Fundraising & Pitching Best Practices: What Entrepreneurs Need to Know!

[00:00:05] David Postolski: Hello, everyone. Thank you and welcome to the Entrepreneurial Strategy series. It is sponsored by Gearhart Law. We are a intellectual property law firm in New Jersey, New York and Philly. All we do is IP and everything satelliting around that. I'm a big believer and so is the firm about. On. On education, empowerment. That's something really important to us. These are some. This journey of being an entrepreneur and a startup is, you know, plagued with a lot of misconceptions and myths. And so there's always room for learning and education and empowerment. And so we put these on at least once a month, usually the last Thursday of the month, but we had to reschedule because of holidays and stuff like that. So welcome. We're always looking for ideas, so if you have any, let us know and, you know, let's just start. So welcome to Fundraising and Pitching Best practices. What every, every entrepreneur needs to know. I am super excited about these two speakers. I'm going to let them introduce themselves. I've known one longer than the other for sure. And she's going to start first. Her name is Abby Lyle and you know, we encourage your questions in the chat. Chat there might, there will be some time to ask live questions, but you know, chat away as. As we're talking. And of course this will be recorded and you'll be able to consume it later at your leisure. So I'll start with Abby. Abby Lyle, thank you so much for being here. Perhaps you can introduce yourself. [00:01:48] Abby Lyle: Thank you so much for having me, David. It's great to be here. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for coming. Great to meet all of you. My name is Abby Lyle. I am chief of staff at a company called lionshare. We are a strategic finance and fundraising consulting firm. We work with both startups and funds and we work with companies in three ways. The first is called investor preparedness or investor readiness, where we help companies with every aspect of getting ready to raise. So strategy around the raise, pitch decks, introductions to investors, financial models, data room, everything end to end that goes into getting you ready to raise. We do that. We also are outsourced strategic CFOs so we can help with any other CFO work that you have. And then we have two incredible designers on staff so we can do any other design work as well in addition to pitch decks. So that's what we do. Prior to joining lionshare, I was a VC for seven years. I worked for three different venture funds, two early stage accelerator funds, Kuwait Capital and Big Idea Ventures, which is where I met David. And then most recently I was an investor at Tribeca Venture Partners where I invested in New York based companies across industries at Series A and Growth. So that's a little bit about me. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Awesome, thank you, Abby. And super excited to have Naomi. Naomi, maybe introduce yourself please, if you can. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Absolutely. Hi everyone. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. My name is Naomi Goes, I'm a principal at Forum Ventures. A little bit about our firm. We are a multi strategy early stage fund. So we run three strategies. We have a studio, we have an accelerator, and then we have a fund. I personally split my time across both the accelerator and the fund. In terms of our check size. We write 50k to 750k checks, we're actively deploying out of all three vehicles and notably we write approximately 100 checks every single year. So we see a lot, we're able to execute on a lot and have a lot of data points on what's happening in the market. So good pulse on things, which obviously is a good advantage for our portfolio team of former operators and founders. We have an office in New York, that's where I'm based. We have another office in Toronto and then we have some folks who are scattered throughout North America. From a thesis perspective, we focus on B2B SaaS however, and we're completely agnostic in terms of sector. However, there are areas where we tend to spend a little bit more time and are proactive around not only thesis development, but also network curation, management and expansion. And those tend to be healthcare supply chain, vertical AI, AI agent and infrastructure as well as fintech. I came to form about a year and a half ago after investing at Alpaca vc, which is another early stage firm based in New York. But prior to that I spent my entire career as an operator in the world of supply chain. So I started in mature industry where I worked on the consolidation of supply chain assets at a conglomerate that grew through acquisitions of brands and licenses. Spent months of my life on factory floors, on warehouse floors, thinking about the opportunity to digitize all these archaic legacy industries which catalyze the move over to startups. I ended up joining a pre launch, pre seed stage startup where I was supposed to do some supply chain work, but of course got thrown into fundraising as it happens. And that was really my introduction into the world of venture and looking at private capital financing as a source. So that's a bit about me and about Forum. Super excited for the chat. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Awesome. Yeah. So you've been where most of these people are, so that's Great. We'll get into that a little bit. So, I don't know. I know Abby and Naomi joined kind of into our introductions, but if you, if you were, if you heard any, there's a lot of people here that are in need of money. I mean, everybody needs money. I always say that, right? Everybody needs money. We got it. I mean, even, even my largest of clients need money. Everybody needs money. So, like, we'll start with Abby. Naomi, you can definitely pitch in after Abby as well. Like, where do they begin? Abby, where these people, like, these have awesome ideas. Some have patents, some have, like, you friends and family, and some have gotten investment. But, like, what would you say? Like, where should they begin? Like, what's first step? What's step number one for them? Abby? [00:06:24] Speaker C: Totally. So there's a lot there. And I guess the caveat is that there's no, like, universal step one. So you know what the right next step is, is probably going to be completely different for every single person on this call. What I will say is that it's like investors aren't investing in ideas. So just having a great idea is not enough. It's not something that anyone is going to invest in, unless it's like someone who knows you really well, but then they're not really investing in the idea, they're investing in you. So at the very early stages, you know, if you, if you don't really have much by way of the business, like, you haven't really sold anything, you don't really have a product, you haven't really sold anything, then investors are investing in you and the other folks on the team. And so that's super important. So if you're at that stage where you don't have much by way of business, you know, you can't really point to sales and say, like, oh, I have this product and it's selling and people are buying it, then you should, then network is everything. And network is very important. Network is the number one most important thing at every stage of the fundraising process, but especially at the very early stages. So if that's where you're at, you need to find people that are willing to back you or willing to back the other people on your team. And so I think that's, that's, that's a really important thing. The other thing, that's sort of counterintuitive and very unfortunate. You talked about people needing money and everyone needing money, which is 100% true. And especially given where the fundraising market is at right now, that has never been more the case the unfortunately, the best time to raise money is when you don't need it. And investors are always more likely to want to invest in a company that doesn't need money. You know, investors don't want to. No one wants to feel like they're putting good money after bad, right? So, you know, going to an investor and being like, I need money is not the right approach. So what you want to do is go to the investor and say, hey, I've got this really great thing going on. Maybe it's a product that's really different and unique. Maybe it's your unique lens on an industry or problem or a strong business that you've built with good growth, with good growth and strong revenues. You want to go to the investor with something that you've got going on that's good and make them feel like they're losing out if they're not jumping on that ship. That's the right approach from a psychological perspective to take in these conversations. And by that, I'm not saying, you know, you shouldn't make that