The FAM

Why is WEM different than any other #businesscommunity? We'll let our Sisters answer that :) Then, come join us! TheSisterhood.co #businesswomen #businessbuilding #businesswomanlife #businessadvice #bosswomen #bossladies #businesswoman

Don't be fooled by success stories. 90% of entrepreneurs fail. I lost our savings, burned out, and couldn't afford to go on holidays for 4 years. My entrepreneurship was a hard lesson. When I first jumped into the entrepreneurial world, I was starry-eyed and optimistic. But it didn’t take long for reality to hit me hard. Here’s how I did almost everything wrong: 1. 𝗡𝗼 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝘃𝘀. 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲    I poured money into my business without a solid plan, assuming my trainings would sell like hotcakes. Turns out, pricing them was harder than I thought, and I bled cash without seeing much return. 2. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝟯 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀    I started my business because a few people promised to be my clients. But after those initial invoices were paid, I had no strategy for finding more clients. My sales pipeline was bone dry, and I was stuck. 3. 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲/𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗕𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲    Working 60 hours a week seemed like a badge of honor, but it was a one-way ticket to failure. I neglected my roles as a dad, partner, and friend. My personal life crumbled as my business floundered. 4. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗕𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗮𝘆 𝗡𝗼    Desperation led me to take gigs wherever I could get them, even if it meant traveling across the country for a measly €250. I wasted entire days travelling for a few bucks, thinking any income was better than none. Despite these painful lessons, I didn’t give up. Here are my top two tips for clawing your way back to success: 1. 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗮𝘆 𝗡𝗼    Find your Ikigai: what you do best, what you love, and what people are willing to pay for. Saying no to distractions and low-value opportunities is crucial. Focus on what truly matters and drives your business forward. 2. 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗠𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗿    Regularly distance yourself from the daily grind to reassess your goals. A mentor can offer fresh perspectives and help realign your strategy. Reflect, adjust, and then dive back in with a clear vision. And now, almost 15 years later? • I train companies like Capgemini, Siemens, Nestlé, IBM on Social Selling • I coach entrepreneurs in my VIP Program • I get to join the stage with Carles Puyol at VTEX Connect Europe and share my insights in front of 4,000 commercial leaders    💬 comment and share your insights on entrepreneurship ♻️ repost to help entrepreneurs see this checklist 📥 save for later PS: When was the last time you looked in the mirror as an entrepreneur?

We bootstrapped our company to $100k+ ARR in 12 months, but it was not easy. Here are 3 things to consider if you want to bootstrap your business. For most founders, funding a company means either bootstrapping or raising capital. While bootstrapping has its pros (you maintain control and vision for your company), there are some things that people overlook: 𝟏. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 [𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐲] 𝐰𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟     To successfully bootstrap means that you’re either funding the company with your own money or with money from customers. While option 2 is ideal, it’s unrealistic if you’re just starting. Be prepared to keep working your day job and build your company on the side (we did this for ~6 months at @chezie).     𝟐. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭       Not having funding means that you have to prioritize revenue from day one (you might be thinking, “duh,” but this is not the norm in the tech startup world).        VC-backed companies can focus on user growth to try to turn on revenue later, but unless you’re willing to dip heavily into your savings, that’s not an option if you’re bootstrapping.      𝟑. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐡𝐢𝐭     Sure, it can be a headache dealing with VCs, but you know what’s more of a headache? Thinking about how you’re going to pay your bills. While that might not seem like a big deal, you should consider the impact that stress will have on your ability to run the company. It might be worth selling some equity in your company so you can focus 100% of your energy on building. The best route for underrepresented founders is to bootstrap until they know that they have a legitimate business, and then raise only enough capital to get them to profitability. From there, founders can decide if they want to grow quickly and chase more funding, grow sustainably by pouring profits into the business, or just capitalize on their business by pulling profits out as dividends. What do you think? For any bootstrappers out there, is there anything I missed? Comment below 👇🏾 #funding #startups #blackfounders #bootrstrapping

This is why Founders have to make sure mental health is a PRIORITY. There are many VC funds that are making this a part of value added and I think it's GREAT!

