Episode 150 – Raising Money + Lessons from 1000 Founders – Steven of CircleUp
Listen to the podcast here.
Written by Matt Aaron / June 29th, 2017
For Steven, it’s all about patterns. He has spoken to over 1,000 founders and has developed a sense for which startups are going to flourish.
He focuses on sourcing and evaluating premier brands and coaching entrepreneurs through the fundraising process at CircleUp.
CircleUp is the platform providing capital and resources to innovative, early-stage consumer brands, and opportunities for sophisticated investors to participate in their growth.
From machine learning data to predict CPG success to the do’s and don’ts of fundraising, we cover a lot:
- The fallout from Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods
- An 18 billion dollar shift from large brands to small brands in the consumer space from 2011-2015
- Is there a “too early” for Circle Up?
- Characteristics of good brand communication
- Helio – machine learning for the CPG space
- How to attack a trade show.
- Trends Steven sees in 2017
- The 5 buckets of entrepreneurs
- Why some companies can raise money and others can’t
- How to talk to investors
- Key financial metrics to consider
- When to raise money
