CEO Coach

Gillian and Anne talk about raising capital, because  “How do I do that” is the question they get most. So they discuss how to hack, or leapfrog the process, starting with your deck. Or, rather , decks. As you will learn from your research -- which is your first step, of course -- you will need different decks for different potential investors. Hear how to meet your listeners where they are. Because the devil is always in the details, they share some hacks and tips that will optimize all the efforts you will make in getting your documents in order to get that capital raise. Fundraising takes a huge amount of time out of your work life. Minimize wasted time: get organized before the show. The best part about these tips is that they will serve you before and well after your capital raise.

Gillian and Anne talk about raising capital, because “How do I do that” is the question they get most. So they discuss how to hack, or leapfrog the process, starting with your deck. Or, rather , decks. As you will learn from your research -- which is your first step, of course -- you will need different decks for different potential investors. Hear how to meet your listeners where they are. Because the devil is always in the details, they share some hacks and tips that will optimize all the efforts you will make in getting your documents in order to get that capital raise. Fundraising takes a huge amount of time out of your work life. Minimize wasted time: get organized before the show. The best part about these tips is that they will serve you before and well after your capital raise.

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Anne & Gillian continue to examine the issues raised in the latest study on the rise in venture funding for gender diverse teams from the Center for American Entrepreneurship, and why it remains a fraction of funding raised by all-male teams. The study analyzed the performance of first-funded startups over 13 years and found that success was very similar between women-led teams and all male ones. Both had near identical rates of securing second and third rounds of financing and near identical rates of exit. Does such evidence of the business case for gender-diverse founding teams spell ‘opportunity’ for US venture investors? The CAE’s conclusions about this were many, but a main one was that more women VCs -- currently around 9% -- would move the needle, as would more peer support for female founders. Listen to the results of a University of Pennsylvania examination of how men and women performed in ‘The Startup Game’ online. Spoiler alert: sounds just like real life.

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Though women-led startups receive far less first-round venture capital than ones led by all-male teams, they perform equally with their brothers in landing second and third rounds and exiting successfully. So reports Rebecca Lovell, Chair of the Center for American Entrepreneurship and Director of Seattle’s Create33 workspace, as she unpacks the findings for us in the new CAE study that took a deep dig into 13 years’ worth of Pitchbook data. While it is true a big gender gap exists for founding teams with women in leadership, CAE made another surprising finding: VC funding gender-diverse leadership teams increased since 2005, from a low that year of 7% to 21% in 2017. That said, that number is only 16% of the $83 billion invested those years by US VC’s. What factors cause this and what can be done to fund more high growth, high performing opportunities led by women? Rebecca Lovell teases out some of the answers from her group’s analysis of the data.

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Seattle investor, founder and startup advisor Dan Kihanya joins Gillian and Anne to talk about his new podcast “Foundersunfound.com” with which he expects to create greater awareness of underrepresented founders. “We will focus on storytelling. Under-represented founders have super powers,” he says. They deal with all the craziness that normal founders deal with and then on top of that, these founders face additional hurdles of disadvantage and bias. Dan and co-founder Deborah Drake believe that bringing out the stories will reveal the strength and resilience to form good business cases for support. Who are they, why they are solving their problems in the way they do? Dan’s father was Kenyan and his mother from rural Maine of Scottish and Irish ancestry. His parents taught him to work hard for what he wanted, and he believes being of mixed race heritage served him as an advantage. The podcast is live, with two new interviews with African American founders.

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Gillian and Anne discuss a recent report in the Washington Post that power reveals who we really are and people with certain tendencies will gravitate to certain types of professions,  examining what kinds of tendencies lead people to become entrepreneurs of lifestyle businesses, scalable but privately held businesses, and scalable funded businesses. Given that far more women resonate with looking at capitalization stacks instead of simply asking for equity investment to grow their companies, what implications does power have for startups and investors. Women are far more willing to look at the nuances of capitalizing their companies and women are FAR more likely to resonate with the idea of self-funding (what can I sell today to pay for what I want to build tomorrow?) than men.  They want to use OPM (Other People's Money) with the limit of liability stopping at the corporation they are attempting to build. On the flip side, about 90% of women resonate with the idea that they may not have to raise equity. Women are far more concerned that they will be ousted by their male equity funders than men.

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Gillian and Anne discuss the defining characteristics of a successful advisory board and how they will benefit your startup. In your early stages you will have ad hoc advisors to help get through the thorny startup underbrush. Advisors are valuable to a startup from the beginning. Whether they are experts in the field of your product, or markets for it, or financial management. All of these support founders by allowing a sounding board for decision making. Or providing a high level view, since we know day-to-day startup operation is usually deep in the weeds. Your advisors will be your counsel, your experts. Find ones who have done this before. 2. Your advisors will lend their good names to your efforts. Find the best you can. Reach high! In the early stages you call on them when you need them. Later you may formalize your group of advisors into a board with periodic meetings and reporting, and then you may be compensating them.

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Gillian and Anne discuss the defining characteristics of a successful advisory board and how they will benefit your startup. In your early stages, you will have ad hoc advisors to help get through the thorny startup underbrush. Advisors are valuable to a startup from the beginning. Whether they are experts in the field of your product, or markets for it, or financial management. All of these support founders by allowing a sounding board for decision making. Or providing a high-level view, since we know day-to-day startup operation is usually deep in the weeds. Your advisors will be your counsel, your experts. Find ones who have done this before. 2. Your advisors will lend their good names to your efforts. Find the best you can. Reach high! In the early stages, you call on them when you need them. Later you may formalize your group of advisors into a board with periodic meetings and reporting, and then you may be compensating them. 

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Gillian and Anne chat with Seattle investor Dave Parker, founder of ‘6 Month Startup -- Ideation to Revenue’. Dave breaks down the three components of a startup in to creating value with your product or service, delivering value to customers, and capturing value, i.e. profits for your company. In this interview he talks about the third, capturing value by describing a dozen-plus of
common ways to make money with your product or service, including four to avoid. Listen in for a fresh helping of clarity on finding the right revenue path for your startup.

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Gillian and Anne discuss the differences between management and leadership from a metrics perspective. Metrics seem to be all about management. But leadership is setting the metrics to be tracked by the company teams. What metrics matter? That’s a good place to start, with tips from frequent muse Mark Suster, General Partner at Upfront Ventures and a brilliant author on the subject of launching, growing, and managing tech businesses from an investor’s viewpoint. (Bothsidesofthetable.com) A few months ago, he published a Twitter stream that addressed the difference between vanity metrics and what leadership should really be thinking about as they grow their companies. Gillian and Anne unwrap and share each Tweet. Suster’s wisdom is well worth a good listen.

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