up, right? Like, it should be honest things, just be true things. So, you know, what I'm not saying is to do this sort of like, fake, like, you know, oh, you're going to miss your opportunity thing if it's not real, because investors can see right through that. They're smart people. But you want to be bringing a good opportunity to the investor and telling the investor that this is something that's going to make them money, show them how this is something that's going to make them money. That's the type of companies, businesses, people that investors want to invest in, not companies that need it, so to speak. [00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Naomi, what do you think? I mean, I'm going to come back to a few things that you said, Abby, for sure. But Naomi, any thoughts? [00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I echo a lot of everything that Abby said and I think notably she touches on two really critical components that are helpful to just understand before you jump into it. One is kind of what is the typical pre seed evaluation framework which Abby touched on via we're making a bet on you. We're really thinking about the founder first, so I'll, I'll touch on that in a moment. The second one, it's actually a common pitfall, is really trying to pitch the business or like, why it's such a great idea versus pitching an investment opportunity. And those are really, really good. Two starting points for folks having this conversation for the first time. So beginning with, with the first piece, the way that we think about it, because we tend to invest in businesses that sometimes don't have a product yet, don't have traction yet, we're very comfortable getting to conviction pre revenue. It becomes an evaluation framework that starts with a founding team, goes through the market, and then at the bottom really evaluates product, if there is any. And the rationale there is that what we're really optimizing for and what we're under are the people who have excellent founder market and founder product fit. They understand the problem better than most. They have access to those customers, a greater access to those customers, some sort of unfair distribution advantage relative to other people trying to solve the same problem. And they understand the value chain that they're looking to sell into. So it's really people who have this advantage via their network, an advantage via own experience to solve this problem. The second piece we really think about is how big is this market? Right? So as a venture investor, I need an outcome that usually starts with a B. And so not all markets and not all problems are large enough to get to that level, to that outcome. And so I need a market that will actually facilitate that. And then at the bottom, there's a product. And the reason why I say it last is not only because there's usually not a product or maybe minimal product, but also you will inevitably pivot. And I want to make sure that you and your founding team are the people that will execute in a large enough market such that my bet remains a venture scale bet. So that's kind of like the first thing that Abby touched on and touched on, and I'm adding kind of like the investment framework that we utilize for it. Then the second piece that Abby touched on is you. You want to create some sort of like, hype or excitement about, about the deal or about this opportunity you're pitching to an investor. And that's really rooted in something that we see a lot, is that a common pitfall is that a founder will really try to sell me on the company rather than speaking to an investor about what the investment opportunity is. And those two, those two things are sadly distinct. And especially at the early stage when there aren't a lot of business metrics to point to, you really have to create a perceived value because the value of the company is not necessarily the intrinsic value of the company, it's actually its perceived value. And a lot of those things are within your control and some are not. Right. If a market's really hot, like we're seeing AI agent be really hot, you don't really have control over that if you're not building in that market. But what you do have control over is how strong your team is. What proof points do you have that you do have access to these customers? What kind of validation have you done to date? And so all your fundraising materials, which we'll talk about later, kind of how you navigate the conversation, is looking to pitch me on the investment opportunity, why there's a sense of urgency, why this returns my fund, and not just pitching me on a great business. Because there are a lot of really great businesses that are not venture backable, and that does not mean they won't make you rich, but they won't make me rich. And so that's really the framework. [00:13:29] Speaker B: I love it. Great nuggets for sure from both of you. But I, I kind of, I'm gonna, I'm gonna speed up. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick on you, Naomi, for, for a minute because you said something like, pitching me. How does that work exactly for all these people? Like, like, how do I meet the investor? How do I get to the investor? Do I send them an email? Like, what do I do? Are they looking at it? Like, maybe you can shed some. Maybe you can. Maybe you can show us under the hood as to what it means to pitch you. Exactly. How does that happen? [00:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, happy to. So zooming out, there are essentially three buckets or three nodes through which investors tend to get their deal flow. We have our network, we get inbound and we do outbound. Right. And so starting with the first two, those will be kind of what you have more control over. [00:14:19] Speaker C: Right. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Investors not reaching out to you. And obviously anything that's warmer is going to reduce some friction. And so let's talk about what it means to get in via network. And then we're going to talk about some strategies if you can't get in via network. So via network, there are a handful of options, a great way to get in front of an investor, and the best way to also do your homework to understand if they're the right investor for you to really understand their portfolio. What sectors are invested? Are they investing in what stage companies? What is their check size? So taking a look at the portfolio and looking at some synergies, looking at some patterns that you're seeing that perhaps are aligned with what you're building, perhaps you can add value to those portfolio companies. And reaching out and connecting actually with portfolio founders will be a great way to get a referral to me. I love taking referrals for my founders, because one, we invested in them so they know what we're looking for and two, they have direct access to me via Slack, via email. They know I'm going to read their notes. So that's one way to do it. A second way to do it. And we're very lucky that there is a celebration of this tech community, IRL and digitally and events such as this one where there are ecosystem partners like Abby and David that are connected with me and investors like myself. So really leveraging those relationships and getting to know the ecosystem partners is another really good way to get a warm introduction. But say you really can't get there, the network advantage is not there. What do you do? And I'm going to start by saying you will be surprised at how many irrelevant notes I get from people who just simply did not look up forum, have no idea what we invest in and will pitch me on an idea that's just out of scope. It's not a bad idea, but it's just out of scope for my mandate. I can't do anything about it. And so I would say if you're going to go the inbound route, first of all do your homework. Get very comfortable and acquainted with the investment thesis with a check size. A lot of this stuff is publicly available and anything that isn't necessarily on the website is oftentimes disclosed via the VCs, Twitter or LinkedIn. Notoriously VCs. We love to talk about ourselves, we love to talk about our investment research, we love to talk about investments that we've made. So if you just go on our LinkedIn you'll probably see where we like to spend our time and that is a really excellent way to get in touch with us. I recently made a post about a supply chain idea that I had and I wanted to spend more time and some that thesis area. And I had an inbound request from a founder that was raising a pre seed round who was building a product that was completely in line with the thesis that I was looking to explore. And of course immediately we got on a call. It was a very tight quick process and we made investments and we welcomed this team into the portfolio. So this stuff really works. Now the last thing I will say, I think that there are few schools of thought around outreach and how successful it is. It is true that the industry, if you look at statistically, has a bias towards warm intros and referrals. That being said, I recently came across a really interesting stat in a book called the Venture Mindset where they did an Experiment where fake founders wrote out these emails to investors, 1 in 12 got a non trivial response, so something thoughtful. And of those 75% actually either converted to a first call or due diligence questions. So I don't want folks to get discouraged. As a person who comes from a non traditional background, both professionally and just kind of like my personal background, there is a way in and it's really, it takes being strategic and thoughtful around how you approach it. