How to Have a Succesful Raise: The 5 components of Success Every Founder Must Nail

What separates a raise that gains momentum from one that struggles to get off the ground? In this episode of Behind the Raise, Martin and Brendan break down the five core components every founder needs to nail before launching a successful online capital raise: a clear and investable offer, founder and leadership visibility, a real marketing engine, smart planning around funding, budgeting, and cash flow, and strong momentum and social proof. They explain why having a great company is not the same as having a clear investment offer, how founders can turn complex products into simple investor narratives, and why leadership involvement is critical for building trust. From creating founder-led content to planning marketing budgets, managing investor relations capacity, and showing proof that the opportunity is gaining traction, this episode gives founders a practical framework for understanding what needs to be in place before they go to market.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Alrighty, welcome everybody to another episode of Behind the Raise. And today we're really, really excited to be speaking with you about five components every founder must nail for a successful raise. And we wanted to walk everybody through some of the key essentials for a successful raise. And there's a lot that goes into these, but there's kind of five main components that we see as really critical. And we have covered some of these in previous episodes to some degree, but we wanted to bring it all together in this one in particular. Some of it covers the marketing components, but also some foundational components and executional pieces. And so the five main components, just right off the bat, before we get into each one, are number one is having a clear investable offer, founder and leadership visibility, a real marketing engine, planning, funding, budgeting, and cash flow, and then momentum and social proof. Getting into the first one here, a clear and investable offer. I wanted to walk through what really that means. And one of the key things that we find is that when a company is onto something big and they're doing well, there's a difference between having a really successful company that people are excited about or customers are excited about primarily, and then translating that into what is an investable offer. And sometimes for founders, that's a different type of shift because they have that validation from a business perspective. And sometimes that makes it seem like it's an obvious investment decision. But there's not always a clear path to that just by saying, you know, it's a successful business. You there's a lot that goes into actually constructing the offer from an investment perspective. And so a good example of that might be if you're onto like a big scientific breakthrough or you have a really industry game-changing innovation that might be relatively technical and complex for people to understand off the bat. So your customers might have a really clear understanding of why this is a good offer and um why it's a good product. But from an investment perspective, it's a little bit more challenging just due to maybe some industry specifics or product specifics. And so that requires a lot of clarity in terms of creating that offer. And so yeah, why don't we uh open it up a little bit and talk about that? So friend, I know that you also work a lot on the offer side. It's always something that we're polishing. So maybe you could provide some perspective on your thoughts on how to create a clear investable offer or instances where you've seen that work well.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Good question and a good way to set the stage. That's kind of like the first thing you need to think about when doing a raise. You know, the offer is the most important thing, right? It's it's what people are actually investing in. And it kind of goes back to that like elevator pitch, you know, piece where you have to be able to explain what you do and you know what the opportunity is, you know, in 60 seconds or less. And if you can't do that, then the offer is not clear, it's complicated and people will just have more questions. So just kind of being able to explain that value proposition to a potential investor in layman's terms almost is like a good first step because then you can translate that into your marketing message. I think timing is also super important, like market timing. Is your industry growing? Is there some you know disruptive technology or something that you've created that is just gonna boom? Um, and being able to showcase that in in the offer as well, you know, what those market metrics look like and growth, growth opportunity metrics look like. So time, like why investing is one thing, but why investing like right now um is is another thing to keep in mind. It's actually funny because sometimes I feel like this sometimes gets fixed, but investors want to know what they're getting out of it, right? Like, you know, they don't want to just invest in something because it's cool. Like, you know, they want to invest in something because they're gonna get a return and they're gonna make money back. And so the offer needs to clearly showcase the uh monetary opportunity that someone can get by participating in the raise. And so, you know, what does that look like for the investor? So, yeah, there's a you know, in our approach, there's obviously like we have a methodology or a framework for creating the offer. It needs to be structured in a way that starts with the gaps or the problem that the company's solving, and then what's the unique solution and value proposition that they're bringing to the table? And then, you know, getting into some of the total addressable market, the the economics of it, social proof is another big point, you know, testimonials, people want to invest in something that other people have already invested in or have said good things about. So those are a few things that come to mind. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

