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The Urban Us platform includes the Urban Us community - a resource for urbantech focused founders, investors, partners and customers; URBAN-X, funded by MINI, is a program that supports early stage teams with company building and fundraising with seed and series A graduation rates exceeding benchmark programs such as YCombinator; Urban Us affiliates include Perl Street which helps finance hardware startups; and Urban Gateway which supports startups in business development in Asia. The Urban Us portfolio includes nearly 90 investments, many in NYC but spanning the globe, such as Bowery Farming, One Concern, Cove Tool, Future Motion, Blocpower, Near Space Labs, Seamlessdocs (acquired by Kofile), Evolve Energy (acquired by Octopus Energy), Versatile, Toggle, and Revivn. Before Urban Us, the operating team had three exits as operators and managed investments at First Round Capital, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup. The team has taught urbantech courses at the University of Chicago and teaches the Urban Us business case study at Harvard Business School.
083. Alley Coworking | Jason Saltzman is the CEO and Founder of Alley, a post business incubator and shared workspace for entrepreneurs. He also co-founded the tech company, SeamlessDocs. Jason advises and invests in a variety of early stage companies and is a mentor for the Techstars accelerator program. Jason has worked with the US State Department, traveling the world to assist the growth of startup communities. On his latest trip the Middle East, he produced and starred in a documentary about the Kuwaiti startup ecosystem. *** For Show Notes, Key Points, Contact Info, Resources Mentioned, & the Fabulous 4 Questions on this episode visit our website: Jason Saltzman Interview. ***
We're NOT doctors. This is not medical advice. Hi, we talked about cannabis in this episode. A transcript for this episode can be found here. The transcript for this episode was sponsored by SeamlessDocs. Notes from this episode: Study Finds Cannabis Dispensaries Reduce Opioid Deaths by 21%, Medical Marijuana Use Worker Protections Growing, Rulings Show, A Marijuana... The post Episode 78: Cannabis with Kings Floyd appeared first on The Accessible Stall.
For a serial entrepreneur to develop a love for government seems counter-intuitive and a ridiculous contradiction, but Jonathon Ende did exactly that. After a few years of focusing his online forms product development and sales on small businesses, he had an enlightening conversation with a government employee who was as enthusiastic as Jonathon was about the potential use of the product. It was the conversation with this public sector employee that clarified the direction SeamlessDocs would take, shifting its focus entirely from small business to government agencies. All the right things and people came together to confirm his lightning bolt moment of insight about the need and desire for improving interactions among agencies and between agencies and their constituents, and Jonathon was propelled by a new vision and mission. The motto, Government is Beautiful, is rarely an easy sell to anyone who has ever had an interaction with government, whether that’s at the department of motor vehicles, the post office, or trying to get a permit for a parade or event in a city. And yet, after speaking with anyone at SeamlessDocs, or any of the government employees who have had the opportunity to work with that team and their product, people have a completely different view of their jobs and their governments; some parts of government absolutely CAN be beautiful. The beauty of government can be found in those public employees who make it their mission to improve relationships with their residents, the ones you don’t see working behind the scenes to make sure your water is safe to drink, the ones who work to meet the complex restrictions on wastewater release into the environment, and the ones who care deeply for their community and demonstrate that every day in whatever role they play in your local government. Learn more about Jonathon and SeamlessDocs by connecting with him on LinkedIn, and visiting the website. You can read about my early experience with the product in my blog post here.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Ron Bouganim is the Founding Partner @ Govtech Fund, the first-ever venture capital fund dedicated to government technology startups. To date, he has backed some incredible category leaders including mark43, Neighbourly, MindMixer and SeamlessDocs just to name a few. Prior to GovTech, he was Accelerator Director @ Code for America and was an active angel investor and advisor working with more than twenty startups including ShareThrough, HelloSign, PagerDuty, and Close.io. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Ron made his way into the world of technology and startups and became angel investing? How that led to the founding of Govtech and the belief in the space today? 2.) There is the notion that there many challenges to investing in Govtech and scaling companies in the space, how does Ron respond to the suggestion the sales cycles when selling to government are too long for startups to navigate successfully? How does Ron respond to the suggestion that the growth rates in the space are to low for venture returns? How does Ron respond to the suggestion that founders in the space are inherently older as only they have experienced the problems of government tech? 3.) Why does Ron believe that a vertically focused fund is the right strategy is creating a massively outperforming fund? How does Ron respond to the possibility of missing moonshots in alternate categories? What does Ron most look for in the co-investors that he invests with? What do they bring to the table? 4.) What does Ron believe are the 2 fundamental roles of a seed investor today? How does that differ from previous generations of seed funds? Why does Ron believe that fundraising and hiring help is now merely table stakes? What else can seed investors do to meaningfully move the needle for their portfolio? 5.) Why does Ron advocate for a highly concentrated portfolio? How does Ron respond to LP concerns around a lack of diversification? Does Ron believe that you can grow ownership of your best companies over subsequent rounds? What is the sign of success for Ron when the founder comes back for re-financing? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Ron’s Fave Book: Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson Ron’s Most Recent Investment: Sema: Automated Code Maintenance As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ron on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Jason Saltzman is the CEO and Founder of Alley, a post business incubator and shared workspace for entrepreneurs. He also co-founded the tech company, SeamlessDocs. Jason advises and invests in a variety of early stage companies and is a mentor for the Techstars accelerator program. Jason has worked with the US State Department, traveling the world to assist the growth of startup communities. On his latest trip the Middle East, he produced and starred in a documentary about the Kuwaiti startup ecosystem. Want to Support the Show? Well join our Patreon Group! What's in it for you? Here's just a few of the perks of joining: (1) Instantly Schedule a Call with Austin - where he'll help you with your current or future business... (2) Discounted Pricing for Our Business Masterminds - where you can connect with other listeners... (3) Get Listed in Our Business Directory - for valuable SEO Juice... & so much more... Before Prices Increase... Sign-Up Now at millionaire-interviews.com/patreon.
How I Raised It - The podcast where we interview startup founders who raised capital.
Produced by Foundersuite.com, "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders who have raised capital. This episode is with Jonathan Ende, CEO of SeamlessDocs.com, a cloud-based e-signature platform that helps governments move all their forms online. The Company recently raised a $7.5 million Series C round of venture funding in a deal led by SJF Ventures. Motorola Solutions, Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator (ERA), NY State Innovation Ventures, CapRock, Govtech Fund, 1776 and others participated. Previously the Company raised from Kernel Capital, OnGrid Ventures, SoundBoard Angel Fund, Urban.Us, Harvard Business School Angels and New York Angels, Code For America, K Street Capital, RosePaul Ventures, Govtech Fund and others. in this episode, Jonathan talks about the criticality of focus and persistence, the rise of "GovTech" as an investing category, key questions to ask investors to gauge interest level, understanding the investor's decision making process, and much more.
Michael Fulvio, the Director of Customer Success for SeamlessDocs, joins Kristen to elaborate on how he got into Customer Success from Inside Sales, and his tips for working constructively with the Product team! Throughout his time at SeamlessDocs, he has built and maintained a positive relationship with the product team and even loops them in on customer calls! Tune in to hear how you can adopt these methods, processes, and more!
