Jeroen Seghers

The most important fundraising KPI: 1st pitch → 2nd meeting conversion rate Is yours low? (< 30-50%) Something is wrong. Here's how to diagnose your issue and fix it: There are two types of potential problems... 1️⃣ Investor targeting 2️⃣ Pitching 𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆: The most common issue is targeting the wrong investors. Usually you're reaching out to investors that focus on a different stage or industry. Do some research on the investors that didn't convert to a second meeting. The most important resource: their portfolio page. Ignore the "about" section, or their blog. That's mostly about marketing to potential investors in their fund. Instead, look at what they've actually invested in and the stage at which they invested (Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, etc.) Remember: trust the portfolio, not the thesis. __ The other main issue is unclear outbound messaging. Investors think you do one thing (industry, business model, tech, etc.) but you actually do something else. I recommend sending your outbound email template to 5+ friends that don't know anything about your startup. Ask them: • What kinds of customers do you think we serve? • What benefits do you think we provide for them? • What product features do you think we have? • What technologies do you think we use? If more 20% of your friends answer these questions incorrectly, you need to write new outreach emails. 𝐏𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆: The most common issue is just that your pitch is weak. Usually because you aren't telling a story. You're just sharing disconnected data. The best pitches are stories that foreshadow the only possible outcome: your startup's tremendous success. It feels inevitable. The easiest test to figure out if you're telling a story: try connecting the main idea of each of your slides with "but," "so" or one of their synonyms. If the natural link between slides is "and" or if you can move the order around, you don't have a story. Chronology matters in storytelling. Go back to the drawing board and try to write your inevitable success story. __ Maybe your overall pitch isn't weak. But VCs may still be spotting a red flag when you pitch. It turns them off right away. If you think this might be your issue, it's important to start asking questions. Most pitches have time for you to ask questions at the end. Here's my go-to to diagnose this issue: "What would you need to see in order to get excited about investing in <<STARTUP>>?" If they tell you a primary KPI that you need to improve, then you've probably identified the issue. The other possibility: They try to avoid giving you a specific answer. If they're evading your question, you NEED to dig in to get to the bottom of it. Your fundraising success may depend on it. —— Was this helpful? 👍 like and ♻️ repost it to help other founders!

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***Roam September 2024 Investor Update*** Strong month of paid member growth and record usage, conversion, retention, & new customer activations. +4.3% paid member growth +9.4% meetings (Record) +5.3% messages sent (Record) 99.1%  Meeting Quality Score (Record) 69% free to paid conversion 70 New Customer Activation Meetings Scheduled (Organic Record)

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New Framedrop.ai blog post straight from the oven by Filipe Pessoa. How you can monetize a podcast in 5 steps: 1. 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲: Wait until you have an established audience base.     2. 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲: Understand their interests, pain points, and preferences.     3. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗩𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀: Sponsorship, affiliate marketing, donations, premium content, merchandise, events, memberships, product sales.     4. Click to read the full article 🎣     5. Click again 😅 It includes 10 tried-and-tested ways 🤓

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SaaStock Dublin is three days away. Considering an exit in 2024? At my talk, I'll be answering questions I get every day like: - What are current SaaS multiples? - What metrics matter most? - What do buyers *actually* care about? Don't have a ticket to SaaStock? I have a few extra - reach out and I'll hook you up 😎 #SaaStock #Dublin #founders

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Meet Pedro Moreira! A thriving entrepreneur one month away from claiming his first $50k systeme.io award! 🌟 After exploring numerous funnel platforms, Pedro discovered that systeme.io offered exactly what he needed Here's why he chose us👇 ✅ The funnel editor: Pedro found our funnel editor to be the most flexible he’s used. It’s easy to create various pop-ups and deeply customizable with the ability to add rows within rows, all without needing to code ✅ User experience after buying: Post-purchase, systeme.io keeps things straightforward and user-friendly. Users can easily manage contacts, permissions, product access, and more from a single tab This functionality significantly saves time and streamlines customer support efforts, making it invaluable for entrepreneurs who handle their own customer service ✅Effective email marketing: For Pedro, email marketing is crucial, and systeme.io has been a game changer. He found other platforms either overly complex or ineffective Systeme.io, however, simplifies the process, allowing him to efficiently manage his email campaigns without the hassle Thinking about how systeme.io can help your business too? Discover how our platform can transform your marketing and sales processes just as it did for Pedro Click the link below to see Pedro’s original post in the systeme.io group and discover exclusive strategies that hundreds of successful online business owners are using right now 👇 https://lnkd.in/dAXXiQnR