And it's almost like there's there's certain categories of offer as well. There's ones where the financial return is more obvious. So you have like real estate projects, for example, can more clearly offer a targeted return. There's debt funds that basically pay interest on on money that's borrowed and those also have a clear return. And for those ones, I feel like you want to have a very competitive return uh rate, which is typically in the double digits. And so that one is a little bit more obvious in a way, but sometimes can still get a little bit missed because if you're advertising a project, for example, sometimes it's really easy to get into project specifics. But that one I find is really important because uh the what investors are kind of looking for there is they're differentiating or they're they're comparing offers across the market in those categories for real estate. And so it comes a lot about the project specifics, but then also the ability to execute from the issuer. And I think almost that like likability factor in terms of do they actually like the issuer, do they like the project, do they believe in the ability to execute? And so that one you can create a clear offer a little bit easier. And then I think to your point, when you get into more of the equity-based raises that are in other categories that are more startup-based, for example, that's where a lot of those factors come into play where people aren't getting a very specific return, but it's almost the size of the opportunity that is the the most important because that in a way is people want to see a company that's tackling a really big problem. And just the slight sliver of success means that they're gonna get a a pretty big uh piece of the revenue pie there. And that one I feel like it becomes more important because you can't properly necessarily articulate what the potential financial return there is, and it's more important to show the path of the company. So that's a good example of where the differentiation speaks between like we have a really good product, but then from an investment perspective, having that vision. And I think like to your point, that's where the the factors that our framework comes into play, which is the, you know, the mission, having a very clear mission around that. So what's the company looking to achieve on an overall basis? I feel like the mission helps to frame the overall company direction so that when there's those ups and downs, they're still moving forward to tackling that and that mission solves the problem and that creates the market size opportunity. And yeah, just kind of like going through that piece is the solution, the company solution resolves that problem, the leadership, and that sets it up for that leadership position where they, if they're solving a very unique problem and their solution has a high barrier to entry, that typically will put them in a leadership position. And I think that social proof that you mentioned is also really important in terms of actually validating the momentum. So yeah, I don't know if you have any any uh additional thoughts on like the maybe the more startup side of things where there isn't that targeted return or but there is that larger potential.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Um, if there's anything you wanted to add there, being able to clearly and cons concisely create the narrative, like the like showcase the growth potential, you know, for the company, right? Like and validation um as well. You know, how many like how many customers do you have? Like is a subscription? Like, has there been growth over the past five years with the company? And what's the market size look like and the the market growth, like the industry growth look like? And and maybe you can lean more on on those organizational numbers and yeah, like you said, growth potential, you know, because if you're investing in a company that's that's growing and tapping into a growing sector, the likelihood of the value of your shares will likely go up. Um, it's just harder, harder to kind of like, yeah, like you mentioned, like maybe define or quantify like what that's gonna look like. But I think that's an important piece. And then I guess one other thing that comes to mind is just communicating to the investor why you're raising money, like you know, like why do you need to raise $10 million? What are you gonna use the funds for? And knowing and being very prescriptive about you know what you want to invest in to secure that growth. Is it a new manufacturing facility or is it marketing to grow the customer base? Well, if it's marketing, if you can showcase that you've got you've already validated some of the marketing metrics and now it's just about scaling, you know, that's an easier thing for an investor to wrap their head around. So yeah, just like showing that you're a guy with or a girl with a plan and you're gonna grow the business with the the funds that you're getting. Like, and you know, that's important as well because it creates confidence in in the person leading the company. It creates conviction and and whatnot. Are raising money and you don't really like communicate why you're raising money. That's that's another red flag, I'd say.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, for sure. I think that people want to know what what the funds are being used for. And if you can learn lay that out very clearly, it also signals what the growth path is because in a way, where you're spending your funds shows where where you're following the growth. And I think ultimately from like an investor perspective, when it comes to the more startup-based raises that are don't offer that targeted return, but offer more of the equity stake, I really feel like investors are after growth potential. Like they want to, when they're investing in this, they're probably weighing it against like, okay, if I spend $1,000 here versus investing in a Meg 7 stock or like an index fund, can I get a 10x opportunity? And so for them, they want to see that the market is going to be big enough that you have some proof of concept. And so for some early stage uh startups, um, that can be things like purchase order, can be initial like revenue uh over the past couple of years. Um, and then ultimately also the the the growth path forward, what are some of the uh like the market potential and what direction it's going in? So I find that being able to articulate the past growth story and the growth potential are so important in this. Do you have an example of like where when you've come across an offer that's been weak or hasn't hit the right notes? Um and how to help people recognize that?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

