Investor Connect Podcast

In this episode, Hall welcomes Ryan Falvey, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Financial Venture Studio. Financial Venture Studio invests in the best early-stage fintech companies and provides the access and insights founders need to build transformational companies. They provide a bespoke program when investing at an early stage, introduce seed-stage portfolio companies to leaders in the financia...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup founders need human resource skills. Here's a list of skills to bring to your startup: Can identify talent that matches the company's strategy. This includes defining the jobs with roles and responsibilities. Ability to find and recruit the right people for the position. Thi...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Lucas Caneda, Global Team Lead & Director at Uniqorn Incubator. The largest rural incubator-accelerator of its kind in the world, UNIQORN features an eclectic team of seasoned professionals with a proven track record in taking technology startups from inception all the way to exit. UNIQORN's attractiveness is built around comprehensive incubation and acceleration ser...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup founders need some technical skills. Here's a list of skills to bring to your startup: Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets - you'll use this for budgeting, forecasts, and numerous other applications. Data analysis - you should be familiar with Google analytics and other basic a...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Lee Shapiro, Managing Partner at 7wireVentures. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, 7wireVentures is dedicated to building and investing in early-stage digital health companies supporting an informed connected health consumer. Lee served as Chief Financial Officer of Livongo Health until November 2020. He serves on the boards of Senior Connect, a special purpose acqu...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup founders need some accounting skills. Here's a list of skills to bring to your startup: Accounting vs. bookkeeping - bookkeeping is entering revenues and expenses into the proper accounts. Accounting is generating the income statements and balance sheets, along with filing t...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Gerard van Swieten, Managing Partner at LvS Partners. Laursen van Swieten (LvS) specializes in funding and executing the international expansion of innovative growth-stage companies. They are especially active and experienced in Asia/China expansion. They make active expansion investments to establish footholds outside of home markets. LvS works in 3 fast-growing sec...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup founders need some financial skills. Here's a list of skills to bring to your startup: For business modeling - ability to calculate the unit economics of your business model including cost of customer acquisition and lifetime value of customer. For fundraising - ability to c...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Andreea Danila, Founding General Partner at Global Millennial Capital. Global Millennial Capital was established by Andreea in 2019, backed by the Al Attiyah family office. It is the first female-founded venture capital investor from the Middle East to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) in the investment process. They invest in global scalable, tech-enabled, and...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup founders need some legal skills. Here's a list of skills to bring to your startup: Legal Entity - ability to set up an LLC or C-Corp for your business with proper articles of incorporation. Cap Table - ability to set up the cap table with initial ownership of the founder, co...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Pano Anthos, Founder and Managing Director of XRC Labs. XRC Labs is a startup accelerator and venture fund dedicated to fostering the next generation of disruptors in the retail technology and consumer goods sectors. The NYC-based company launched in 2015 with its founding sponsor, the Parsons School of Design at The New School. Having invested in nearly 100 startups...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup founders need recruiting skills. Here's a list of skills to bring to your startup: Ability to define the jobs to be done with the requisite skills. Ability to identify qualified candidates in the market that meet the requirements. Can engage the candidates to discuss a posit...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Graham Forman, Founder and Managing Director at Edovate Capital. Edovate Capital is a seed and early-stage venture capital company whose leadership invests in companies that lead innovation in the education market. They know firsthand the pains and gains of growing early-stage companies into successful firms and they have passion and experience in the education marke...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup founders need marketing skills. Here's a list of skills to bring to your startup: Ability to analyze and choose a market segment to pursue Can create a story around your startup that sells Can define a position in the market and communicate it Ability to contrast and compare...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Elisa Miller-Out, Managing Partner at Chloe Capital. Chloe Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm that invests in women-led innovation companies. Despite recent progress, only 2% of female founders receive venture capital funding, with only 0.2% going to African American founders. Chloe Capital is on a mission to change that in partnership with foundations, uni...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup founders need sales skills. Here's a list of sales skills to bring to your startup: Can craft a compelling story about the startup to sell to investors, prospective employees, partners, and others. Knows the competition and the other choices the prospect has. Knows the custo...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Kim Banham, Principal at Connetic Ventures. Connetic Ventures is an early-stage VC that uses proprietary data and machine learning to remove bias, increase efficiency, and create transparency. They view themselves as a data company that happens to invest in startups. Venture capital is inefficient, biased, and relies heavily on human capital, which makes it nearly im...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Writing is a key skill every entrepreneur should have. Email, social media, website copy, and more, all rely upon good communication. Here are some key points to remember: It's not about you, it's about your reader and what this will do for them. Write the way you talk in a normal,...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Riley Oickle, Owner and CEO of Riley Oickle Investments. Investing in real estate can be a stressful endeavour. Without systems and processes in place, chaos can set in quite quickly and money can be lost. For those of you that are ready to do your first investment deal but are fearful of the unknown, a joint venture is a fantastic option. Becoming a joint venture pa...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In managing deal flow, the key to winning the best deals is responsiveness. Startups submitting their deal are looking everywhere for funding and you're just one option among many. Here are some key points to consider: Automate the initial response to a deal submission with an email...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Gaston Eguren, Investment Analyst at Proeza Ventures. Proeza Ventures is the largest mobility-focused VC in Latin America. They are based in Monterrey, Mexico, and Houston, Texas, looking to invest in companies focusing on industrial tech, smart components, new vehicles, MaaS, and digital data services. They are backed by the Proeza Group, a portfolio management comp...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In running deal flow, here are some best practices to consider: Automate your deal flow process as much as possible by capturing consistent information into one application. Track deal flow sources and analyze on a regular basis. This shows where the best deals are coming from and w...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Mia Urman, Founder & CEO of AuraPlayer. AuraPlayer was founded in January 2013 by Mia, an Oracle veteran with over 20 years of Oracle Forms experience, and Java Guru Yossi Nakash, CTO. AuraPlayer's founders built a modernization solution for Oracle Applications that would activate and communicate with Oracle Forms in an automated way, without redevelopment or migrati...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Deal flow is the lifeblood of the startup investor. It's important to assess the deals in short order to prioritize follow-up. One way to help this process is to apply a rating to each deal. Here are some key factors and how to calculate them to use in your rating: Revenue run rate...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Jeffrey H. Bunin, Vice President of Commercial Lending at Capital Lending Corp. Founded in 1995, Capital Lending Corp. first offered commercial property loans. Soon after that, the company began to offer residential financing in Northern New Jersey. In 1996, Capital Lending Corp. added business financing to its offerings. One year later, it became approved by HUD as...