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Out of some 42,000 startups, 288 have been bought so far in 2024.  The old adage that startups are bought, not sold seems to be holding true. I enjoyed speaking with Peter Walker, Head of Insights Carta, on The Lonely Office to talk about the "Startup Gamble: What are Your Odds?" I've been following his posts for a while and I love the way he stitches together startup insights and advice with a data driven perspective using the Carta database. And I believe I'm not the only one who finds his insights valuable. So we thought we'd bring him on to speak about the best cities to raise angel and pre-seed money (it's no longer just SF and NY), the most common exit periods for startups, and why the VC phrase "lifestyle startup" is a term that needs to be phased out. Check in below for more discussion.

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Last week I advised startups to drop the 5-year revenue projection. If a VC asks for it, I said, I'll eat my hat. One common reaction was "but Europe!" So here I am eating a tasty beret. (See link in comments for last week's post and the discussion that followed.) Having eaten that beret, here's my analysis of the Europe point, as well as some others that were made in the comments: ¶ First, it's certainly true that where you stand depends on where you sit. I've lived in Silicon Valley for 30-odd years, and I currently do seed-stage VC. So there's that. ¶ In any geography there is a range of investor styles. As commenters made clear, European VCs are 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺 to insist on these projections than their US counterparts, but individuals don't always match the stereotype, on either side of the pond. ¶ If we accept, though, that the detailed 5-year projection is a mostly European requirement, then let me ask a (deliberately) provocative question: how's that working out for you? Correlation is not causality; and there are lots of other factors at play; but it's also the case that US-style venture investing (and specifically California-style venture investing) has been empirically more successful than that practiced in other places. It's certainly possible that this success is despite us "doing it wrong" for all this time; and it's also possible that what's worked for the last 50 years is no longer valid in 2024; but neither of those seems like the most likely conclusion. If anything, time horizons are getting shorter, not longer. Now, all that said, there 𝘪𝘴 information content in a 5-year projection. Last week I mentioned four things that are important to VCs: 1) are you ambitious enough, 2) are you realistic, 3) what's your Price and Cost at Scale (PACAS), 4) what's your Customer Acquisition Cost at Scale (CACAS). (Et oui, je me suis bien rendu compte des autres significations :). To those I would add: 5) what's your level of business and financial sophistication? The thing is, these are all things I have to 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘳 from a 5-year model. All of them can be gotten in other, usually better, ways. Such as the direct approach: "what's your ambition here? can you show me your unit economics? how much marketing spend do you think it will take to deliver $100 million in revenue?" Some founders in last week's comments said that when a VC demands a 5-year projection, that's someone you don't want to work with. That's an overreaction. More important is to get to the question behind the question: I understand that you're asking for this, but what is the real concern? It's good to figure out if it's one of the five things above, or something else entirely, as that will tell you a lot about the investor as well as how best to answer the request. OTOH, if they don't know why they're asking, or if they won't tell you - "that's just how we've always done it" - that's a red flag; you want your investors to be thoughtful and transparent.

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I helped a VC company with over 400 portfolio companies & $1B raised in follow-on funding rank #2 with a link I built them… Here’s how: Two months ago I talked with the Marketing Manager of Forum Ventures an Early Stage B2B SasS fund. They needed a link-building partner to: - Reach out to relevant companies, media outlets, and bloggers - Setup off-page strategy that will increase brand awareness - Effectively establish meaningful partnerships - Facilitate industry-relevant backlinks They had a great brand, lots of authority, and were willing to invest in growing. Once we analyzed the industry and the website we immediately saw that one particular strategy would reap results quickly and effectively. Listicles. Yes..those "Best X" types of list articles. So using Ahrefs and Google search we: 1/ Extracted all relevant results. 2/ Setup a multi-layered outreach sequences 3/ Cross-matched them with the client's Ref. Domains 4/ Filtered out the best opportunities (based on Traffic/Relevance) ..and started reaching out. We began facilitating backlinks from such lists one by one and moving forward with adding more off-page strategies.. A week ago while on a call with the Marketing Manager at Forum Ventures, she casually mentioned that a few days before our meeting they invested in a SaaS company that found them through one of the listicles we built. (We facilitated an inclusion at #2 from a list of 92 companies) And it was all because we were able to understand: - Their Goals - Their Industry - Their Brand - Where they want to position themselves That said, if you are a SaaS/Tech company and you aren’t leveraging listicles, you could be missing out on a great way to: - Build brand awareness - Drive direct traffic - Earn industry-relevant backlinks - Scale your non-paid traffic We've helped over 10 companies in the last 12 months double first-page positions & non-paid traffic using industry-relevant off-page strategies while eliminating unnecessary micromanagement, allowing them to focus on their core product/service. I guarantee it could do the same for you. Want to learn how to implement it? Comment "Listicles" and I'll send you the framework we use for this strategy in detail.