I think you know, we've definitely come across offers that you know might not be a good fit for a raise like this. And maybe that's more stage-based. Like maybe they're too early with the product development or or validation with the the business idea. They're more kind of ideating, they've got a concept. So we can we talk to a lot of people like that. But when it comes to the offer, I mean, I'd say like for the most part, everyone that we bring on, like we work with has some tweaking to the offer, like how they're communicating it. And I'd say, like, you know, we've come across like, you know, clients that have a really complicated product or it might not be easily understood to a mass community, like a retail investor community. You know, it's very technical or it's very scientific or it's uh very chemical. And so um, you know, the founder understands the ins and outs of the offer and the product. And so they're, you know, very excited and they can talk, you know, your ear off with, you know, what they're doing and what the potential is. But you kind of have to ask a lot of questions because it's it's hard to wrap your head around. Like they're so invested in what they're doing, they've been doing it for 10, 15 years. So they understand it, but it's a it's a different story to be able to kind of take, you know, some awesome product and company and then communicate that to people that don't really understand that industry. There's examples, I guess. Like we've worked like robotic um agriculture companies. So, you know, it's new, right? Like not many people are are familiar with that. And so being able to kind of communicate, you know, the scalability of something like that, you know, which has you know high cost to, you know, manufacture those machines was one example. There's another one that we're working with right now that's also in the sustainable agriculture space, and it's just a new innovative way of irrigation sustainably, I'd say. And they've developed a product that kind of you know supports that and reduces chemicals, reduces irrigation costs, um, is very scalable. Their ability to produce this product is way cheaper than other competitors. And but it's kind of complicated. Like, like I don't I I don't want to name the company, but it's kind of a complicated technology. So that's another example where it's, yeah, like we kind of got to tweak this messaging and make it fit to the retail investor community.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah, I think that's a good example because it's a relatively early stage technology, but what they've done a good job of is building out the validation points. And so when, you know, it's not fully commercialized, they are still bringing forward a lot of the validation points from industry, from like academia, as well as some additional like purchase orders. So while they don't have the full commercialization and there's a lot of potential there, they are still, I think, bringing a lot of the validation to the table that's making their offer stronger. There's an interesting point in the offer side where we think about a lot of these companies customer base as well, because the relatively early stage. It's interesting because I find a lot of companies will have their sort of like a couple of core audiences. You might have customers that really understand what the product is and they see the long-term potential. So they're potential investors. You have industry insiders, it's like breaking through to the broader population that really makes an offer takeoff. And that's where I find that that broader mission statement can be really impactful because if they can identify a bigger gap in the market and that's communicated to people and that aim point really resonates, I feel like that's when an offer can become really strong. And quite honestly, you could probably raise funds just through a customer base and industry insiders alone, and that can get you pretty far. But I feel like if you can break through to a broader audience, that's really when your offer takes off. So that's that's where I feel like that mission statement part really comes through.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

And it gets you to a whole new level, right? Um, in terms of how much you can raise. It also markets your company as well as you're pushing out the the mission, like you said, to the masses in a sense.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

So yeah, exactly. Right on. And so yeah, maybe let's let's move on to uh component number two as well, which is the founder leadership and visibility. So having this is uh a key part of the raise as well. And so we we've talked about we've done an episode solely on on the role of the founder within capital raises, but we also see, you know, obviously as a key component of these five foundational pieces. And uh the reason that the founder is so important is one is because they're so good at articulating the vision, but people tend to invest and buy into companies which they they trust and they like. And so there's a couple of, I think, uh executional reasons why the founder is important, and then there's some visibility reasons. So both from the investor perspective, and then I would say from the like internal marketing perspective, why the founder is important. So I could speak to, you know, the investor psychology and why the founder is important. So when we think about how companies can articulate their