This week, the Bowery Capital team hosted Jonathon Ende, Founder & CEO at SeamlessDocs, to discuss “Public Sector SaaS: Selling Into Government.” SeamlessDocs' public sector SaaS platform helps government clients not only digitize their existing forms, but also process and track them. The company aims to be “the future of government forms,” bringing modern, intuitive user experience to the government-citizen interface. Though perhaps not the sexiest market, the opportunity is massive: US federal & state budgets alone exceed $10 Trillion. Unlike many software companies that sell into government today, SeamlessDocs is 100% focused on the public sector vertical. Jonathon, therefore, has embraced the idiosyncracies of selling into government, seeing them as potential moats rather than challenges to be avoided. Think how often you personally face agony over DMV appointments or jury summons. Attaching a service cost to all of those incidents, then multiplying by a 9-figure factor (applicable citizen-users) makes clear the scale & ubiquity of the problem SeamlessDocs is solving. And the buyers are there: efficient, paperless, user-friendly citizen interaction would mean billions in cost savings for under-resourced governments. Jonathon founded SeamlessDocs in 2011 alongside CTO Chaci Camejo. Today, SeamlessDocs employs over 40 FTEs, operating largely out of its New York City headquarters. Customers range from the State of New Jersey to the City of Los Angeles. Since founding, the business has raised ~$17MM in venture financing from Seed through a Series B approximately a year ago, from Motorola Solutions, Govtech Fund, and others. In today's episode, Jonathon will walk us through his framework for successful sales in public sector SaaS. Selling into government isn’t a simple prospect. As many horizontal players who have dipped their toes into government prospects know, budgets can be opaque, sales cycles can be long, and existing systems are often a nightmare. Jonathon and I discuss the realities of public sector SaaS sales today. In short, it may not be as bad as you think. That said, it takes a deep understanding of your customer universe, and Ideal Customer Profile within it, to build credibility early in these sales processes. As Jonathan details, there are absolutely buyer champions out there in government. Ensure your public sector SaaS solution (and sales team) is truly understands prospects’ issues, concerns and limitations, and you can activate them. We cover topics such as: sales strategies, lead qualification, sales team organization, sales team education, and other topics uniquely germane to public sector SaaS. Jonathon Ende is the Founder & CEO at SeamlessDocs, a role he has held since founding the business in 2011. Prior to SeamlessDocs, Jonathon was the co-founder of The Alley, a technology share space here in NYC. Jonathon served as CEO to two companies even earlier in his career, including LegalLogix, the first business he founded, back in 2010. Few modern, sales-oriented SaaS CEOs client (and prospect) bases are 100% government / public sector; Jonathon, however, is that rare find, making him a perfect guide to today's podcast topic. Happy listening!
This week, the Bowery Capital team hosted Jonathon Ende, Founder & CEO at SeamlessDocs, to discuss “Public Sector SaaS: Selling Into Government.” SeamlessDocs' public sector SaaS platform helps government clients not only digitize their existing forms, but also process and track them. The company aims to be “the future of government forms,” bringing modern, intuitive user experience to the government-citizen interface. Though perhaps not the sexiest market, the opportunity is massive: US federal & state budgets alone exceed $10 Trillion. Unlike many software companies that sell into government today, SeamlessDocs is 100% focused on the public sector vertical. Jonathon, therefore, has embraced the idiosyncracies of selling into government, seeing them as potential moats rather than challenges to be avoided. Think how often you personally face agony over DMV appointments or jury summons. Attaching a service cost to all of those incidents, then multiplying by a 9-figure factor (applicable citizen-users) makes clear the scale & ubiquity of the problem SeamlessDocs is solving. And the buyers are there: efficient, paperless, user-friendly citizen interaction would mean billions in cost savings for under-resourced governments. Jonathon founded SeamlessDocs in 2011 alongside CTO Chaci Camejo. Today, SeamlessDocs employs over 40 FTEs, operating largely out of its New York City headquarters. Customers range from the State of New Jersey to the City of Los Angeles. Since founding, the business has raised ~$17MM in venture financing from Seed through a Series B approximately a year ago, from Motorola Solutions, Govtech Fund, and others. In today's episode, Jonathon will walk us through his framework for successful sales in public sector SaaS. Selling into government isn’t a simple prospect. As many horizontal players who have dipped their toes into government prospects know, budgets can be opaque, sales cycles can be long, and existing systems are often a nightmare. Jonathon and I discuss the realities of public sector SaaS sales today. In short, it may not be as bad as you think. That said, it takes a deep understanding of your customer universe, and Ideal Customer Profile within it, to build credibility early in these sales processes. As Jonathan details, there are absolutely buyer champions out there in government. Ensure your public sector SaaS solution (and sales team) is truly understands prospects’ issues, concerns and limitations, and you can activate them. We cover topics such as: sales strategies, lead qualification, sales team organization, sales team education, and other topics uniquely germane to public sector SaaS. Jonathon Ende is the Founder & CEO at SeamlessDocs, a role he has held since founding the business in 2011. Prior to SeamlessDocs, Jonathon was the co-founder of The Alley, a technology share space here in NYC. Jonathon served as CEO to two companies even earlier in his career, including LegalLogix, the first business he founded, back in 2010. Few modern, sales-oriented SaaS CEOs client (and prospect) bases are 100% government / public sector; Jonathon, however, is that rare find, making him a perfect guide to today's podcast topic. Happy listening!