Brett Hagler

Thanks to Kanhai Kapadia for hosting me on the Hindsight podcast. It was a lot of fun talking about the importance of data in helping brands manage profitability and also how both Consumer Brands and SaaS companies are transitioning to this post-zirp environment #dtc #analytics

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Today, Last Money In Media is excited to share a guest post from one of our colleagues Phil Nadel, who leads Forefront Venture Partners. Phil wrote a piece title "The Misaligned Syndicate Incentive Structure" to provide a viewpoint on syndicates doing high volume deals versus those that are more concentrated. (link to full post in comments) Forefront Venture Partners formed one of the first syndicates about 12 years ago. They have invested in more than 200 rounds in over 100 companies since then. Additionally, they started a rolling fund about 3 years ago. Given Phil’s experience across models (SPVs/Funds) and having seen the evolution of the syndicate ecosystem over the last decade, Phil has offered to share his unique perspective with Last Money In Media readers in our article published today. In this Last Money In Media article, Phil discusses: - His POV on the incentive structure in the SPV ecosystem - The landscape shift to some higher volume syndicate GPs - Why Rolling Funds may be a better alternative for some LPs - And more The full article is in the comments for further reading. Powered by Sydecar, Last Money In Media is the most actionable venture capital newsletter. Written by Zachary Ginsburg and Alex Pattis who have deployed > $200M across 700+ SPVs.

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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Summary: Harlem Capital, a venture capital firm focused on backing diverse founders, is raising its largest fund to date of $150 million. This would be its third fund and is a testament to the industry's continued support for diverse communities. Key takeaways: Harlem Capital was founded in 2015 with the goal of supporting diverse founders. The firm has $174 million in assets under management and has made investments in over 80 companies. The successful raising of the $150 million fund would be a show of success for both Harlem Capital and the industry's continued focus on diversity and inclusion. #venturecapital #vc #venture #diversity #dei

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I had the pleasure of hosting Derek Andersen, founder of Startup Grind and Bevy, on my podcast this week. Our conversation covered Derek's journey building global startup communities, the evolution of Startup Grind and Bevy, and his insights on trends in community building and entrepreneurship. Here are 5 key takeaways from our discussion: 1. Start with your values. Derek shared how Startup Grind's core values - give more than you take, help others first, make friends - have remained consistent over the past decade. Values unite communities. 2. Listen to your customers. Derek emphasized having empathy for your customers, meeting them in person, and letting their problems guide your product roadmap. 3. Combine online and offline. Successful community builders combine in-person events, virtual events, discussions, and groups. The future is omnichannel. 4. Start building your community on day 1. Engage your first prospective customers and users in a community for feedback and validation. 5. AI will unlock community knowledge. Derek discussed how AI can help analyze years of community content and make it searchable and useful. Thank you Derek for an amazing discussion on community building and entrepreneurship! #podcast #startups #community #entrepreneurship #leadership

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Abby Levy talks about venture's role in US healthcare and what we can expect to see as technology impacts the space on TFR. Check out the rest of the conversation with Abby & Alan Patricof of Primetime Partners on Episode 433.

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As lenders to late and growth-stage companies, we're often asked: “What exactly do you look for in potential borrowers?" In my 30 years of experience working in the venture ecosystem, I’ve seen what qualifies some businesses to get the financing they need. Here is what we typically look for: ✔ Proven Business Model: Those with validated product-market fit, recurring revenue streams, and predictable cash flow are typically less risky and more likely to succeed in repaying their debt obligations. ✔ Stable and Diverse Customer Base: Borrowers with a stable and diverse customer base demonstrate a reduction in concentration risk and lower dependency on a single revenue source. ✔ Strong Management Team: At Runway, we look for entrepreneurs with a track record of success, industry expertise, and a clear ability to execute a business plan. A strong management team signals confidence to the lender that the business will be able to navigate challenges and drive business growth. ✔ Capital Efficiency: Startups that have effectively managed their capital resources, are clear on how the funding will be used, have minimized burn rate, and achieved meaningful milestones are strong candidates to utilize debt financing. ✔ Equity Backing: Previous equity financing by an established VC can provide additional validation of a company’s business model, market opportunity, and growth prospects. ✔ Exit Strategy: Those with a clear path to profitability and viable exit (such as through an initial public offering or strategic acquisition) provide assurance that the debt will be repaid in a timely manner. If you’re thinking about how to grow your business, and exploring debt as an option, keep this in mind!