vision, it's in today's day and age, and especially given the way that we advertise in particular, which is social media driven. So when people are in social media, they typically will want to digest messages in a way that they're consuming that other content. And so the founder's role is important because uh we like to put them into the ads, for example. And so if they can be a part of making uh ads webinars and you know, being on the landing page, for example, from an investor perspective, that tends to build a high degree of trust because the alternative to not using the founder is that they are hearing from just a general company or a blank face, for example, and harder to trust that in today's environment. And so if they can put a face to a name and that is articulated clearly, it does build a high degree of investor trust because you know, hopefully, as a founder, you have a good track record and they can you either they do a little bit of research or they uh, you know, generally just like the message that you have, and that tends to help the the raise as well. So, you know, preparing founders for publicly facing uh the raise is definitely helpful. And then, yeah, Brendan, maybe you could add a little bit of insight in terms of from an executional side, the founder's role on on like the marketing and side and what types of pieces they're typically involved in.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah, it's usually like creative approvals, video filming and budget and you know, but you know, budget feedback um or just um feedback on you know the the progress of the rays. Um so I'd say those are the sort of like executional pieces that are important from the the founder. So creative approval, like it's we want the founder's input, right, on the on the marketing message and and what we're putting out there. And so having that two-way feedback loop is important and helpful. Like video filming, like you mentioned, Martin, is great, right? Like, you know, investors aren't they want to invest in the people behind the company as well. Like I'd say most people who are investing in the company want to are investing in the leadership team or the the owner, the founder or the CEO, the person driving it, um, not just the company and the product itself, right? So having you visible um and present is gonna be important to build that trust and credibility with the end investor. If you're absent, then it's gonna be hard, right? You know, people want to invest in in the team with the vision, right? So having you in the videos is great. The founder videos for the for the ads is great. Um, and you know, land like videos on the website, on the landing page in ours. We do lots of webinars. Um, depending on the scale of the raise, we might do some in-person events as well. And so having the for the founder um present is is important for sure. And then I the third thing was just the budget feedback and the, you know, we're we're constantly looking at the progress of the raise, right? So, you know, how much capital has come in, what's the cost to acquire that capital, capital, how many investors, what's the average investment amount? Um, and so, you know, as the agency partner, it's our duty to be prescriptive with the timelines and the forecast, you know, when realistically can we close close this raise out? And but with that, we need to have a marketing budget to get there. And so uh having the founder, you know, okay that and and be available to, you know, trust in us and go for that is super helpful. Um, you know, if we don't have those approvals, then we can't scale the raise, right? And then we're gonna fall behind on the target. So I'd say those are like the executional pieces that come to mind with the founder's involvement. Also, just on the like getting started with the whole raise itself, having the founder's input on the offer and the vision and and just kind of brain dumping their thoughts on the product, you know, we we like to record those meetings and just take lots of notes and get the founder's perspective on the opportunity, because then we can take all that brain-dumped notes and information and put that into a compelling marketing message that that will convert. So having the founder on the front end of the raise as well is super important. And if we were to compare campaigns uh across, you know, different like raises in the past, the ones that have the founder involved in the videos and the content do the best. If you have um high energy, you know, and you're passionate and you're personable, you know, that goes a long way as well. Uh so yeah, I I'd say those are some examples that come to mind.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yeah, totally. As you're speaking, I kind of thought of this way to think about it for founders as well is that, you know, this type of capital raise is more broad-based. So it opens you up to a broader audience. But think of the difference between like you're going to pitch a VC and you actually show up and pitch them in person, or you send them like a package and what's gonna be more compelling. And it's kind of the same thing that you could consider like this broader audience to be a pool of VCs. And if you're just showing them an ad that is like the equivalent of a pamphlet, they're gonna be interested, but showing up is way more compelling to them and it allows you to, you know, show your personality a bit more. So I think that's just like a more persuasive form of engagement in terms of visibility. So hopefully that helps kind of like help people think about it the right way.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah, I completely agree. It's like going on drag, it's not it's like not sending the founder on Dragon's Den, it's sending the the the intern.