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Amazing. Thank you. Abby. You must have some comments here for sure. [00:18:19] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think I agree with everything that Naomi said and honestly couldn't have said any of it better. I think like, like it's kind of like the old adage that we learned in kindergarten, like do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And like, you know, like if you're asking someone if you're cold reaching out to a VC, essentially what you're asking them is for 30 minutes or however long this intro call is going to be out of their day. And that time is really valuable. You know, VCs are busy people. You guys are all busy people too. Everyone in the entire entrepreneurship and business ecosystem is a busy person. And that time has value. So if you're making that request of an investor of their time, think of it that way and treat it with the respect that that deserves. So you know, put in the two or three or five or however many minutes it takes to go on that person's LinkedIn, read about them, learn about their background, go on their firm's website, read about their investment thesis, see if it's relevant. You know, if you're building a CPG company, don't reach out to biotech investors and ask them to spend 30 minutes on a call with you. That's not a good use of their time or yours. And you'd be surprised. This all seems like dumb common sense stuff, but when I was an investor, my inbox was flooded every day like hundreds of people that where it was clear I was just thrown on a BCC line with founders that didn't do the two minutes of research necessary to determine what stages and sectors we invested in. So don't waste your own time and don't waste other people's time. And if you're making an ask of a person when you're looking at an investor, see them as a person and treat them like you would treat any other person and treat their time with the respect that it deserves. Don't just like, you know, look at them with dollar signs and see like a path to money and forget that there's like a real person there to build a relationship with. Because fundamentally investments, especially early stage VC investments, are all about relationships. If you've got a VC who is going to be investing in you at the preceder seed stages, that's a 7 to 10 year or longer commitment. There's this crazy stat. It's like the average VC portfolio company relationship in the US lasts longer than the average marriage. And so it really is a commitment on both your part and theirs. And it's a relationship on both your part and theirs. So make sure you're doing your due diligence and your research on the investor in the same way that they're doing that on you and that you're choosing the people that you want to be in, you know, in a relation, in a relationship with, for lack of a better words, for you know, what could be a decade. Because if you don't do that now and you get folks on your cap table that aren't aligned with your vision, or don't have experience in your industry, or don't understand what's unique about you, they're not going to be able to add value and you could end up with trouble down the road. [00:21:25] Speaker B: Love it. Abby, let's stick on you for a little bit because you brought up some good points that I want to want to mention. So yes, let's say you, you've done your due diligence, you found the right investor, you've even managed to kind of get an inroad or kind of warm introduction from someone. What do you, what, what are you giving them? Like what exactly? And I'm sure this goes for any investor, right, for that matter, but what, what exactly? You know, because you know, organization is like really like just being organized is really important. So like what, like, so like what am I presenting to them that they're either going to look at, have the time to look at? Want to see things like that? [00:22:09] Speaker C: Yeah, totally. No, that's a really good question. And we had a philosophy at Tribeca, the firm that I was at most recently, where we viewed the diligence process itself and the way that founders engage with us throughout the diligence process, as much of a component of our decision making process as the actual diligence materials and their answers to the question. So like how you engage, you know, similar to the outreach, you know, how you engage with an investor in the outreach and the diligence process says a lot, you know, even more so almost than the actual materials you're providing or the tangible answers to the questions that they're asking. So you know, respond in a timely manner manner, show up to meetings on time, show up prepared. Again, all of these things that like don't seem like things we should have to say. But as VCs you see so frequently people not doing that. So you know, engage in the process, view the process itself as like part of the diligence process. As much if not more so as the materials your providing and then as far as the materials themselves. So it typically starts with a pitch deck and you should have a version of your pitch deck. This is super important because even if you're doing something that is heavily, that is IP heavy or has a lot of proprietary technology, it's really important that you have a forwardable, public facing version of your materials. So VCs are not going to sign an NDA to view your pitch deck. VCs are not going to sign an NDA to take a first meeting with you. It's just not something that happens in the industry. VCs aren't going to say yes to it. And if you're asking it, it's going to make you look like someone who doesn't know what you're doing. So don't do that. If you're very concerned about proprietary IP getting out, you can have a section of your data room perhaps that has all that proprietary technological information, information. And then when the VC is further along down the diligence process, when you've had a couple meetings, you verify that they're interested, you're digging in deep, then you can ask them to sign an NDA. But right up front, you know, sign an NDA before even speaking with me. Sign an NDA before viewing my pitch deck. That doesn't work. So have the very first thing an investor is going to want to see is a pitch deck. This should be public. Something that you're okay with getting out, something that you're okay with being forwarded. And that's really important too because like Naomi was mentioning before about network VC shared deals with each other and that's actually the primary Mechanism through which VCs get good deals that they're excited about. If you're getting a deal that's coming from your friend in another fund, that's significantly more exciting than a deal where, where a founder is just cold emailing to a vc. So this is a good thing. This like public facing version of your deck that's forwardable that VCs are going to be sending around is a Good thing you want this. It's going to help you make good connections with relevant investors. Even if the VC you're reaching out to doesn't think it's a fit, but they still like what you're doing. They might share it with their friend in another firm where that firm's thesis makes more sense and you can get great intros that way. So the very first step is a really solid deck that's ideally pretty short, I'd say for early stage, 15 to 20 slides is ideal. It needs to be really concise, really easy to flip through quickly and get all of the nuggets of information that you need to get out of through like a really fast skim while the VC is thinking about eight other things at once. Because VCC hundreds of decks a week. And you should not approach your materials with the expectation that a VC is going to sit down and read them like a book, because it's not going to happen. They're going to be skimming through it quickly to try to assess whether or not it's a fit to get a first call. And that's it. So the goal of the deck and your teaser blurb or whatever these teaser materials are, make sure you understand that the goal of those materials is not to get an investment. The goal of those materials is to