Investor Connect Podcast

Be Founder-Friendly To Gain More Dealflow Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Founders live in the center of the startup world and thus see many companies raising funding. A startup investor will do well to tap into the knowledge of founders about other startups raising funding. An investor who treats founders well wi...

Founderflow vs Dealflow Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup investors spend their day looking for quality deals. There are business plan competitions, demo days, and other formats where founders pitch. Then there's warm introductions and referrals. The quality of these deals tends to be higher. Most investors...

How To Qualify an Investor for Your Startup Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Founders searching for investors need to qualify the investors for their deal. Here are key questions to ask an investor before pursuing your fundraise: Are they currently investing? What was the most recent investment made? How many of yo...

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Jake Ryan, Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Tradecraft Capital, a digital asset management firm focused on cryptocurrency, blockchain, and emerging technologies. Jake shares how he moved from software engineering and artificial intelligence into digital assets after early angel investing in a blockchain company and buying his first Bitcoin...

Investing in Climate Tech Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Climate Tech is an up-and-coming investment opportunity. Here are the sectors, benefits, and risks. The key sectors include the following: Renewable energy such as solar, wind, and geothermal. Carbon capture for capturing, storing, and utilizing carbon emis...

How to Diligence an AI Startup Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Artificial intelligence companies bring new challenges to the diligence process. Here are the key steps to diligence an AI startup: Does the AI startup have a clearly defined market that needs the product? How competitive is the startup over other prov...

Technical Due Diligence Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Investing in startups requires due diligence. In addition to financial diligence, an investor should consider technical due diligence. Here are the key areas to review for technical due diligence: Scientific risk. This is the risk in deep tech startups that c...

Why VC Funds Should Build a Community Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. A community is a network of contacts who come together for a common cause. Venture capital funds should build a community. Here are the reasons why: A community will generate more and better deal flow. Those in the network will know of the ventu...

How To Validate the Startup's Potential Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Investors considering funding a startup should test the startup's potential. Here are some key techniques for evaluating the startup. Try to sell the startup's solution to a potential customer. Gauge their reaction to the product and its price...

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Al McGregor, COO of Perfect Energy, Inc. & AgroEnergy Farms, Co. Through Perfect Energy in Colorado with partners in Texas, Al connects solar and wind generation to practical commercial and agricultural use, arguing renewables and fossil fuels must be balanced to preserve fossil fuels for hard-to-electrify needs like big trucks and airplanes. Thro...

Regulatory Around the Fund Manager Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. There are regulations around the fund manager. A fund manager is considered an investment advisor, which is defined as anyone who provides advice to others regarding securities in exchange for compensation. VC fund managers must register with the S...

Regulatory Around the Fundraising Process Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. There are regulations around startup funding. These regulations provide an exemption from the securities laws. Here's a list of key regulatory terms to know: Rule 506b Founders or issuers of a stock can raise an unlimited amount of capital....

Regulatory for Private Funds Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Regulatory for private funds includes venture capital funds. VC funds can find an exemption from regulatory requirements by one of the following: Having fewer than 100 owners in the fund. This excludes entities created for the purpose of investing in the...

Automating Your Dealflow Process Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup investors see a tremendous amount of deal flow. Finding quality deals is the challenge. Here are some key steps to automate the dealflow process: Set up tools to search for founders with a specific background. For example, one can set a searc...

Key Criteria for Venture Capital Investment Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Venture capital requires a specific type of startup to meet its investment objectives. Here's a list of key criteria VCs look for: Large market size. The market is large and growing fast. This provides the startup numerous opportunities to...

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Andrew Kazlow, entrepreneur, writer, and host of The Diligent Observer. Andrew shares how he moved from an engineering background into the business side of industrial automation, then returned to Texas A&M for an MBA where he studied what's "broken" in angel investing and found that volunteer-driven investor networks often create a slow, painful p...

How To Handle Soft Commitments Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Investors provide soft commitments to hold their place in a fundraise but delay the actual investment. The soft commitment is not legally binding. Investors often provide soft commitments while they go through their own diligence process. It's often th...

How To Perform Due Diligence on an Investor Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In raising funding, the founder should be doing as much diligence on the investor as the investor is doing on the startup. Here are some key steps to perform due diligence on an investor: What type of investor are they? Angel, venture capi...

The Basic Due Diligence Process Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Investors funding a startup must first complete the due diligence process. The objective is to understand all the particulars about the company and the team. Here is the list of the basic due diligence process: The investment. This includes the term s...

The Importance of Vesting Shares Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Vesting shares means taking shares granted to an employee and having them earned over time. A typical vesting schedule is four years with a one-year cliff. This means the employee granted shares will not have ownership of the shares for the first yea...

What Is Reverse Due Diligence Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Due diligence is the process of reviewing the condition of a company to be acquired. The purpose is to understand the company's current status, including risks, assets, liabilities, and potential opportunities. Reverse due diligence is when the company...

In this episode of Investor Connect, we welcome Jason Taylor, founder and president of CodeLaunch, who shares how he created the program in 2012 to help early-stage tech founders overcome the catch-22 of needing a product to raise funding but needing funding to build the product. Jason explains how CodeLaunch runs regional competitions that narrow hundreds of applicants down to six finalists per r...

The Importance of a Data Room Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. A dataroom is a collection of the key documents of a startup for a fundraise. The dataroom can be kept in software specifically designed for dataroom access or in a simple storage folder. These documents include legal entity filings, patents, financials...

How To Invest Using a Fund of Funds Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Investing in a series of venture capital funds is one strategy for venture investing. This is a fund of funds investment strategy. Venture funds give the Limited Partner access to the best VCs in the industry. Each of the funds used will also brin...

Best Practices for Networking Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Networking is a key skill in startup fundraising. The founder must be able to navigate a community to find investors for their fundraise. Here are some best practices in networking in advance of a fundraise campaign: Always ask for referrals. In each di...