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The key to a venture studio's success is privileged access. Privileged access means you (as the venture studio operators) have access to something that others don't. It comes in many formats, but the goal is to shortcut steps. The more access to "stuff" you have, the quicker you can get through steps in the startup / venture building process, which gives you a leg up against everyone else. Without privileged access, what are you competing on? Speed? Execution? Chutzpah? Suddenly you're on the same level playing field as everyone else. If you're building a corporate venture studio (where you're building ventures internally with the option to spin-in or spin-out) you might be behind the proverbial 8-ball b/c of the "corporate tax" you pay on legal, regulatory, security, etc. Building new ventures inside a corporate is always slower than doing it on the outside, which is fine, IF you have privileged access to assets that make it worthwhile to do so. What are some examples of privileged access that are valuable? * Customers: If I start a company in your venture studio and you already have customers lined up as design partners or friendlies, that's awesome. Getting the first 5-10 customers is hard! Being able to reach them, have them take the meetings and work closely with me as a new founder is gold. * Capital: Raising money is difficult. If your venture studio has access to capital (its own, but also an actual network of interested co-investors) that could speed up fundraising. * Acquirers: Founders & venture studios ultimately need liquidity. Given that most venture studios take a higher % equity, they're amenable to early exits. This does a couple things: (1) it changes the landscape of potential funders (not all deals are VC deals, which is OK if the studio has access to alternative capital sources); and (2) it means venture studios need to have relationships with acquirers. Venture studios that are in regular contact with potential acquirers can help facilitate exits (particularly early ones). * Networks: A lot of this comes down to "who you know." There are customers, investors, acquirers, but there are other partners too that can be super valuable. * Technology: It's possible your venture studio has privileged access to technology. This isn't top of my list, but it could be if you're doing deep / hard tech. Maybe your studio has infrastructure that's expensive or hard to normally get. * Data: Again, not top of my list, but definitely relevant. If you can access proprietary data sources (corporate venture studios SHOULD have an advantage here) that could jumpstart new startup creation. * Expertise: Most studios claim privileged access to expertise. But expertise in common skills isn't necessarily enough, because it's not that special. What do you know or excel at that everyone else doesn't? Ultimately, every venture studio has to ask: What privileged access do we have and how can we use that to our advantage?

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The Ultimate Cheat Sheet collection for SaaS leaders & Founders - by Vencha, Included #VC & Notion Capital Here you have 15 cheat sheets on marketing, sales, fundraising, pitch decks and more: 💵 How to price and package your software ? 🎢 The 5 prospect stages 🚀How fundable is your company? 💸 Leadership transitions at different stages of business growth 🎯 SaaS monetisation in 8 steps 🕹️ Identifying your market: TAM, SAM & SOM demystified 🛠️ How to skyrocket SaaS sales? ⚖️ The ICP Grid, goal setting and how to prioritize ? #Fintech #saas #CheatSheet #isaphr #isapone #isapsolutions #starthubagency #isapinvestments www.isap.group www.isap.one www.isap.hr www.isap.agency www.isap.investments iSAP Solutions ltd iSAP ONE iSAP.HR StartHub.Agency iSAP Group Investments ltd Tino Herold

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𝗪𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗨𝗦𝗗𝟭𝟬𝟬𝗞 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁? 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀... The early days of Google tell us something profound about startup investing: Sometimes the most valuable opportunities don't follow conventional business practices. Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100K check to "Google Inc." before the company even existed. This resonates deeply with 𝗣𝗮𝘂𝗹 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗵𝗮𝗺'𝘀 investing philosophy - the decisive factor 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝘀, but 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀. In fact, he often commits to investments before even discussing valuation caps. 𝗡𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅 𝗻𝗲𝗴𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. 𝗡𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗲𝘁𝘀. 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀' 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻. It's a powerful reminder that in the startup world, 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 "𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴" 𝗺𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀. When you spot exceptional talent and revolutionary ideas, speed and conviction can matter more than traditional due diligence. 💭 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲? Special thanks to Tanay Jaipuria at Wing Venture Capital for unearthing this fascinating story about Google's first check - a perfect example of how unconventional startup investing can lead to extraordinary outcomes. 📩 Don’t miss— Subscribe to our newsletter at https://lnkd.in/gUVpxTCj for free to stay ahead of the curve! Follow CompareBizTech, your go-to platform for discovering software and AI tools tailored for startups and SMBs. #StartupInvesting #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #Leadership

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I really like this concept - scaling isn't only a growth in profits... It's a journey of business efficiency and creativity, which in turn leads to growth in profits.  Thanks for this post, looking forward to its second part tomorrow.