get a first meeting, and then the goal of the first meeting is to progress to diligence. And then the goal of the diligence is to get an investment. So like, you're never going to make a deck that is just going to get people to invest based off of looking at that. Right. The goal of the deck and the initial outreach is to get a meeting and then the goal of each step in the process is to get to the next step in the process, not to have a deck that's so good. People invest just based on looking at that. I know I'm rambling, so I'll keep it short. Other things, you need a data room. So VCs will invest, will ask you for this when they're digging into the diligence. This has basically all of the financial and legal documents related to your business, more info about the technology, more info about your revenue, about your customers that's relevant, potentially sales materials, information about your market. So it's a big folder with all the detailed info that an investor is going to ask you for. And then finally the financial model. So having a financial model is really important. Controversial opinion over here, but in my experience, having a financial model is incredibly important. Regardless of what stage you're at in the process. So even if you're a very early stage pre seed or seed stage company, even if you're pre revenue and don't have any sales yet, it's still important to have some sort of financial model. It can be very basic, it can be very bare bones. You don't have to spend a ton of time on it, but you need to have something that's quantitatively showing how you think about your business and how your view, you know, what you're going to be charging, what your gross margins are going to look like, what are just some ballpark ideas of expenses that you're going to have, when do you think you might be profitable, how fast do you think your sales are going to grow? Even if that's, even if that stuff is wrong, which for an early stage startup, the financial model is almost always going to be wrong. Investors know that we look at a financial model and we know right away these are not the numbers. Right? Like we're not looking at a financial model and saying, oh, the business is going to do this, okay, we're going to invest. That's not what it is. The financial model is a framework through which we understand how the founders are thinking about their business. That helps us learn how we think and it gives us how they think and it gives us a starting point, a jumping off point for the conversation where we can dig into those assumptions. You know, ask them why their gross margins are this way, ask them why they think their growth rate is this. And so it gives us that framework for understanding how they think and a good, you know, starting point for the conversation versus not having one at all, which is just showing us that you didn't think about it and you didn't do the work. [00:28:54] Speaker B: Love it. Okay, great. And by the way, I love a ramble, so thank you for that. It was awesome. [00:28:58] Speaker C: Sorry. [00:28:59] Speaker B: All good. Naomi, what do you think? You must, I'm sure you have thoughts on this subject as well. [00:29:04] Speaker A: Like, it's so fun. Abby and I chat about these things all the time and I, I enjoy it deeply. One, because she so eloquently tends to articulate a lot of the same thoughts I have and she says I'm way better than I do. But we do have some differing opinions. And so while I do think that demonstrating thoughtfulness around metrics and a quantitative roadmap, we like at the precede, especially for the accelerator, we don't sit down and really model it out the same way that we would. And I used to when I worked at a firm where we wrote slightly down investments that were more downstream than what Forum does. And the reason for that is particularly at the accelerator. Oftentimes I will speak with folks who are in stealth who started a couple months ago. And so we need some indication and we definitely look at the numbers and what, what the trajectory of the business can look like. It's very hard to build, to build a thoughtful model given that it's really based on a lot of assumptions. So that becomes less effective of a tool for us as like an underwriting tool. And so this is where Abby and I kind of go back and forth and I think there's value in both sides and it really just depends on the strategy, how early folks go in and really how concrete some of the data can be. So what I will say in terms of, to add to what Abby shared with you all is that there is an importance of, to demonstrate Notes on pipeline. What do those contracts look like? Those are the types of numbers that I will be very discerning and looking at. Even if it's early and even if you haven't converted anyone. I want to understand what the size of the opportunity is. And the only way for me to really grasp it and digest it is to your learnings and your customer discovery on what the contract sizes are, what the potential upside is and what long term you're able to unlock once you on board. Some of these paying customers. [00:31:07] Speaker B: Customers, let me, I'm going to stick on you if we can. You know, I kind of forewarned Abby and Naomi. I was going to ask about this, but it kind of came up. I mean, I think, I think, I think both of you kind of mentioned it. You know, we. Intellectual property is my thing. I think you heard there were some people who were introducing themselves saying I have patents, I have, you know, I have this, I have that, that. But like regard, I mean you can talk about it from your personal experience, from forms experience. How important is that? You know, having a patent, having a trademark, having some copyrights, having a trade secret. How important is that to, you know, okay, this is, this is, this is what I got investor. How important is that decision? [00:31:55] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So, and we chatted about this before. Yeah, obviously we come in really early. So not every opportunity that we evaluate will have any of those things. And so when they do, the question becomes what advantage does this give the business from a true defensibility perspective, from a distribution perspective. So a more tactical example would be if you are an industry expert operator building an AI agent to perform Blank in your specific industry. So think about a vertical agent. If you have access to proprietary data, if you have access, or if you have a trade secret that will make this tool work better or get to customers quicker than anyone else who's building it, that is actually extremely valuable to me. And oftentimes when we look at application layer solutions that superficially may all look the same or the deck will communicate a semi similar message, you know, you're all solving the same, the same problem. Where we do look and we, we don't. We'd like to see under the hood what your proprietary moat is. And oftentimes that is that it becomes the data moat and that becomes anything that has to do with distribution that other people might not be privy to, such as a trade secret. [00:33:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's great. I remember when, when I first met Abby at Big Idea Ventures, if you recall Abby, most of the investments that were done there were so that the company could file intellectual property. I mean they had not yet. They had to Naomi's point, they had their moat. Right. They knew exactly what they were, what their proprietary technology is. They even knew what their trade secret was, whatever, but they just didn't have the funds to file, to file for their patent. And that was part of that accelerator's kind of thesis was, okay, we'll give you the money and spend it on filing for a patent now. So maybe you can kind of loop that into this conversation about ip. [00:34:11] Speaker C: Yeah, so a couple of different thoughts there. So at Big Idea specifically, and I think this is a very sector specific conversation a lot of times. So at Big Idea, we had two different main sectors we were investing in. So we were investing in plant based meat, dairy and seafood alternatives. So it was a mix. It was the weirdest mix in the world because it was like half consumer products companies that were making like new formulations to sell like direct to consumer or in, in retail. And then it was half technology companies that were like doing more was like biotech, you know, like coming up with new innovations in cellular growth and you know, microbial fermentation and things like that that were driving. And so the approach for those companies, like for the latter set of companies, you know, anyone who's doing anything in like biotech or medical devices or like hard science, deep tech like that, where there's like a real scientific breakthrough, patents are super important. And licensing of those patents can be