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yeah. So I, you know, you touched on a couple of good pieces there from the marketing side as well. And one of the other things that I really like that you mentioned was the cash flow management, which I really feel like always comes from the founder. And where I found that's been so clutch is the the founder has the best grip on what the cash flow situation is like for the company. And in certain instances, you need to put some more firepower into marketing. And when the founder has a good grip on that and there's good, you know, positive cash flow in the company. I find that if you have a pretty aggressive founder that really gets marketing and understands when it's getting traction, they're super helpful in being like, Yes, let's put some gas on this fire. So that's a really key part where it's tough for us to know that visibility into the company. And so the founder, the more that they communicate that and the more that we can give them a clear picture on what marketing is doing, the potential returns if budget's adjusted over the next month or two, and they have a good grip on. cash flow like that's a really good combo.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah, I I completely agree. It's also like important to, you know, doing a raise costs money too to get started, right? And so having a good pulse check on the marketing budget, but also like forecasting the resources that you need internally to support the raise is another key decision that the the founder needs to make. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah. So I guess we've inadvertently landed at skipped ahead and gone to component four of the race, which is planning, funding, budgeting and cash flow. So you know we've kind of organically landed on why that's so important. And yeah, fundamentally, you know, I do see the founder as the key financial decision maker at the end of the day. And so they have to be man, you know, internally on the their company side, they're managing their, you know, inventory, cash flow, marketing. We are just the component of marketing. And so from our perspective, we bring to the table the forecasting side of things and the real-time results. But ultimately, you know, like we've mentioned the the founder needs to have a good grip of what's going on internally financially so that there can be that extra firepower from a marketing perspective or knowing when things need to be dialed back. Like you have some interesting examples and experience working with more of like the lead gen funnels where I think the the way that the the sales cycle can work can also impact how budget decisions are made. You know, I feel like you've been involved in a couple of those conversations as well and mapping the sales cycle to budgeting as well. So outside of like crowdfunding which is a little bit more real time marketing return based, the sales cycle is a little bit of a different reality. So maybe there's some perspective you can add there on conversations you had uh when it comes to budgeting and cash flow on that side of things.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah. So for the reg D raises that we do, it's targeting accredited investors. And so uh any raise that has a minimum check size that's above what you'd see with the crowdfund um requires a meeting. So there needs to be someone on the the um company's team like on the I investor relations team to take meetings. And you know our approach with budgets is always to kind of scale it up incrementally. So if the raise is 12 months it's not going to be equal spending on ads every month throughout the raise. We're going to kind of scale it up. But as we scale it up the meeting volume is going to go up and the number of investors that come in are going to go up. And so the founder needs to plan for that internally like with with their IR team or hiring and and whatnot. That was your question, right, Martin? It was like related to like internal resource planning.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yeah internal resource planning and then I think also like how budgeting can be impacted I guess from a sales perspective and and inflow of funds and even just kind of seeing the the offer volume. So if there's enough deals in the pipeline do budgets get adjusted or what if you're in a situation where maybe there's not enough um deals in the pipeline is it actually better to pour gas on the fire or or pull back a little bit and I find the founders usually kind of the key individual that's making that decision.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Yeah I I wouldn't say it's like good to pull back. Yeah you want a full pipeline right like you know that's always the the goal to be having tons of conversations with people that are interested in investing and if it feels full I think it's less so about pulling back and managing the volume. I think it's actually about expanding your resources internally to handle the volume but keep the momentum going. I think momentum with the raise is super important right you don't want to pour gas on the fire. You don't want to take your foot off the pedal because you know I think that slows things down right you know the goal is to close the raise, close the funds and do it as quickly as possible so that you can get on you know to more important things internally operationally growing the business or opening another fund and doing a a larger round after that that's huge involvement with the founder to make those decisions. The nice thing is is like as the agency partner we can lay that out for the founder to make the decision. So you know we have a good sense of the metrics right so if we're at that point where it's like the pipeline's full and whatnot, we have a good sense of how much have we raised what's the cost of capital, what's the um cost per meeting, the cost per attended meeting, the cost per investor, the average investment amount, you know, with these metrics we can just forecast you know if we were to spend more or double our advertising spend, that will equate to this many meetings. But if one IR rep has X capacity, you know, that means hey the founder needs to make a decision on hiring and but we can actually map out you know when you need to hire another IR rep and take into account you know two to four weeks of training for that IR rep where they're actually shadowing you know people that are already taking those calls and just you know mapping that out in a budget plan in a timeline and a in a spreadsheet really so that the founder can see okay by what date do I need to hire and get them trained so that we can manage the capacity in line with the budget scaling that the marketing partner wants to do to keep things moving. The founder needs to make those decisions.