In this episode, Hall welcomes Joe Jesuele of HomeJab, a nationwide real estate media production company. HomeJab applies innovative technology and user-friendly customer experience to make on-demand, professional-quality media services available to the real estate market. HomeJab’s professional videos, HDR photography, aerials, and immersive 3D virtual tour services are the most comprehensive offering of immersive digital media in the marketplace. Using HomeJab, Customers can schedule shoots with a professional photographer or filmmaker within the day. After shooting, HomeJab delivers edited products online within 24 hours, making it one of the fastest and most efficient media services available.

Joe has a long-standing background in the real estate industry, working as a broker, lender, and builder. While building houses, Joe saw an opportunity and founded HomeJab. Wanting to give himself the best chance of selling properties in a tough market, Joe produced 3D models, walk-through videos, and drone videos. This resulted in property sales in less than 30 days. He realized the good visual content that he was creating led to success. With no one else was doing this in the market, HomeJab was born.

In this episode, Hall welcomes Gil Hernandez of GXH Capital. GXH Capital is a minority-owned venture capital firm to alter the diversity landscape in tech. They invest in startups with missions that will help the world. Their goal is to invest in diverse founders and founders that are committed to helping the underrepresented.

Hall and Gil speak about his background and what led him to GXH. Gil has an extensive background in finance, and accounting and has worked at both Apple and PwC. This has given him experience working in large corporations and working with start-ups. Gil also shares his advice to investors before writing their first check. According to Gil, the key is diversity. Look beyond your immediate circle because if you only invest in companies with warm intros and first connections you’ll miss out on amazing opportunities.

Many entrepreneurs approach me for funding. I find the biggest misconception is that you must first raise funding before you can launch and grow your business. In reality, the ones who raise funding have a growth story and can communicate it effectively to investors.

Investors funding startups look for market validation and product validation - the product works and people will pay for it. There are some investors who fund deals based solely on the team, the space, or the technology, but these are rare examples.

Most look for what I call the “Growth Story”. They look for an operational revenue model in the business with increasing numbers on sales, team, product and fundraise.

In talking with startup entrepreneurs, I find they avoid discussing their current revenues because they think the investor wants to hear big numbers. I tell them that investors don’t expect startups to have big numbers. Instead, the investor looks for repeatable and predictable numbers.

If your company is pre-revenue, then you can show how the business model is successful based on the unit economics level. At the core, this shows that you can generate leads, qualify, and close them for revenue that exceeds the cost of acquiring and fulfilling the customer. Over time, you can improve these numbers.

Scott Adams once wrote “Losers have goals. Winners have systems.”

A startup pitch deck filled with forecasts alone is just a set of goals. A pitch deck showing how the business model currently works is a system.

It’s best to show up with a pitch deck showing how your system is working today.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today!