an additional revenue stream. It often takes a long time to get those products to commercialization. So having the patent and the ability to license that Technology not only helps you get investment to get you there to the point of commercialization, which is often, you know, can be hundreds of millions of dollars in some cases, but it also enables this additional revenue stream before your product is fully ready to go to market, versus for a consumer products company or like even more so. Like when I was at Tribeca, we were investing in a lot of SaaS companies. Like those companies, it's a lot harder to have patent IP. You can still have other types of IP. So for a SaaS company, for example, it's typically trade secrets are what's most common because it's very difficult to protect a software innovation with patents. So usually they have some sort of proprietary algorithm that's or that's protected with a trade secret, or they don't have much by way of IP at all. And it's like a purely market based competitive moat. And so it varies a lot based on your sector. For consumer products companies, it can often be a mix. We often encouraged at Big Idea, we often encouraged those companies to have a mix. Like maybe they have some part of their formulation that's protected with a patent and then another part of their formulation that's protected with a trade secret. Because at the end of the day, a patent is only as good as your ability to defend it. And great lawyers are expensive and it's, you know, if you've got a massive Fortune 100 incumbent coming after you with hundreds of millions of dollars to fight you in court, it can be difficult to defend your patent. Not impossible, but it can be more difficult to defend your patent. So it's helpful if you also have a portion of your formulation or a portion of your algorithm or a portion of your IP that's not in that patent and is a trade secret. And that just adds that additional layer. So I would always, like. The most effective IP strategies I've personally seen have been a mix. Some patents, some trade secrets, some trademarks, and you know, other sorts of protections on your logo as well. But you know, operating on multiple fronts is always best in my opinion. [00:37:22] Speaker B: Love it. Well said. Naomi, what do you think about like, at least like branding? I mean, because, like, because, because like, like you said not everything. I mean you, you both said it and I agree not everything is patentable and whatnot. But like, you know, you're living and dying by your brand. At the very least, are you looking for like people to protect their brands at this state or at this early stage of investment? [00:37:47] Speaker A: Transparently? That is not necessarily a conversation we're having. Often Got it. We when we invest in B2B SaaS businesses. So I think brand there perhaps plays, you know, a less significant role at the pre seed. We're really thinking about, you know, who the people are, why are they the right people to build it, what does the, what does the go to market motion look like and how can we add fuel to this fire? Perhaps less so with maybe something that would be more prevalent in a consumer business or in more product oriented businesses. [00:38:22] Speaker B: Awesome. Let me stick on you for a little bit. I change gears a little bit because we've been saying vc, vc, VC a lot. Most of these people that are on the call will probably start their well, well, you tell me, should they be starting their investment journey with the VC or how important is it to, you know, hit up the friends and family or even kind of talk to angels? And if it is important from your perspective, how does that change anything that we've been talking about, if anything? [00:38:54] Speaker A: Yeah, like any good question, the most infuriating answer is true here and is that it depends. [00:39:01] Speaker B: Yes, that's a very famous lawyer answer too by the way. [00:39:07] Speaker A: And the reality is there are a couple of things at play here. But something important to note is that working with a venture investor and having them on your cap table introduces a level of or some pressure to perform in a certain capacity and you have more cooks in the kitchen. So I think that is one consideration. Abby mentioned that this relationship is going to be north of 10 years at times. And that's something to consider. And so it really depends how quickly you're willing to have additional opinions, additional pressure and essentially a commitment and a responsibility to deliver on these, on these expectations. That being said, I think that generally speaking at the earliest stages there's probably less friction to securing friends and family and angel financing. And so that's why we see a lot of folks go there first. That is often to enable customer validation or a really, really early version of the product such that you become more marketable to an investor and can have more productive conversations with them. Then if you do go down the institutional route immediately, I think where you do have to be really considerate is a good understanding of would they invest pre revenue, how early can they get in, what types of check sizes do they even write? And are those in line with what you're looking to accomplish? Because there are a lot of early stage investment firms that write a million dollar checks that round size is probably not applicable to someone who's really at the beginning of their journey. So if you feel very Strongly that an institutional backing is what you need to unlock the next round. The next thing really depends on what it is that you're building. Then I would be really thoughtful around where to go for that. Depending on the industry, there are a lot of other routes like grants and there's non dilutive support that you can get that does help you accelerate your rate of building and getting in front of people without getting any dilutive funding. And so those are other areas that I encourage people to consider before they have conversations with institutionals. [00:41:26] Speaker B: Yes. Awesome. Great advice for sure. Abby, thoughts on this? [00:41:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, you know, it's tough. Again, most infuriating answer that I would hate hearing. I would hate hearing this answer if I was one of you on this call because it's like it's such a chicken or the egg thing because you go to investors and they want to see traction and progress on the business and then you need money to get the traction and then once you have the traction and the business is doing well, you know, everyone wants to invest in a business with stable, fast growing recurring revenues and high gross margin. And you know the companies that need the money are very often more, very often not that so and the earlier you go, the more there's this sort of chicken or the egg problem that's difficult to crack. So this is typically when companies are in that sort of chicken or the egg situation where VCs want to see a little more. I mean Forum is great because they'll invest very, very early. Most VCs aren't like that. Most VCs want to see, you know, a little bit more traction, at least a little bit of revenue. And so but there are some earlier stage funds like Forum and accelerators that, that, that will take a company when they're more at that idea stage or pro just early MVP stage. There's also some other vehicles like grant funding is a, is really great especially if you're in a more scientifically heavy industry. You can get government grants or other industry specific grants. There's other, there's also like minority owned business, women owned business types of grants that you can pursue. Those can be ways to get you know, 25, 50, 75K in the door to like get a little bit of traction to then where you become a little bit more attractive to VCs and obviously angel investments and friends and family investments are really great if you can get those. I would actually, I would Recommend those over VCs at the very early stage of your pre product, pre revenue if you can. But unfortunately, it's not a route that's accessible to everyone. You know, it's not everyone has rich friends and family and I know I don't. So it's one. It's kind of this infuriating thing that unfortunately you see a lot in B.C. verbiage about like oh, do a friends and family round and then come back when you have more traction. And that's unfortunately not a reality for everyone. And I get that. So if that is a route that you're able to go, great, absolutely do that. If not, grant funding is another great option. Crowdfunding or equity crowdfunding is also another really good option, especially for consumer products companies because then you can cast a wide net and kind of get a lot of small checks from people that are interested in being customer of your product. And you can do that either