In this episode, Hall welcomes Joel Brightfield, Principal at SixThirty Ventures.

Located in St. Louis, Missouri, SixThirty Ventures is a venture fund that invests in early-stage enterprise technology companies from around the world building FinTech, InsurTech, and Cybersecurity solutions, and connects them with corporate incumbents through its Go-To-Market Program.

SixThirty has built a deep and curated network of leaders across financial services, reinsurance, insurance, information security, and enterprise technology standing ready to engage with startups in the SixThirty portfolio. SixThirty initially invests up to $250k in a handful of early-stage FinTech, InsurTech, and Cybersecurity startups each year.

Joel has over 8 years of financial services experience. Prior to joining the SixThirty team 4 years ago, he worked for Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting where he advised institutional investors on a wide range of topics. 

Joel speaks about what excites him, the state of investing in startups - particularly in this COVID-19 era - how he sees the industry evolving, and what changes he sees coming up. He also gives insight into the company’s investment thesis and advises entrepreneurs and investors.

You can visit SixThirty Ventures at www.sixthirty.co/.  

Joel can be contacted via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/joel-brightfield-69b84724/, and via email at joel@sixthirty.co.

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Equity funding is just one source of funding for your startup. There are many others such as anchor clients.

Anchor clients are those who prepay for a custom version of your product. They are typically larger companies who have special needs.

If you are building an enterprise or consumer software product, consider looking for an anchor client to pay you to build a custom version of it.  

Anchor clients provide not only funding but also a clear specification of what they want.

They are often in a hurry and want the solution yesterday, which means they will pay the best price.

Anchor clients also give you information about the market as they have researched it and not found the solution they want. They often share such information with you.

Also, anchor clients become good references to use when you launch your standard product into the market.

To fully fund a version, one of your platforms may require more than one anchor client. Take the funding you need to build your platform and divide it by three and look for three anchor clients to cover it.


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.
-----
For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Equity funding is just one source of funding for your startup. There are many others such as consultation funding.

Consultation funding is using consultation work to pay the bills and salaries while you are building out your product. 

Many customers need additional help and will pay consulting fees for it in addition to the basic product. 

Consider looking for consultation work in addition to selling the product as some customers want more assistance in installing and using the product than in just buying the product itself. 

Consultation also brings new insight into how the customer intends to use the product and what problem they are trying to solve. 

This is useful information to guide your product roadmap.

Consulting work also gives you more information about the market and the competition as you’ll encounter competitive solutions.

Finally, consulting work for clients generates good references to use when you launch your standard product into the market.

While consulting may not be your ultimate goal, it can be a useful way to fund a portion of your product development.


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.
-----
For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Equity funding is just one source of funding for your startup. There are many others.

In general, equity funding is for launching and growing a business and is the most expensive form of funding. 

Each source of funding brings a specific support to the business and can reduce the amount of funding taken through equity.

In reviewing your fundraise plan, consider how these may fit in:

Grants - mostly government-based grants that are one-time offerings and need not be paid back. 

Loans - debt funding which must be repaid at some point in time.

Factoring/AR Funding - selling your invoices and accounts receivable in return for cash.

Equipment Leasing - leasing equipment instead of buying it reduces cash burn and spreads out the payments.

Line of credit - short-term debt used for smoothing out the cash-flow cycles.

Crowdfunding - prepayment for products.

Accelerators and incubators - mentorship programs that provide grant funding.

Bootstrapping - keeping costs low and using revenue to fund the business.

Barter - exchanging services with another company instead of paying cash.

Anchor clients - a client who pays for a custom version of your product.

Consultation funding - extending your product to include consultation services.

Supplier funding - contract manufacturing or software developers who provide upfront cash injections in return for a contract to build or design your product. 

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.
-----
For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Equity funding is just one source of funding for your startup. There are many others such as grants.

Grants are typically provided by government organizations to spur research and make a small contribution to the business.

Commonly used grants include SBIR, Small Business Innovation Research, which provides phase 1, 2, and 3 grants that add up to $1M.

You can search for grants at www.grants.gov.

Grant funding is mostly one-time offerings and need not be paid back.

They are non-dilutive which means they don’t take any space on the cap table.

Use grants to cover costs that customers will not. For example, customers will not pay for basic research but only for finished products.

Grants often come with rules on how it can be spent.  

Be careful in spending too much time with grants. I once worked with a company that had raised over $4M from grants over a five-year period.

The team became experts at writing grant proposals but no one could sell, market, or do much of anything for a customer because for five years they focused on writing and winning government grants.

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.
-----
For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Equity funding is just one source of funding for your startup. There are many others such as crowdfunding.

There are several forms of crowdfunding such as crowdfunding with prepayment, crowdfunding from non-accredited investors, and crowdfunding from accredited investors.

Crowdfunding prepayment lets you pre-sell your product before you build it.

This works best for physical products that require funding for the design and manufacturing of the product.

It’s a great way to test the market for a new product as it provides customer feedback on the product, price, and promotion.

There are several platforms available for showcasing your product.

There’s also crowdfunding from non-accredited investors. On these platforms, anyone can invest in your startup. It is for equity, so you need to understand the implications of it on your cap table.

Finally, there’s crowdfunding from accredited investors which is no different than raising funding through angel investors and venture capitalists. The only difference is using a crowdfunding platform to find and engage the investors.

There are a growing number of crowdfunding portals offering both general and specialized sites.

Crowdfunding works well for startups with a product that is clear to grasp and easy to understand.  

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.
-----
For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group