The AFT podcast: At the Forefront of Transactions | Payments | Fintech | Pay-tech | Banking

Mike Preuss, Co-Founder and CEO at Visible.vc explains how he managed to raise the first rounds of funding and how later on his company bought back some of the equity it sold to its investors. We also discussed the importance of following up with current investors and how it should be done.

Connect to investors (completely free) here: https://connect.visible.vc/

Follow up with investors here: https://visible.vc/

If you are too early for VC (and even Angel) funding, apply here: https://form.typeform.com/to/vT8gVQDG

Ryan Zhang and Mi Tu, Partners & Co-Founders at Standard Capital L.P. explain how do hedge funds work and how can startup founders raise money from them. We also talked about investing in securities vs investing in startups.

Book recommendations from Ryan and Mi:

The Intelligent Investor - Ben Graham (this is classic, I highly recommend it as well) https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?crid=291794I5VXHKV&dchild=1&keywords=intelligent+investor&qid=1599935645&sprefix=intellegent%2Caps%2C174&sr=8-1

One Up on Wall Street - Peter Lynch: https://www.amazon.com/One-Up-Wall-Street-Already/dp/0743200403/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2HZI5N30G8ICO&dchild=1&keywords=one+up+on+wall+street&qid=1599935606&sprefix=one+up+%2Caps%2C155&sr=8-1

Vasu Kulkarni, Founder and CEO at Krossover that raised $50 million and got acquired in 2017 and currently a Partner at Courtside Ventures. In this episode he talks about how he personally managed to raise funding for his company and why he didn't go the traditional way with it. We also talked about Courtside Ventures and what's going on in the gaming and fitness industry now.

Courtside Ventures: http://www.courtsidevc.com/

Register to vote in the US: https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote

Thomas Rush, Founder at Bootstrapp explains the major non-dilutive funding sources that he believes work best for founders and explains what are its major pros and cons. We also talk about the fastest method of raising money and what are it's major downsides.

Bootstrapp, find revenue-based funding sources: https://www.bootstrapp.co/

Find Grants: opengrants.io

Jon Vlachogiannis, currently the Founder at AgentRisk and the Founder at Bugsense that was acquired by Splunk talks about building a successful company and staying lean as long as possible. He explains his approach to fundraising and investing.

Jon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnvlachoyiannis/

AgentRisk: https://agentrisk.com/

More links will come:)

This episode is featuring the team members of Fundraising Radio. I (your host - Konstantin Dubovitskiy) answer the FAQs that I get and the other team members present themselves and talk about the reasons why they joined FR, what they do here and what they plan to do in the future.

To get in touch with any individual team member go here: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/p/about-us/

Follow us on Patreon to support the team: https://www.patreon.com/FundraisingRadioPremium?fan_landing=true

And here is the link to Openland that I've mentioned: https://openland.com/

Troy Bolus, Co-Founder at OmniPanel and the Co-Founder at Seated that was acquired in 2019 talks about his journey to the acquisition, raising funding for his first company while being a student at UCLA and about extending that runway. Troy also gave his advice to student entrepreneurs and explained the reasons to risk.

OmniPanel that will help you understand your users' feedback better: https://www.omnipanel.io/

Acquisition story for $985 million by eBay: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Greg-Shepard/

Zach Aarons, Co-Founder and Partner at MetaProp.vc explains what is going on in the proptech field and how it reacted to the COVID-19 hit. We also discuss how founders in this field should make sales, when is it appropriate to hire salesman/saleswoman and how to become a better salesman/saleswoman yourself. Awesome resources below!

MetaProp: https://www.metaprop.org/

101 Proptech written by Aaron: https://www.proptech101.com/

Get better in sales by becoming a volunteer at a a political campaign: https://action.dccc.org/page/s/volunteer

Rolan Reichel, CEO and Co-Founder at Custom Social explains how he views the "Silicon Valley Path" and who should try to follow it. He also explained his own approach to fundraising and why he follows it. We touched onto a very important subject - incubators, accelerators and entrepreneurial communities and below you can find the links to the ones that Rolan mentioned.

Custom social: https://www.customsocial.io/

Creative Destruction Lab: https://www.creativedestructionlab.com/

Endless Frontier Labs: https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/about/departments-centers-initiatives/centers/endless-frontier-labs

Make it Studio (which I mentioned) - https://makeit-studio.com/

Dan Akivis, Senior Associate at Expansion Venture Capital explains what kind of reports you need to send over to your investors and to prospect investors. We've discussed how to get in touch with them and how to retain a good connection.

Expansion Venture Capital: http://expansionvc.com/

SalesQL: https://salesql.com/

Our video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeYMI5if7CI&ab_channel=FundraisingRadio