Investor Connect Podcast

In this episode, Hall welcomes Caroline Goodner, Founder & CEO at OrganiCare. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, OrganiCare's mission is to create all-natural and organic over-the-counter (OTC) healthcare products that are safe, effective, and simply better than the petrochemical-based, drug-laden products used by most consumers today. OrganiCare offers a range of all-natural and organic first aid, o...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. After the fundraise is complete, wrap up the current raise by doing the following: Thank those investors who helped you, as many of your contacts made introductions, offered advice, and more. Also, thank team members, friends, colleagues, and providers who assisted you. Close up the...

In our new Investor Perspectives series entitled "How to Solve the Fintech Problem", today you'll hear about the growth in the segment. This is Investor Perspectives, I'm the host of Investor Connect, Hall T Martin, where we connect startups and investors for funding. As the COVID pandemic passes we emerge into a new world. The fintech space is now undergoing tremendous change across the U.S. Ever...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. I'm often asked what return angels and venture capital investors seek in their startup investments. Angels generally seek around a 30% IRR (Internal Rate of Return). That would be 3X their investment in four years. For longer timeframes, angel investors will be looking for a 5X-10X...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Stephen Collins, Founder of Luca Partners LLC. Luca Partners provides strategy, finance, operating, and transactional advisory services to C-level leadership teams at venture and private equity-funded technology businesses. Luca Partners are a team of highly-experienced technology industry professionals who are career operators that understand the challenges facing l...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Investors calculate their returns using metrics ROI and IRR. So what's the difference? ROI is the return on investment without respect to time. IRR is the internal rate of return which is the return on investment with respect to time. If I invest $100K and 5 years later I receive a...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Kevin R. Jacques, General Partner at Cota Capital. Cota Capital is a San Francisco-based, SEC-registered, multi-stage investment firm focused on private and public enterprise technology companies. Cota has invested in more than 100 private and public technology companies since inception. Cota's overall mission is to deliver impactful outcomes through principle-guided...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. I've seen CEOs pitch and when asked about their numbers they defer to a CFO or someone else for the answers. This is not a good look for the CEO. Investors want to know you are on top of it, and knowing your numbers is one indication of it. As a startup, you should know your numbers...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Will Ciolino, Founder and CEO of Anthology Corp. Headquartered in Union City, New Jersey, Anthology is a brand new portfolio management system that provides powerful organization for all of your photos. Anthology provides a fully customizable profile UI, which allows artists to extend their creativity beyond just their photos and maximizes given real estate on small...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In raising funding, you'll need to propose a value for the equity in your startup. This is called valuation. One way to determine it is to use the liquidation method. Here's how it works. The exit value is set to the value of the business at liquidation, which means the value of all...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Grace Lee, CEO of Health Enovation. Headquartered in New York, New York, Health Enovation provides Incubator and investor funding for health tech, wellness, and patient data analytics. They help startup entrepreneurs design the business and build engaging technology to aggregate and facilitate health data management. Health Enovation aims to help startups realize the...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In raising funding you'll need to propose a value for the equity in your startup called valuation. One way to set a valuation is to use the 5X your raise method. Here's how it works. Most investors want to see the valuation for their money coming in at 20%-25% of the post-money valu...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Brett P. Swarts, Founder & CEO of Capital Gains Tax Solutions and host of the Capital Gains Tax Solutions podcast. Headquartered in Folsom, California, Capital Gains Tax Solutions provide one-to-one business owner & investor guidance throughout your entire deferred sales trust process, from selling to reinvesting. They will help you outline the options of selling or...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In launching your product you have a choice to either set a high price that gives you a high margin, or a low price yielding a low margin for sales. The high price is harder to sell but you don't have to sell as many units to make the business profitable. The low price is easier to...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Patrick Ryan, Founder of Aardvark Research/PSR Lawfirm, LLC. Patrick is the founder of Aardvark Research for angel investing. His day job is at Tik Tok, where he leads the team of Technical Program Managers for global network security. Before TikTok, Patrick was a Strategy and Operations Principal at Google for 9 years. Patrick has also co-founded companies including...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In running a startup there will be upturns and downturns. Managing a downturn takes a different approach from the upturns. First, seek advice and guidance from others such as investors, mentors, and CEOs. Don't delude yourself into thinking it's better than it is and that it will tu...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Dr. Stuart Titus, Chief Executive Officer and President at Medical Marijuana, Inc. Headquartered in Poway, California, Medical Marijuana, Inc. is a cannabis product research and development company. The Company offers various CBD oils and related products such as CBD tinctures, concentrates, beauty products and pet supplements. Medical Marijuana distributes its produ...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In a fundraise, one typically uses the same term sheet throughout the raise. From time to time, investors will demand certain rights and conditions. If there are no investor representations, then you may be able to do so. For some investors, you may need to vary the terms of the rai...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Cam Houser, Founder of Actionworks. Located in Austin, Texas, Actionworks mixes humans (from companies, universities, and governments) with algorithms trained on interesting topics (from business books to psychology textbooks to everything Paul Graham ever wrote) to create a process that helps organizations innovate. For over a decade, Cam has used video to win custo...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In valuing a startup for an investment, it's useful to find valuations by looking at similar startups. This technique is referred to as 'comps' which stands for comparable. This method looks for companies in the same sector and analyzes both exits and investments to determine the cu...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Juan Alonso-Villalobos, Fintech Program Director at Startup Wiseguys. Headquartered in Tallinn, Harjumaa, Startup Wiseguys is a mentorship-driven accelerator program for early-stage B2B SaaS, Fintech, Cyber, and Sustainability startups, providing seed capital (€30K), office space, and most importantly – world-class mentors. The intensive 5-month accelerator program i...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In negotiating the valuation, the investor can use current market comps or comparables to set the initial price. By looking at companies in the same sector and stage, one can find the range of valuations. From there, the investor can raise the valuation based on the values the start...

In this episode, Hall welcomes Ben Mackay, Principal at Evolve Capital. Based in Dallas, Texas, Evolve Capital is a private equity firm focused exclusively on leveraged recapitalizations of entrepreneurial businesses. They provide entrepreneurs with liquidity upfront and also upon exit through their retained equity stake. In between, they provide professional management and a strong partnership, w...

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. As an investor, you can often see warning signs of trouble in small ways before they become full-blown in the startup. Here are some of them: The CFO quits unexpectedly The paychecks to employees bounce and it's called an "accounting error" Information from the CEO becomes limited a...

In this episode, Hall welcomes back Mike Smerklo, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Next Coast Ventures and author of "Mr. Monkey and Me". "In Mr. Monkey and Me, Smerklo draws on his broad range of experiences and mistakes as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Using lessons he learned from renowned entrepreneurs, he developed the SHAPE formula — Self, Help, Authenticity, Persistence and Exp...