3 things I've learned about partnerships these last few years: ⚡ Don't presume to know what your partner wants/needs. Always ask questions. Examples - what are your goals of this partnership? What does your organization the need the most right now? What metrics are we going to track? Communication goes a long way to making sure both parties receive what they are looking for. ⚡️ Be open to creative partnerships. As a business owner, you should have guidelines to determine partnership fit, but be open to reviewing ideas that take the strategy in a different direction. ⚡️ Put check-ins and reviews on the calendar so you can update one another on progress. #partnerships #strategicpartnerships

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testing something. feel free to join, but this is just a test :)

There are over 12,000 venture capital funds in the US. You can’t talk to all of them, nor should you. Here’s how diverse founders should build their investor pipeline ⬇️ With so many funds, it’s important to build your investor pipeline and identify funds that are good fits with what you’re building. Assume you’re going to need to identify 300 investors to close your round. How do you go from 12,000 to 300? You filter down on that list and categorize funds to find ones that are good fits for you. To streamline your investor pipeline, categorize potential funds by: 1. 𝐆𝐞𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲: Target funds operating in your region. Don’t reach out to funds that invest in Europe or Africa if you’re based in the US.  2. 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲: Also referred to as sector or theme, find funds that invest in what you’re doing. If you’re building a platform for HR Leaders, don’t reach out to healthcare investors. It’s a waste of both party’s time.  3. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞: If you’re early, look for funds that invest in pre-seed or seed. Note that definitions for this vary dramatically - investors in the Southeast US will consider a company doing $500k as a Seed-stage company, while VCs on the West Coast would make a Seed investment as early as $0-50k in revenue. Where do you find the funds? When I raised our pre-seed for Chezie, I had the most success with two sources: Signal and open-source databases: - 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥 (https://signal.nfx.com)- this is a public investor database that allows you to filter through VC funds by industry, stage, and geography (plus a few others). Signal is a great place to start, but the results can’t be exported and you can’t filter for multiple locations at once. Can’t win em all. - 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧-𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 - these are public databases typically in Google Sheets or Airtable. I’ve come across a few of these that list funds that specifically invest in underrepresented founders. Links in the comments! Be careful with these though as the information can be outdated. Wherever you look for funds, make sure it’s free. There are too many unpaid resources to be paying for something as basic as a list of funds. One of the hardest things about fundraising is knowing where to start. Finding your list of target funds is step 1 to running a smooth process. Curious - how have others created their investor pipelines? Share in the comments! #fundraising #investors #blackfounders

Pay attention Founders!

To get the 3 VC checks for our $780k pre-seed, I built an investor pipeline of 300 funds. Here's how underrepresented founders can figure out how many funds they need to target to raise a round of VC funding 👇🏾 Your investor pipeline is a list of funds and angel investors that you're targeting to invest in your round. Like sales, it's a funnel. For every 10 investors on our target list, I got a meeting with 3 of them - a 30% conversion rate. For every 30 meetings, I got 1 check. Unless you're YC-backed or a founder with a great track record, I wouldn't plan on a list-to-meeting conversion rate higher than 50% or a meeting-to-check conversion rate higher than 10%. Once you have these numbers, you need to work backward to figure out how many investors you need on your list. A $1M round will probably break out like this: - 1 lead investor for $500k - 1 follow-on investor for $250k - 1 follow-on investor for $150k - $100k in smaller checks from angels and friends and family So, you need 3 checks to form your round. Now let's work backward to figure out how many funds we need on our target list. Assuming better than average conversion rates of 40% for a meeting and 5% for a check, the math shapes out to: - 3 is 5% of 60 → 𝗪𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝟲𝟬 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 - 60 is 40% of 150 → 𝗪𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝟭𝟱𝟬 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 Note - these numbers are *very* optimistic. Y'all know the deal - work twice as hard for half as much. Plan on your conversion rates to be half that of other founders, which means you'll need to talk to twice as many funds. There's a reason Black founders get less than 1% of VC funding 🤷🏾♂️ Having such a large list sounds like a lot (and it is), but knowing this number makes the process so much easier. Treat it like a game. The sooner you get to 150 investor touches, the sooner you get your money. #venturecapital #fundraising #blackfounders