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah it's it's it's not necessarily a set it and forget it type of scenario but one where the founder's one of the key decision makers and that's some of the lanes that they'd be they'd be working in from a marketing perspective. So you know obviously one of the the key components here from a another component I would say here is the marketing engine side of things. And so maybe from your perspective, obviously having a marketing engine that works is super important. So what are some of the essential sides of marketing you see that companies need to have in place when looking for this type of Rays?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

The Rays isn't an announcement it's an ongoing system that we need to create and I guess that's the marketing engine, right? And so the goal from our perspective is to one raise capital in a cost effective manner, like you know efficiently or the economics of the raise need to make sense to the company or to the founder. And then two create automate a lot of the pieces so that it's not the founder that's having to network and go out there and pitch VCs and raise capital like that just distracts the founder from building the company and and seeing his vision through and actually you know operationally we want to automate the rays as much as possible. Three we want to create predictable there needs to be predictability with the rays, right? So we need to have a consistent inflow of cash and investors and meetings and understand our metrics so that it's predictable so that that can dictate how we continue scaling out the rays and get to the goal that we want to get to so we need to understand the metrics and validate the metrics and get predictability. And so that's kind of the engine the the engine in it in that it's a system like we want to create and then the world's your oyster once you achieve that you can you know close out the rays and you can raise more capital if you want once we get to that point. And um the engine I guess is just all the pieces that go into it. So there's a lot right you know there's a marketing funnel there's landing there's web pages there's landing pages there's videos that we need to create there's video scripting video editing really video filming. If it's a meeting booking funnel there's a calendar setup for the IR reps connects to their availability ground robin across the reps there's confirmation of your attendance to the meeting there's the thank you there's the ads that actually drive those investor meetings there's managing campaigns on meta on Google Google search YouTube Performance Max other platforms we do lots of stuff with third party publishers as well so there's you know negotiating those contracts getting those placements then there's all the automation so like I said before it's it's really about trying to automate it as much for the for the company like we're the marketing partner so we want to do a lot of the legwork. So we want to just get the meetings in the calendar they just have to attend and have those meetings the reminder automate like emails for those meetings like those are all done automatically so no one has to worry about emailing prospective investors. The follow-ups don't have to be done you know those are all personalized by the rep and done in the background and triggered automatically based on how those opportunities are moving through the IR pipeline. That's the engine right like there's lots that goes into it but it's very scalable right like advertising is very scalable because once the infrastructure is in place meetings are going into the calendar the pipeline's filling up the IR reps are having great conversations moving opportunities through closing investors the cash is coming in and then it's a cycle right and the goal is to minimize the working capital needed to do this raise right we want to get cash like investors in and then that cash is used to fund the next month of of marketing budget like the peak working capital, you know, we want to minimize that it can be 10 to $20,000 because what as soon as we get a check in, you know, that money's being reinvested into the the engine per se. And then as we can scale it up you're getting more investments in and it's kind of like a wheel from that or a flywheel or whatever it is from from that standpoint. Yeah that that's the hard part part it's getting the infrastructure in place getting val the validation and metrics getting the ch checks in and but once you do that you can really grow it quite substantially I'd say that's kind of like one of the key unlocks and I think why people really love this way of raising capital is that if you're looking at it from the actual operational or out of pocket expenses you need to get started is fairly fairly minimal in terms of how much you can scale it up by.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