through Kickstarter where they're getting like early access to the product, or you could do it through a platform like Republic, for example, where they're getting a small amount of equity. Those are both viable routes. Bringing on, you know, debt funding is also something that's been very popular recently. A lot of times that's done in conjunction with a venture round. So like you'll raise a venture round or angel round, friends and family round, and then you can go to a bank and you can get a little bit extra of debt on top of that to extend, to have that round last you longer and extend your Runway a little bit. So that's another really good option as well. So I would just encourage you all to be creative and think about what the right style of funding is for your business. Because VC funding isn't right for every business. As Naomi said earlier, you know, VCs are looking for these multi hundreds of millions or billions of dollars exits and not every business is going to achieve that. And if actually most businesses are probably not going to achieve that and if your business is in, not in a sector where those scale of outcomes are likely or just that that's not the style of business you want to run, that's totally okay. And that doesn't mean that it's a bad business. And that doesn't mean that it's a business. It's not, it's a business that's not going to make you money as the founder. You know, you can have a $10 million exit or a $20 million exit and have that be great for you as the individual, even if it's not a VC style outcome. So you know, just VC gets a lot of splash and publicity in the media and is very glitzy. And I think as a result of that, a lot of founders default to thinking that that's where the money should come from or, you know, default to thinking that that's the only route and it's not. So just, you know, research all your options and choose the style of funding that's right for your business. [00:46:16] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, speaking of that, I mean, I think the biggest thing that I think some of the biggest questions I get just, just as an, just because we meet early stage founders with great ideas is like, how should I be raising money? Like, you know, there's all sorts of different, you know, investment documentation and stuff like that. I, I will just say to everyone, I mean, I think if you are going to raise money, you probably should understand what these documents are legally like and what this means for you. Like, it's not just like I think Naomi said, it's not just money being given to you. Like, there's like this like fiduciary responsibility and it comes with obligations and you know, there's certain events that have to happen in the future. So I don't know, Naomi, maybe, maybe you can shed some light on that in terms of like convertible notes and stock purchase agreements and safes, which I know you use. Like, like, like those are, those are important terms. And I think a lot of founders don't even take the time to like, understand how this all plays out in the future. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that. [00:47:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm happy to. Our firm can work with, you know, various convertible instruments. We're comfortable doing a price round, however, where we default. And you know, I would, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I would assume north of 95% of the deals that we do annually will be on a safe. And so that is for the accelerator. That's actually our mandate for the fund. We're a little bit more flexible. And so the way that I would think about it and the way that we think about it. Right. And the reason why we chose to do it is for two big reasons, but they all fall under one thing is that we want to reduce friction. We want to be high value, low friction investors. And given the number of investments that we make everywhere, every year, like I said, we write approximately 100 checks every single year. We want to make sure that once we get to conviction, we're able to wire the funding immediately and start working with our portfolio companies, particularly given how early they are. And so a safe tends to be the convertible. Convertible instrument that is associated with fewest fees. There's. It's just a lot cheaper and it's a lot faster. So there's not a lot of like negotiation that needs to go into it. There are standard documents that are available publicly where you can see what standard terms really look like and you can maybe get a little bit more comfortable and educated around like what other founders in your same sector, same stage are getting from their investors. So that's the primary vehicle or instruments that we, that we work with. [00:49:12] Speaker B: Awesome. Abby, any, any, any, any thoughts there to add? Because I think it's a, it's definitely an important topic for sure and we could probably spend a whole hour on it for sure. [00:49:20] Speaker C: You know, totally. I actually, I think I have spent a whole hour on it in another webinar. So save. Echoing everything Naomi said. Safes and convertible notes are really great instruments at the very early stages. And the primary reason for that is that when you're investing, when you're bringing on investment, you need a valuation for your business. So like, you and the investor need to agree on what the business is worth. And the earlier you get that, that's harder it is to do. Because I think going back to the earlier comment about perceived value, right, you're the very early stages of your business where you might just have an idea and maybe an early version of the product and you haven't sold it yet. You don't have any revenue. It's next to embo. Impossible to say what that business is worth. So if you're actually doing, if you're doing a stock purchase agreement, which is an equity agreement, what you're doing. What you're doing there is you're selling a piece of your business. You're actually selling a chunk of your company in exchange for cash. So you're giving the investor ownership in your company and you're getting cash back at series A and up in vc, that's what, that's what your. Is you. That's what we're doing and because that's what the VCs want at the end of the day, right? The VCs want ownership in your company, but in order to do that, you need to put a price on the business because you need to know what the shares are worth in order to know what to charge the investor for them when you're selling them. And so precede and seed stage companies. That's really difficult. And so what the safe and the convertible note does is it bypasses that conversation, essentially kicks the can down the road of determining what the businesses were until a later date when they raise their next round. And then the VC or the angel investor gets their ownership in the business then instead of now. And there'll be something, instead of evaluation, there'll be something called evaluation cap, which is essentially a ceiling that says like when our, when our instrument converts were going, it's going to be not at a price, not higher than this to compensate them from the. For the additional risk that they're taking on coming in so early. So that's like the difference between a safe and it's convertible note and a price round stock purchase agreement, which is used in a price round. The main difference between safes and convertible notes are that convertible notes are a debt instrument. So safes is it just stands for simple agreement for Future equity. So it's basically you're saying, I'm going to give you money now in exchange for you promising me that when you raise your next round, you're going to give me shares in your company. That's it. That's all it says. That's why it's so simple and easy and that's why it reduces friction so much. And that's why, you know, you're able to do it without hardly any legal involvement. And, you know, it can be moved really quickly. Convertible notes have this additional layer where they're actually a debt instrument. So essentially there's this additional de risking provision in there where if the company doesn't raise their next round, then it become. Then they have to pay it back. And so that's like the additional provision. And some investors, in particular, individual investors, like angel investors, who are investing their own money a lot of times really care about that in a way that funds don't. Funds usually want to hit out of the park or they don't care. They don't really so much care about getting their money back. So they'll go for a safe. But a lot of times if you're dealing with an angel investor or a family office or someone who's investing their own personal capital at the very early stages, they'll want that convertible note so they have the additional downside protection. And then convertible notes also sometimes have interest like a