraising in these cases. We also touched onto the importance of listening to your customers and how that can directly affect your fundraising process (great quote at the end of the episode). The preview of the course isn't up yet, but it will be very soon, if you want to make sure you don't miss it, go to https://www.fundraisingradio.com/ and subscribe to our mailing list! Thomas' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-li-a6189245/ Daloopa's site: https://daloopa.ai/

Omry Ben David, General Partner at Viola talks about investing in Israel and Israeli founders all over the globe and why it seems to be working than most other demographics. We also discussed how does Viola Ventures work and why is it spread over 4 funds and how do they cooperate. Omry's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omry-ben-david-2436371/ Viola's site: https://www.viola-group.com/fund/violaventures/ Another episode of Fundraising Radio about Israeli founders: Why invest in Israel and how do Israeli founders expand to the US? By Cynthia Phitoussi

Andrew Milich, Co-Founder at Skiff talks about the importance of college education while building a company and raising funding. He also talked about how investors reacted to him as the first time founder and how it affected his fundraising efforts. Andrew's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amilich/ Skiff's website: https://www.skiff.org/ Skiff's Twitter: https://twitter.com/skiffprivacy

Christopher Lustrino, Founder & CEO at KingsCrowd in this educational episode talks about equity crowdfunding, what are the major pitfalls in it and how to avoid them. He also gave a brief step-by-step guide on raising money through equity crwodfunding and shared some of the knowledge about the process that he gained while raising money for KingsCrowd. Checklist: 1) Be prepared for the time frame: 4-12 weeks to go live on equity crowdfunding platform. 2) Determine how much you want to raise and at what valuation. 3) Find the platform that fits your brand and begin your own fundrasing outreach 4) Get your financials in order - before going to the crowd, make sure your financials are in order and keep them that way.

Christopher Lustrino, Founder & CEO at KingsCrowd talks about his experience raising 100% of the funding for his company online. We discussed what are the major pros and cons of equity crowdfunding and how he maneuvered through them. Crhistopher also spoke about the repeat investor and their importance in any type of fundraising process and he explained how to stay in touch with your existing investors to make sure the next round will be easier to raise. Christopher's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislustrino/ KingsCrowd site: https://kingscrowd.com/ Fundraising Radio episode on CAFE - alternative to the standard SAFEs: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Thibauld-Favre/

Akeel Jabber, Investment director at Horizen Capital talks about rules of growing a SaaS business and later on selling it. He explained how Horizen Capital makes its investment decisions and how a startup founder can get closer to an acquisition. Akeel's podcast - SaaS district: https://horizencapital.com/saas-podcast/ Akeel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akeel-jabbar/ Akeel's twitter: https://twitter.com/AkeelJabber Horizen Capital: https://horizencapital.com/ For A/B testing: https://vwo.com/

Tanvi Gupta, Founder and CEO at SwoonMe talks about how she left Facebook and stability that it provides in order to build her own company. We also spoke about building a startup in a crowded space (online dating) and how she managed to stand out from the crowd and get her pre-seed round oversubscribed. Tanvi's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanvigupta773/ SwoonMe website: https://www.swoonmedating.com/ If you are curious to hear more about online dating, the interview with an Ex-Tinder Chief Product Officer is here!

Hussein Kanji, co-founder at Hoxton Ventures who presents himself as an analyst on LinkedIn to avoid spam messages from dozens of founders (I just find it hilarious that those messages go so out of hand, this kind of measures have to be taken so decided to mention it here). We spoke about the way Hoxton got to such a high rate of IPOs per investment and how Hussein finds those companies. We also spoke about IPOs and some other good stuff. Hussein's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hkanji/ Hussein's Twitter: https://twitter.com/hkanji Hoxton Ventures: https://www.hoxtonventures.com/ For our European listeners: Firstbase, where I work, can help you incorporate in the US fast and painlessly so check it out and use my code to get a discount - RADIO15

Billy Libby, Co-Founder & CEO at Upper90 talks about what the term "hybrid fund" implies and how is it different from a "regular" fund. We talked about who should try raising debt and how can a startup separate the part of their business that is safe and raise debt backed by that chunk of their business. We also discussed what kind of companies should really go after debt and how to do it. Billy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billy-libby-76464b1/ Upper90: https://www.upper90.io/ QSBS - what is that? Here is the explanation: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/qsbs-qualified-small-business-stock.asp

We got to the 300th episode and decided to celebrate with a bit of extra fun for our listeners. This episode is about the mistakes that were made during the creation of this podcast - it includes the stories of the team and some random bloopers that were removed from the original episodes and saved "for later use" and the day for that "later use" came! We hope you enjoy:) Here is the contact information of our key team members: Elizaveta Belinskaya: email, LinkedIn. Luis Bravo: email, LinkedIn Konstantin Dubovitskiy: email, LinkedIn.

Anthony Baker, Founder and CEO at Satellite VU talks about fundraising for his company that is about to launch multiple satellites into space. We spoke about testing out such a complicated idea with low budget and presenting it to investors in order to actually implement the idea. For founders in deep tech space this will be an extremely interesting episode about idea testing and implementation. Anthony's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonybaker2/ Satellite VU: https://www.satellitevu.com/ An episode on how Corporate Venture Capital works: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Mark-Crawford/ - it's a series of 4 episodes so be sure to check them all out!

Cynthia Phitoussi, Co-Founder & Managing Partner SeedIL Ventures talks about investing in Israel and explains the major differences between American and Israeli founders and shares the best qualities of both. We also discussed the major changes in the Israeli startup ecosystem that Cynthia saw over the past 7 years. Cynthia's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-phitoussi-b306921b/ SeedIL Ventures: https://seedil.com/ The book about learning most critical soft skills: https://chutzpahcenter.com/book/

Mark Peter Davis Managing Partner at Interplay Ventures, podcast host at Innovation with Mark Peter Davis and an author of The Fundraising Rules talks about the fundraising rules, the lessons he learned from being a VC. We also spoke about who should try to create content and in what form this content should be. Mark's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markpeterdavis/ Interplay Ventures: https://www.interplay.vc/ Innovation with Mark Peter Davis podcast: https://linktr.ee/markpeterdavis Mark's blog: https://mpd.me/

Duane Good, Co-founder & President at Tribal Credit talks about some of the indicators of the future growth in companies, red flags that can be spotted in metrics of a company and how Tribal credit raised $43 million. Duane's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duanegood/ Tribal Credit: https://www.tribal.credit/ Follow Tribal Credit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tribal-credit/ For those listeners who are just thinking of starting their companies: I've recently joined an awesome YC-backed startup - Firstabase.io that helps founders create legal entities in the US from anywhere in the world within minutes. Since I work there, you get the sweet 15% discount code! Just go here and use RADIO15 code!