Investor Connect Podcast

Anchoring Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Anchoring is a cognitive bias defined by Wikipedia as the tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor", on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject) Investors tend to attach to the first thing sta...

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Kurt Wilkin, CEO of HireBetter, Managing Partner of Bee Cave Capital, and Author of the book "Who's Your Mike?". For over 25 years, Kurt has advised high-growth, middle-market companies. Through his roles as CEO of HireBetter and a Managing Partner of Bee Cave Capital, he had the opportunity to work with hundreds of entrepreneurs and CEOs—challeng...

Build a Moat Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Warren Buffet once said, "I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable moats." In the startup world, investors look for a competitive advantage that can build a moat around the business. "Me too" businesses are difficult to fund because anyone can start one and...

Repeatable Systems Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Repeatable systems are a key element in growing and scaling a business. Once the business is up and running, the founder should start to build repeatable systems. Anything you do more than once should be documented. The key steps should be written down and followe...

Start With Why Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. A key concept in aligning people's motives is to start with the Why. The Why represents the motives behind people's actions and their purpose. The How represents the methods or steps to get there. The What represents the results or outcome to achieve. To align the tea...

Social Proof Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Social proof is the idea that people look at others to see what they did and then copy their actions. The need for social proof can be found throughout the startup world. Customers will look to see if others have bought the product before they buy it. Investors will loo...

Gamification Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Gamification applies game-design techniques to applications outside of gaming. Game techniques can make the application more engaging and productive. Here are some gamification techniques to include in your application: Establish flow in the software which is a combinat...

Gamification Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Gamification applies game-design techniques to applications outside of gaming. Game techniques can make the application more engaging and productive. Here are some gamification techniques to include in your application: Establish flow in the software which is a combinat...

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Jason Jacobsohn, Founder and Managing Partner at Propellant Ventures. Located in Chicago, IL, USA, Propellant Ventures is a Seed stage venture capital fund that invests in the growth of Chicago and the greater Midwest across a broad range of powerful, diverse, and leading-edge B2B industries such as healthcare, future of work, supply chain, fintec...

Open Platform vs. Closed Platform Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Open platform vs. closed platform is a key concept in the startup ecosystem. It defines how the startup will interact with customers, partners, and others. A closed platform is one in which the startup restricts access in order to monetize its conte...

Freemium Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Freemium is a key business model in the startup world. It's a pricing strategy that provides a product or service for free in order to attract more users. After the user is engaged with the product, the company can upsell the user for paid services. The freemium strategy is...

Technology Adoption Lifecycle Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Technology adoption lifecycle in the startup world shows how new technologies and products are adopted first by lead users and technologists. Following this group are early and late-stage majority users. The laggards are the last group to accept the new...

Forcing Function Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Forcing function is an activity or event that forces one to take action and produce a result. Forcing function is a mental model for how to set up a startup so it produces a result. Here are some examples: Precommitment -- in selling your product use monthly or annu...

Technical Debt Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Technical debt is a concept in software development that accounts for additional work to recode a program that was developed quickly rather than properly. It's the result of prioritizing the speed of development over the quality of code. To manage technical debt in yo...

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Chelsea Toler, President of The Keep Families Giving Foundation. Located in Austin, Texas, USA, The Keep Families Giving Foundation educates and cultivates the next generation of philanthropists while creating a collaborative community across generations and sectors for social good. They envision a world where the next generation of philanthropist...

Thought Experiments for Startups Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. A thought experiment is a hypothesis laid out for thinking through its consequences. Many great thinkers have used this technique to solve problems. Galileo used it to prove his idea that mass does not influence acceleration when he dropped both a he...

First Principles Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. First principles are basic truths that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. Founders should base their startups and products on first principles. First principles research requires direct contact with customers to uncover the core problem. By...

Second-Order Thinking Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. First-order thinking looks at solving the immediate problem. Second-order thinking looks at the consequences of solving the problem. To practice second-order thinking, ask the question, "and then what?" Most people look at the world through first-order thinking...

Probabilistic Thinking Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Probabilistic thinking is making an estimate using math or logic to determine the likelihood that an outcome is going to happen. This often involves statistics and historical data. If the revenue in a company has grown by 10% for each of the past five years, t...

Economies of Scale Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Economies of scale is an economic principle in which the costs of delivering a product go down as the volume goes up. Over the life of a product, the cost per unit should decrease. For startups, this means the cost to build your product should go down as you ramp...

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Rob Matzkin, President and CEO at Rob Matzkin Entrepreneurship Group. Located in New York, New York, USA, Rob Matzkin Entrepreneurship Group is specialized in coaching entrepreneurs to grow their businesses through innovation while generating power and momentum by finding true life balance and fulfillment. The 1-1 coaching sessions aim to create a...

Jobs To Be Done Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Jobs to be done is a mental model in which you look at the customer's workflow to determine what they might need to complete their jobs. This concept came from Clayton Christensen and provides insight into what product your startup should build. It provides a framewo...

Circle of Competence Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Circle of competence is the area in which one has a skill or expertise. Tom Watson the founder of IBM once said, "I'm no genius. I'm smart in spots and I stay around those spots." You don't have to be an expert in everything to be successful. You do need to know...

Eisenhower Matrix Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. The Eisenhower Matrix is a mental model for prioritizing your time and tasks. It puts the most important things ahead of what is often considered urgent. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during WWII. He was known for his...

Schlep Blindness Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Schlep is a tedious or difficult journey. Schlep's blindness is overlooking the obvious startup ideas as everyone is used to working in a current manner. Most founders can't see many ideas because of schlep blindness -- they know how hard it is so they don't conside...