debt instrument. So it's basically a loan that turns into equity versus a safe, which is just promising they're going to give you equity in the future. And that's the difference. [00:53:08] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:53:09] Speaker A: Excellent. [00:53:09] Speaker B: Both of you. Amazing. I love that. Thank you for breaking that down. It's really important. Again, I definitely think everybody should be educated on those specific documents for sure. If you're raising money in the interest of time. I do. There are a few questions in the chat, but Abby and Naomi, I'm gonna ask them. But afterwards maybe you can just take a few minutes just to talk about some of the best practices or mistakes, kind of final thoughts, if you will. But there are some quick questions Marva has. 1. Should the financial model and this kind of back went back to the financial model that you both were talking about that that you would include in your pitch deck. Should the financial model take a conservative approach on assumptions or more aggressive? Right. By the way, I hear that all the time, like I'm gonna make $20 million. Really? [00:54:01] Speaker C: Like yes. So. Okay, okay. I, I love this topic. First of all, the financial model should not be in the pitch deck. The financial model is separate. So the financial model is an Excel spreadsheet that's separate. So you have a pitch deck and you have a financial model. You can take numbers from the model and put them in your pitch deck to highlight certain numbers if you think that's helpful in the narrative. But the pitch deck is telling a story. Do not screenshot. My number one pet peeve in all the fundraising. Do not screenshot your financial model and put the screenshot of your Excel in the pitch. So there's separate things. The conservative versus not conservative assumptions is a really great question. I would definitely recommend having easily adjustable assumptions in your model. So you should have, you should have a set of key assumptions where you're assuming certain things. The earlier the business, the more this is true. Because as Naomi said earlier, earlier on in the business, you're assuming pretty much everything and it could all be made up and end up not being true. We expect that. So you should have the assumptions clearly laid out and they should be easily adjustable where if the investor wants to plug in their own assumptions, they can. That's super important. Honestly, I see the biggest mistake. I see lots of founders, especially ones who are not experienced in raising vc, going too conservative with their assumptions. I'm not saying you should lie or inflate or overstate or say anything that you don't think is true. I'm not saying that don't do that. But I do often see, especially first time entrepreneurs, founders who haven't raised VC before and aren't experienced in the VC mindset or the VC style of doing things, which is different, very different than being an SMB entrepreneur and especially female entry entrepreneurs. I see putting too conservative assumptions in their financial model. And that can hurt you Because VC is ultimate ultimately at the end of the day want to see a big opportunity. So don't lie, don't misrepresent, but also don't be, don't undersell yourself. So it's about striking that balance. [00:56:19] Speaker B: Naomi, thoughts? [00:56:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with everything Abby said. The one thing I'll add is that you want to make sure that some of the assumptions are tied to something right? And that's where having multiple components to your data room does become important. Especially if an investor is going to dive into this work and test the assumptions and try to build their own model to make sure that there is alignment. So an example of this would be if you have a pipeline Excel spreadsheet and report where there are different numbers associated with contract values immediately and then over time you want your model to reflect that. So obviously there are ways and levers that you can pull on how conservative or aggressive you want to be in your ability to upsell a contract or secure additional locations. If you're, if you're selling to a multi location customer. But you want to make sure that those numbers are founded in something. Just the same way that I've definitely to echo what Abby said. Well, I've definitely seen folks go way too conservative. I've also seen folks send me numbers that had nothing to do with the rest of their customer validation. And so that breaks and ultimately an investor is going to spend time looking at this and you want to make sure that you both see a similar path to growth. That's where the investor wants to also help you. And so making sure that a lot of these assumptions are tied to meaningful customer discovery and hopefully more than just discovery, some onboarding of customers will be really critical in making sure that you're also building a healthy relationship with them. You want to make sure that there's transparency around it, that you're to Abby's point, you're not lying. So you want to make sure that from the get go you're being extremely honest about where you think the company can go. [00:58:01] Speaker B: And Naomi, someone had a question ofek should a one pager be sent or the standard deck like one pagers do they work? [00:58:10] Speaker A: So they do work and I'm going to personally and again everything that I say just take it with a grain of salt on 1 VC I don't think it necessarily matters. I think that it all goes back to begin with the end in mind. What are we looking to achieve here? We're looking to unlock the next step in the process. And if you're sending Some sort of materials. This is the first time ordinarily that an investor will take a look at the business. They'll spend a couple of minutes on any material that you send and they will then make a decision whether or not they're curious enough to either send you follow up questions or to engage with you on, on a call and start due diligence. And so whatever materials that you send, whether they're in the form of a one pager, PDF or a deck, you want to make sure that it's very easy and in, in a rapid kind of skim to understand what it is that you're building, why you're the right person to build it, and why this business is a great investment opportunity. And so whether it is a deck or a memo or like a one pager, I would say lead with the strongest pieces of the business. And if you don't have any traction, then lead with your experience. Why are you uniquely positioned to solve the problem? You can do that in a few bullet points, in a memo, you can do that in a deck. Does not matter if you have incredible traction. Make sure that I see that in bold somewhere because I've definitely seen folks send me materials to get on a first call. They had really impressive revenue and I had no idea in my first skim and had I not already had a relationship there, maybe I would have missed that and maybe we wouldn't have interacted. So do whatever, in whatever way you can communicate your strengths best. Use that. I don't think it really matters, but really think about what you're looking to achieve here. A deck and, or slash, a one pager is not going to get you an investment. It's going to get you to a meeting. And so when you have that mindset, then you can decide what materials you can use to leverage that. [01:00:04] Speaker B: Love that. Abby. How important? He also asks that. That was great. Thank you. How important is the market traction in your investment decision? And I know that probably varies, but just thoughts on that. [01:00:16] Speaker C: Yeah, it really depends on the investor. Right. So you have investors like Naomi that are comfortable investing pre traction, like pre revenue traction, maybe other sorts of traction are important. And then you've got other investors that you know want to see 10 million in ARR. So it's a huge range. And I would say, like, make sure you're finding the investors that are the right fit. It's, it's all about finding investors that are the right fit because there's so many investors out there and everyone's got a very different approach. And everyone's got very different things that they look for. You know, like at Tribeca we didn't invest in consumer products or biotech. And then at Big Idea, I was investing in only consumer products in biotech. So it doesn't mean that like, you know, consumer products and biotech are bad or good sectors to be in. It just means that you need to find the investors that look at that sort of thing. So the same thing goes for stage right. Like if you're a pre revenue company, don't reach out to series B investors that Want to see 10 million in ARR, reach out to forum, you know, and vice versa. If you're, if you have 10 million in ARR, don't reach out to precede investors. So you know, do your research