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𝗕𝗼𝗼𝘁𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘃𝘀. 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴: 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵? I see more and more early-stage founders willfully choosing bootstrapping/profitability over fundraising. Why is that? Adam Robinson recently shared about his remarkable journey from 0-$1M ARR in 16 weeks. This made me rethink the whole speed/stability paradigm of raising vs. bootstrapping. From my personal angle, I’ve tried both - Early on in Trendemon, we raised some initial capital and had to revert to profitability after I failed to secure our next round. That really sucked for the first couple of years (yes, years) but it also forced us to take a hard look at our unit economics and efficiency. Here a few learnings and questions I’d ask myself if I were at that crossroad again: CAC is King ========= VC capital can create some serious distortions in reality. It’s their model, I get it, but for many otherwise good companies, it can also be destructive. Focusing on growth over retention or CAC creates a very hungry yet inefficient animal. When there’s lots of money in the system (Hey 2020/21) all seems fine but as we entered the Hunger Game years of 2022-4, those VC-backed startups started dying in droves. Meanwhile, scrappy, efficient startups who have experience with starvation, thrive. Building s$%! is cheaper, GTM is faster ============================= Today, shipping new saas products is cheaper and easier than ever before. Validation and monetization can happen in weeks instead of months or years. In the past, raising capital was needed because unless you had 10 FT developers and inhouse GTM teams, it was virtually impossible to start let alone scale. Leveraging content, social and partnerships enable even very small teams to capture market share over their more well funded, mature rivals. Which path may be right for you and your company? I’d ask this: 𝗠𝘆 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲  Is your field highly competitive and rapidly growing, with only a few survivors making it big? Or does it allow for many players, most of whom won’t exceed tens of millions in revenue? What are the barriers to entry? If not very high, more proof/traction will probably be needed before you could raise. Is there a supportive VC ecosystem for your space? Do you have access to it? 𝗠𝘆𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 & 𝗠𝘆 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺  What are you personally willing to endure and for how long? How about your family/partners/co-founders? Why are you in this? What’s your endgame? Is it about building or exiting? Are there mentors/support networks you can access? Your most valuable resource is time. Deciding whether to spend it fundraising or building > selling will impact your company’s outcome the most. This decision isn’t permanent. Don’t be afraid to switch modes if circumstances change or if you still believe in your vision despite investor rejections, and as with anything, enjoy the ride, even when it's hell :)

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At Costanoa Ventures we work with a lot of early stage founders to help them get product market fit. But over the years it's become clear to us that the order is wrong: founders should focus on MARKET product fit. The best founders (and their teams) dive in and understand the market they are selling to, the big hairy problems that exist in that market, what pain the buyers have...and THEN build products to solve those problems. This is the first of a two part series where we will look some best practices including: 1. Build with the market you can get, not an ideal customer. 2. Own your unique point-of-view before you have the product. 3. Avoid being too focused early on; go wide then throw away ideas to focus. 4. Focus on conversations, not sales. We're lucky work with great companies in our portfolio and highlight some examples of their work: SGNL, Delphina, Feldera, BrightGo. Thanks to those founders for sharing with us: Scott Kriz, Erik Gustavson, Duncan Gilchrist, Jeremy Hermann, Lalith Suresh, Gerald Fong and Saagar Deshpande. It's a pleasure to work with you. Figuring out "market product fit" is key to unlocking growth and building repeatable go-to-market that allows you to scale. We'd love feedback, examples and discussion. https://lnkd.in/gqh2pg9E Special thanks to Martina Lauchengco who co-authored this and prodded us to rethink PMF. #startup #earlystage #founders #entrepeneur #sales

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A number of you have been there, investing your own hard-earned money or money under management from others. While once a company has reached a certain level of maturity, there are numbers to look at, which give part of the story, at early-stage, it's really down to assessing people. We all have gut instinct, which is good to use in particular when it does don't feel right, but it's also good to have some reference frameworks to use and practice on. Credit Chris and Ruben for this high-quality content.

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