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

Amy Malin, Co-Founder at Trueheart talks about how by making simple search requests you give money to non-profits instead of monopolistic corporate giants. We spoke about how fundraising for non-profits looks like and how is it different from fundraising for for-profit companies and how should one approach fundraising for such projects. 

Amy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amymalin/

Trueheart - change the world with every search: https://trueheart.com/

SMB bonds that we've touched on during the episode: https://www.thesmbx.com/

Russ Heddleston, Co-Founder and CEO talks about the story of DocSend and how the decision to increase their prices led to an increased conversion rate for their customers and how exactly this magic worked. We've also discussed how DocSend became so essential for the startup founders and how was the product taking shape. In this episode Russ touched onto the acquisition of DocSend by Dropbox and explained how exactly they got to a $150 million acquisition with just $15 million raised. 

Russ' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heddleston/

Russ' Twitter: https://twitter.com/rheddleston

DocSend site: https://www.docsend.com/

Our fundraising course pre-sales: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Michel Tricot Co-Founder at Airbyte talks about raising capital for an open-source startup. We talked about how Airbyte plans to monetize and how they managed to get into Y-Combinator. We also touched onto the effect that a good background in a relevant field has on your fundraising efforts (spoiler: it makes fundraising too easy)

Michel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micheltricot/

Airbyte's website: https://airbyte.io/

Link to our course on fundraising - The Science of Getting in front of Investors: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Bryan Clayton, CEO and Cofounder at GreenPal talks about how his company outlived dozens of his competitors by NOT raising money from investors. We also discussed the future plans of the company and why their strategy might change and actually include fundraising in some form. But the major focus of the interview is on the reasons to not fundraise and on discussions of cases in which it is applicable.

Bryan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-clayton-a96b33214/

GreenPal's website: https://www.yourgreenpal.com/

Our course on fundraising: https://bit.ly/FRpodcast101

Karl Hughes, Founder and CEO at Draft.dev talks about content marketing, specifically focused on targeting developers. We discussed some strategies that can be applied and budget for good content marketing along with some use-cases.

Karl's personal site: https://www.karllhughes.com/

Promotion checklist: https://draft.dev/learn/promotion

Low-cost content marketing ideas (forgot to mention this, but might be helpful for early-stage founders on a budget): https://draft.dev/learn/low-cost-marketing-ideas

Kirk Marple, Founder and CEO at Unstruk Data talks about their fundraising round and how they doubled their valuation in less than 4 months. We also spoke about some useful techniques that can help founders fundraise.

Kirk's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkmarple/\

Unstruk Data: https://www.unstruk.com/

Paul Martino, founder at Bullpen capital talks about investing in founders who are "falling out of pattern", making post-seed investments and how such investments are different from bridge rounds. We also spoke about how founders should view such post-seed rounds and how to approach them. 

Paul's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljmartino/

Bullpen capital: https://bullpencap.com/

Work is still very much in progress, but you can preview the upcoming course on outreach to investors created by Fundraising Radio team here: https://fundraise.thinkific.com/

Taylor Burton, Co-Founder of Till Financial talks about the creation and fundraising of it and how they have gathered analyzed and later presented the feedback to the investors. Taylor also touched onto the major problems that they faced while building the company and some mistakes they've made early on.

Taylor's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-burton-93073215/

Till Financial's website: https://www.tillfinancial.io/

Fundraising Radio's course preview: https://fundraise.thinkific.com/

Casey Fenton, co-founder at the legendary Couchsurfing and currently founder and CEO at Upstock.io talks about what RSUs are and how are they different from standard stock options. We also discussed why exactly Casey hates stock options so much and what is so wrong about them. And of course we talked about Casey's experience with couchsurfing and its transition from a non-profit into a for-profit company. 

Upstock: https://www.upstock.io/

Casey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyfenton/

Casey's email if you want to discuss equity: [email protected] 

Couchsurfing: https://www.couchsurfing.com/

Thomas Li, Co-Founder and CEO at Daloopa talks about explaining complicated tech in simple terms and selling it to investors and buyers. We also discussed deep tech in greater detail and who are the primary targets for fundraising in these cases. We also touched onto the importance of listening to your customers and how that can directly affect your fundraising process (great quote at the end of the episode). 

The preview of the course isn't up yet, but it will be very soon, if you want to make sure you don't miss it, go to https://www.fundraisingradio.com/ and subscribe to our mailing list!

Thomas' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-li-a6189245/

Daloopa's site: https://daloopa.ai/