and reach out to the folks that are the right fit for your traction stage. Because there are investors at every traction stage. [01:01:36] Speaker B: Thank you, Naomi. If you have thoughts, definitely I want to hear them. But I also, but there's a, there's a, there's a really good question also. But please go, go for it. [01:01:44] Speaker A: A quick note on that. Yeah. Everything Abby said, exactly how she said it. One more thing to consider. You will see early stage investors need to see traction in more saturated areas. And so another way to think about it is an investor needs to de risk the investment opportunity. And if you are building in a really crowded market where there are low barriers to entry, there are a lot of competing solutions. One way for an investor to do that is to see your traction. And so that is one variability where you might speak with folks who are comfortable investing pre revenue in some areas, more nascent markets, fewer players and maybe need to see some early traction in other areas. [01:02:28] Speaker B: Excellent point. Apgar has an interesting question. I've heard it a lot. Could could smaller investments. So like here I am, I've given away X amount. I have convertible notes. I've safe and like could, could, could. Could those types of smaller investments make it harder to secure larger funding in the future? Because in the beginning every just kind of giving it away type of thing. What's your thoughts on that, Naomi? [01:02:52] Speaker A: I feel like Abby made a face so you can go first. [01:02:55] Speaker B: Go for it. [01:02:56] Speaker A: I'm biased. [01:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah. So I'm actually really interested in your thoughts on this too. So giving away too much of your company at the early stages can negatively impact your ability to raise in the future. I'll phrase it that way. So it's less about. So that's one component of it. And then the other component of it is if you raise too much and you don't have the traction to show for it. That can also negatively impact your ability to raise. So if you raise $10 million and you only have a million in revenue, unless you're in certain sectors, I'll caveat by saying in certain sectors where there's like a very long R and D timeline, for example, like drug development or certain deep tech sectors that might be okay, but for like a standard SaaS business, you raise $10 million and you have a million in ARR, that's, that's going to, investors are going to look at that and be like, what did they do with all that money? And what does that say about what they're going to do with our money? Right. So I would just say however much you raise, make sure you're not giving up too much of your business, not only for other investors, but also for yourself. Right, because you're the one who's putting your blood, sweat and tears into this. You want a good outcome for yourself at the end of the day. And then just be judicious with your capital and make sure that regardless of how much you raise, whether it's 50k, 200k, a million, 10 million, that when the time comes to raise again, you can account for how all that money was spent and show investors that you were conservative with that capital and will do the right thing with theirs. [01:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I echo all of that. A general rule of thumb is that you want to own more than 50% of the business before the series A. A lot of that too is that the investor wants to know that you, you have enough skin in the game. We talked about this a lot. This is a long journey. Companies are staying private longer. So you're, you're looking at a ten year horizon here. And we want to make sure that you are properly incentivized to work on the business, especially at the earliest stages in terms of how to make a decision about which checks to take such that you, you don't dilute yourself too much. Be really strategic at the beginning. These are people who, that you're gonna, are gonna be along like working alongside you throughout the entire journey. And so it, especially if you're going the angel route, the angel route or like some smaller institutionals, it's okay to be discerning around like who you want to add to your team ultimately, what, what kind of value do they bring beyond capital such that if you're giving up 8% of your business into like this one check, you want to make sure that they can make introductions or they have a unique insight into your go to market, they're really able to help you add fuel to your fundraising fire, et cetera. And so these early checks, while they're small, they might bring a lot of value. And, you know, 8% of nothing is, you know, not really meaningful. But like, you can really grow the business afterwards, even if you've taken that dilution. [01:05:42] Speaker B: Amazing. Final thoughts, ladies. And, and how do people get in touch with you, given that we talked about access? So, Abby, we'll start with you. [01:05:53] Speaker C: Totally. I think Naomi mentioned this before, but I want to circle it back to the front because it's really important and it's this concept of risk because fundamentally that's what investing is about. It's about risk. And VC is the riskiest portion of alternatives, which are like the riskiest asset class in all of asset management. And early stage VC is the riskiest out of that. So early stage VCs and angel investors are investing in the riskiest of the riskiest of the riskiest asset classes that are out there. So all they're thinking about all the time is how to lower that risk. So everything you do in fundraising, whether it's reaching out to, how you reach out to investors, how you put your materials together, what you say in the conversations with them, what you put in your data room, just view it all through that lens. How do you get these, how do you get investors to be comfortable with doing what is already a wacky, crazy high risk thing that most investors would never touch, which is investing in an early stage startup, even in the best of circumstances, there is so much risk associated with that. So how do you reduce that risk? What are all the ways that you can do to, you know, make the value proposition riskier, not just for the investors, but also for yourself? Right. Because you're investing your time and potentially financial resources into this too. So, yeah, if you take. Remember one thing I said, have it be that and to get in touch with me. I'll put my LinkedIn in the, in the chat. [01:07:27] Speaker B: Amazing. Naomi, please. Final thought. [01:07:29] Speaker A: I love it. I had so many thoughts on this. I'm gonna build off of Abby. Classically, this is where we always tend to end up on these things. [01:07:36] Speaker C: We're panel buddies. [01:07:38] Speaker A: Exactly. Another angle for this, and this is, you know, kind of famously a line that we throw around in venture, is that first time founders are obsessed with product. Second time founders are obsessed with distribution. So that's another way to really think about how you're de risking this. Right. Be really nimble the cost to MVP and beta testing is going down. Increasingly there are a lot of open source tools so you can actually do a lot more with way less funding and thereby de risk the opportunity for the investor. So be super customer obsessed. People will tell you if they want to pay for it. I just spoke with a founder yesterday who was like I realized that people were telling me that this is a great solution and then they didn't offer to pay for it. So I didn't have a business. And so that's really a great takeaway is listen to your customers pivot quickly. Be obsessed with distribution before you obsess about perfecting your product. And that's going to go a long way in conversations with investors. That is something that we're looking for, so that's something to keep in mind and best way to connect with me. I'll also put my LinkedIn in the chat. I'm excited to meet everybody. [01:08:44] Speaker B: Amazing ladies. Thank you so much. Thank you for everyone. This has been great. Again, this topic. I'm sure all three of us and all of you can probably talk about this for hours on end. But do reach out to them if you have any questions. Make it appropriate. As we spoke about and our next entrepreneurial strategy series is all about crowdfunding. Actually, Abby, it's all about equity and reward based crowdfunding. We haven't done something like that in years and so it will be in December, so look out for that. This, this was recorded and so this will be sent to everyone that registered. There was over 600 registrants, so everybody will get it. And so again, huge heartfelt thank you to Naomi and Abby. Thank you so much for this and I'll see you all in the future. We'll talk soon. Everybody. Thank you so much. [01:09:34] Speaker C: Thanks everybody. Bye bye, bye bye. Thanks.