And so then it becomes incredibly cost effective to to do this. I want to like this engine analogy has kind of got me thinking a lot and I'm trying I feel like I have a couple analogies here, but I'm not going to try to go all out. But um there's a couple things that came to mind as you were speaking where you know there's the core engine part of it which is like the the piping and there's a couple of pieces from a marketing perspective that I would say are like the outer shell of the car that are like the body of the car, which I believe you know help to grab attention and give it validity as well. So when we speak of the engine, there's the core marketing which is the what's producing the returns but I also think founders need to think of not everybody's looking at the engine right away. So people investors for example they don't see the engine. That's like what we see where the mechanics work in the engine and you know the drivers to some degree but investors themselves they see the outside of the car. And so from that perspective that's the there's like a couple small pieces that are really important to have in place which I think is that you need to have a good brand in place. That's where that's where the founder visibility is super important. Having all of your social channels totally in sync. So you know if like you don't have an Instagram page or LinkedIn page if the founder doesn't have a good presence on those, those all start to look super dicey when you're asking for you know tons of funds from from people. So I think those help to build the shell. And so I would consider those to be sort of like your owned organic channels, which might not be the ones that drive the investments, but they help people to get into the car or get to the the dealership if we're gonna roll with the engine or car analogy here. You know other things that we've been working on as well is things like earned media. So when we talk about like channels, we have owned being your own channels. So those are typically social media email customer lists and uh those are important to have in really good shape to build that outer shell. And earned media is also an a key component which drives to that social proof part. And then when we think of the engine itself then there's the the channels that we would use and so the channels are you know paid media is a huge part of it when we break down paid media into different uh components that can be our paid social, our paid search, publisher channels, you know, native to to some degree. And so those can be like I guess um I'm not a mechanic so I can't think of the exact engine analogy but but there's a part of the engine there. Your ad spend is kind of like the fuel in a way. So yeah, those are kind of the the key components of the the marketing engine. You know one thing that is uh also important I think is the content system to plug into that engine. And so that's one of the inputs as well is, you know, not only the channels, the spend, but having a content system set up internally to be able to generate that new content. So we'd always be generating stuff on our end from any existing assets, but net new ones are great. And so it's great when the client or the the founder, the the capital issuer also has some sort of system internally to be generating new content uh consistently. So yeah, I think those are the the key components of the the engine there. And yeah the the last point I'd say that we have to cover here is just momentum and social proof and helping investors make that connection between what is like I would say that we're we're working with companies that are beyond an idea, but we want our investors to understand that it's something real the connection between the vision the company has and then the uh the actual um like proof points that exist in the real world. That is um you know a key component I think of these raises and and it can be various components based on company stage. So I'd say really early companies some key social proof components there would be things like who else has been investing in this company. So if you do have traction from other investors, I actually think that's a significant point to raise because people don't always want to be the the first to jump in the pool. But if they see that and even if it's a crowdfund for example that they see that a VC has invested in you before or an accelerator fund, uh that's really important. It kind of shows that you have the ability to take in capital and use it effectively. And so when they see the stage that you're at, but that you've also received funds before kind of shows investors like, hey, like they've maybe raised a million somewhere else, but now they're up and operating what could they do with another million that that we give them so that's what I would say is important from like the early early stage companies. And then yeah maybe Brendan you could speak to some social proof components that are maybe you know beyond that early early stage if if you have a couple in mind.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah it's exactly what you said like people don't want to be early adopters I'd say like it's harder to get past that hump, I'd say having yeah like a existing investor is definitely helps and and goes a long way and can kind of create some momentum. And social proof you know can be in the form of during those conversations with investors like you can speak to you know the funds that you've already raised and who those that what that investor community looks like. And so verbally in those conversations you have more that you can kind of talk about and that creates some validation I'd say for new investors to come in. They feel a little more secure um but that can also be conveyed in from a marketing standpoint like videos, like video testimonials. Like you know it depends on like the type of raise like maybe if it's like a like an investor from a past fund and they had a good experience with the company and they had a good return. And so they can you know show share that story in in a video format that can be put on the the website or used in the emails and so that's good um as well if it's an institutional investor or a VC like you know we had one client was backed by Chipotle. And so we can put that logo uh you know backed by XYZ on the on the landing page and that's that goes a long way as well. You can even maybe do some case studies and stuff on on the web page. Yeah so like that that validation and social proof is important, right? Because people want to invest in something that other people have invested in. If no one's invested in it, it's it's almost it feels like a red flag. Uh so it's hard for early stage startups, I do highly recommend trying to raise some capital before doing it online. You know, whether it's with friends and family or doing just a small pre seed round, you know, to get 25000 or 300,000 in that's great because it obviously gives you some runway to invest in this initiative, but it's also um some social proof right as well. I think those are the things the things that come to mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

