by Martin Afshari-Mehr and Jess Greenhalgh
OK — it’s Easter, so we thought we’d use the theme and talk about finding the “right egg” (Martin: you’ll have to forgive us in advance for any egg-related, “eggs-trordinary” puns! Jess: <rolls eyes> oh no…).
What do we mean? Well, from a VC perspective, we have to filter and analyse a lot of deals to find the ones that we feel are going to eventually turn out to be “eggs-ceptional” “golden eggs” (Martin: sorry! Jess: you should be — that was awful).
However, what a lot of entrepreneurs don’t realise is that they should be doing the same thing.
For most entrepreneurs, fund-raising is HARD. It’s time-consuming, challenging and the first time engaging with VCs can feel like an intimidating process. Every entrepreneur we’ve met is keen to just raise their next round and get back to building the business.
It’s a dangerous time for an entrepreneur. Yes, it’s great (Martin: not to mention “eggs-citing” — ho ho ho… Jess: Seriously Martin, enough now) to get external validation from someone who wants to invest in your business — not to mention the relief of knowing that you’ll be able to keep going but all too often, the focus is on just getting the fund raise and keeping the business going and not on WHERE the money is coming from. It’s all too easy to forget that it’s actually a two-way street and that, as an entrepreneur, you have a choice over WHO you take funding from. The entrepreneur needs to find the right “golden egg” for him/her.
What an entrepreneur needs will obviously differ depending from person to person (or team to team) and in relation to any number of different factors. What we look for is explained on our website and in other blog posts (TL;DR? — high quality team that can execute, great product/service and product/market fit in a large and/or rapidly growing market) so, rather than going over old ground, we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight what WE aim to offer to see if we’re the right fit FOR YOU:
- Decisiveness: Fundraising is time consuming, painful and can drag on and on.
- Episode1 Promise: We understand this and aim to make decisions quickly — we don’t believe in “maybe” and we won’t leave entrepreneurs hanging around.
- Transparency: Entrepreneurs often complain about lack of feedback and being in the dark.
- Episode1 Promise: We’re open with our deal terms, opinions and advice. Our term sheet is on our website here and we’ll often try and help even if we don’t end up investing.
- Fundraising: We’ve heard funding can often take months.
- Episode1 Promise: We aim to fund within 6–8 weeks, so entrepreneurs can get back to building their businesses (our investment process timeline is here).
- Management: People often complain about investors not being fully engaged with their companies.
- Episode1 Promise: We aim to provide strong management advice and coaching throughout the entrepreneurial journey and we’re always just a phone call away.
- Scale: Seed to Series A is a challenging time for startups with many pitfalls along the way.
- Episode1 Promise: We’ve built great processes in-house to help businesses in the difficult Seed to Series A journey.
- Entrepreneur Alignment: VCs are just focused on returns
- Episode1 Promise: As corny as it sounds… We sit side-by-side, and not opposite our entrepreneurs as most of us have been in your shoes. We’ve got a reputation of being friendly and giving good advice. If we are looking to invest, we always invite entrepreneurs to speak to our portfolio companies and get a real perspective on how we help.
Does that sound “eggs-actly” (Jess: erm…I thought we agreed the last one was enough?) what you’re looking for? If it does, reach out to us through your network or submit a proposal via our Open Office form at Episode1.
Have an “eggs-cellent” Easter everyone! (Martin: don’t worry, Jess — that was the last “yolk”…get it? :) Jess: I’m glad you’ve finished. That was eggs-tremely painful….)
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