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

In launching your startup, you’ll need to determine which sales channel is best for your business.

The sales channel is how you reach prospects and then turn them into customers.

Most first-time startup founders envision a channel and then assume that’s the best path.

Experienced founders know you must research, test, and analyze the channels to find the best one.

Here are the steps to choosing the right channel:

1. First, determine what you are looking for such as quantity of leads, low-cost leads, new markets, or other.
2. Consider the constraints - how much budget do you have, how much time do you have, do you need to contact a specific type of customer?
3. Set up a table and fill out the various channels such as direct sales, affiliates, SEO/SEM, partners, and more. 
4. Run some tests to see how the customer acquisition process goes.
5. Analyze each channel for cost, time, ability to scale, response time, and other.

You’re looking for channels that provide high-quality leads at a low cost, with a fast response time, and the ability to grow lead targets through that channel.

Don’t assume that the first channel that came to you is the best channel.

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.
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Music courtesy of Bensound.

In this episode, Hall welcomes Tom Wallace, Managing Partner at Florida Funders.

Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, Florida Funders is a hybrid between a venture capital fund and an angel investor network that discovers, funds and builds early-stage technology companies in Florida. They exist to evolve Florida from the Sunshine State to the Startup State by ensuring there is as little friction as possible in the ecosystem, that investors have access to meaningful deal flow and entrepreneurs have access to a wide range of accredited investors. Florida Funders educates and ignites its community of investors and network of partners to drive investment in the most exciting startups Florida has to offer. Their one-of-a-kind angel investor network provides transparency, fosters communication, and empowers strategic relationships between the investor network and the founders. Their team is composed of serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and experienced angel investors singularly focused on uncovering Florida’s next breakout technology company. 

Tom is a 40 year veteran of technology startups, both as a founder and an investor. After multiple successful exits, most recently selling VectorLearning for $268M, he is now the Managing Partner at Florida Funders. As an angel investor for the last 25 years, Tom has learned how rewarding investing in early-stage technology companies can be...and how challenging. The mission at Florida Funders is to provide better and broader access to tech investments for new and existing angel investors and to turn Florida from the sunshine state into the startup state.

Bio (full)

Tom shares with Hall how he sees the industry evolving. He discusses his investment thesis and some of the challenges both startups and investors face.

You can visit Florida Funders at www.floridafunders.com, via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/floridafunders, and via Twitter at www.twitter.com/FloridaFunders.     

Tom can be contacted via email at tom@floridafunders.com, and via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/tom-wallace-568412.  

Music courtesy of Bensound.