You know one other element I think we can touch on which is the actual social proof from the so we've been talking on the investor side. And then there's also the actual business side which is like revenue and potential past returns. So previous performance. So when we think of the sort of two categories there's obviously more categories but the two main ones are like if we look talk about a real estate fund that has the targeted return, big social proof point there is like to your previous point, how much have we raised in the past? So if a fund's raised a hundred million before and they're doing 50 million this next time it's like yeah okay well this is a totally reasonable amount. Then a second part to that would become what has the historical performance been of those past ones and what are the previous projects and you know what was their execution like so I think from the real estate side that's an important social proof point is like, yeah, what have the historical returns been and then what are the previous projects? Pretty standard, but I think important to okay and it's actually really important to have that. And then from the more startup side of things, I think it becomes more about revenue and also product innovation as well. So if you're in a very technical product space like biotech, for example, or biopharma, it might be more about reaching certain milestones in product development and that's very formal stages that you need to go through. And then there's others that might be just as technical but don't have that regulatory formal stages to go through but you can still speak to the product innovations that could be showing how much progress you're making then it's about revenue. If um if you're a company that's in market, showing the growth is really really key I would say so if you can speak to your growth or customer acquisition, that can also be obviously what I think one of the most valuable proof points.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Yeah, completely agree. On top of that throughout the raise there'll be a a tipping point where you might want to actually showcase the momentum that you're getting yes how much have you raised you know with a progress bar uh on the landing page and being able to showcase that and how how the number of investors for instance and that can auto be like depending on the platform, the IR platform that you're using that can actually update automatically as well. My last point I'd say is just there's a bit of a ripple effect like because we're talking about momentum as what like social proof and momentum there's a ripple effect to like the further you get into the raise, I'd say the the easier it is because you know there's you've got a lot more awareness and you know there's the referral opportunity like existing investors might top up their investments or they'll they'll talk about it with with their network. And so there's a bit of a ripple effect in terms of of that. And the hardest part is getting started, I'd say yeah it's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

And I would say kind of reminds me something you mentioned earlier where people you say like investors don't want to be early. I think investors kind of like to be early but they don't want to be first. So that that's always the toughest one to get across. And then that point where you have the critical mass in your raise and it's like you know you've you've passed uh over 75% full like that is such a key momentum point and social proof point. But it's obviously tougher, tougher to get there. So I thought of one challenging question just came to me spontaneously and it might be a little context dependent but if you were speaking to somebody and they were like where do I get started? What should I do for first out of these five components what would you tell them is like the the best starting point to focus on before they before they get going.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

I'd say like you know what are you want to raise money? Why and for what and what are you offering to people that are going to give you money. So you know really nail down the offer and the opportunity that you're providing to investors. That can just be done in a a messaging document for instance like before that though create a good product in or company or have something to offer that's tangible then it's really about conveying that offer on paper. I think that's the first place to get started. I mean there's other considerations as well but that's an important first step and then you can decide if you're ready to invest like there's there's a financial consideration as well but I I think nailing down the offers is a good first step.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yeah that's a good point. I think I would probably I would do maybe planning funding and budgeting first then the offer leadership and visibility marketing engine and then social proof kind of last in a way because I feel like social proof can't be manufactured. It's a function of how successful the business is already so technically that that should be already in place it's more about recognizing it and how you use it. So that's probably how we rank them but I agree that the investable offer is a is a key part.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

That's a good point about like the planning and budgeting it's like yeah you want to make sure you're set up for success internally as well.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Yeah yeah totally well um I think that wraps up the the five key components that critical components of a successful raise. So you know we can leave it there for the day and everybody stay tuned for another exciting episode of behind the raise shortly.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Cool thanks Martin that's great.