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Occupier - We ❤️ Leases! is building software to help commercial tenants make better real estate decisions to drive the operational needs and growth of their businesses. It's W7 / Q2 / 2024 & this week in our MGMT Boston startup series we’ve got Occupier, a growth stage startup building a platform where all commercial real estate decisions are made, facilitating access to data and collaboration required by all the stakeholders who require it. Andrew Flint & Matt Giffune teamed up with technical co-founder 🏔 Erik Pearson on nights & weekends to work on their project before signing their first customer: DraftKings. Occupier was born in 2018 to solve tenant real estate portfolio management administration. The commercial real estate market in the U.S. is a $25T market. With a T! Real estate is typically the second largest company expense (historically) after payroll and there are more than 20,000 employers with 500+ employees. These companies have sprawling office & retail footprints to go along with their large employee bases and customer responsibilities. Let’s say you’re a large restaurant chain with 500 global retail locations. If you don’t have a sound system to track certain dates throughout your lease portfolio, you might miss a renewal option. Occupier is still growing through the post COVID commercial real estate contraction because they help customers more rapidly abstract data out of their lease documents. As employers have needed to get a tighter grasp on their real estate expenses (and strategies), they’ve helped customers centralize their data & workflows to make better decisions. Occupier is in a fortunate spot to not need to raise capital right now and can patiently grow in 2024. Like many startups that raised in 2021, they had an ambitious operating plan and have responded to market changes by continuing to grow as efficiently as possible in this new environment. They still grew revenue over 100% in 2023 relative to 2022 and hope to double again in 2024. One third of their employee base sits in Boston, one third of the team sits in New York, and they have the remaining third remote. Occupier is backed by Stage 2 Capital, OMERS Ventures, MetaProp, Alate Partners, & Second Century Ventures Operators to Know: -Mia Arrieta, Account Executive  -Jerry Aviles, Software Engineer -Lauren Bahr, CPA, VP Finance -Morgan Beard, Director of Marketing -Noah Cate, Account Executive -Krishan Taylor, Principal Software Engineer -Clement Titsworth, Senior Account Executive -Lisa Gaffney, Senior Product Manager -Jessica Kurz, VP Customer Success -Vrajesh Patel, Senior Solutions Consultant -Amber Perez, Senior Customer Success Manager -Leah Prescott, Head of Design If you're interested in learning more, the full post is linked in the comments! And sign up for the newsletter to see who we bring you next week, will you?? #bostontech #startups #proptech

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Are you a start-up founder looking for your first VC money and a ton of guidance from GTM experts to get your revenue engine going? See below to apply to Stage2's Catalyst program - applications are open now. The insights you'll get from GTM experts will be transformative.

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I’m excited to publicly share something that has been in the works for a few months at the 9point8 Collective. We’ve launched our Virtual Studio! This is a program for early-stage companies that provides the coaching, development and venture-building tools they need to find traction and scale. The program is modeled off of the venture-building processes found inside #VentureStudios, which have delivered 2X IRR and exit 45% faster than traditional #VC-backed #startups over the last 10 years. Some of the secret sauce to this is that studios have found a way to validate strategies early on, de-risk execution, preserve and extend limited runway, and create efficient business models very fast. We at 9point8 are seasoned studio builders and are on a mission to bring this value to founding teams as they navigate their startup journeys. What we’ve done with the Virtual Studio is distill these key processes and techniques, add in our own expertise and best practices, and package them into a program which meets start-ups where they are. We are now opening up our Summer 2024 Cohort, slated to begin in July. Space is limited, so I’m sharing the opportunity with my network before we fill the cohort. Here are the details: -It’s a 3-month program which takes the founder through the key phases of venture-building and de-risking (refining target market, product-market fit, economics and financials, planning, and fundraising). -Founders can expect to achieve greater focus, improved operations and increased marketability to customers and investors. -The end results include collaboratively-drafted operational plans, commercial / investment pitch decks, and elevated management practices within the founding team. These draft off frameworks from 9point8's proprietary venture-building process: Targets Over Everything. -It’s built for founders facing (or approaching) a critical inflection point, where fresh perspectives and strategic management levers are critical. These might include fundraising preparation, new product launch, market expansion, and post-MVP scaling efforts. Why did we build this program? Because building a new company is really hard. 90(!) percent of startups fail, and even moderate risk reduction can create a huge lift to survival rate and eventual returns. The studio model is proven to drive greater venture success; our virtual program is extending that success to more and more teams. The program is highly collaborative and hands-on, so we only take on a few companies at a time. This is a great opportunity for founders who are looking to level-up their abilities when it comes to unlocking traction, growth, and an express lane to superior returns. If interested, please reach out immediately as we expect the program to be fully enrolled very soon! Blair Merlino Evan Allen Neal Ghosh

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We love seeing founders be able to keep their equity and take advantage of non-dilutive funding sources⚒️. We're excited to collaborate with Stacy Chin, PhD leader of KeepYourEquity.co, who has secured over $15M in SBIR/STTR grants for startups across various sectors. She's written a guest blog post sharing her insights on navigating the competitive landscape of grant funding 💰. Some highlights: ❇️ Understanding SBIR/STTR: A lifeline for startups, offering up to $2 million in non-dilutive funding! ⏺️ Learning how to overcome hurdles and capitalize on the golden opportunity. ❇️ Gaining essential tips on outlining your go-to-market strategy, choosing the right program, and preparing thoroughly. ⏺️ Benefiting from Stacy Chin's 10+ years of grant writing experience and her extensive track record in securing funding for startups. Read More in the blog post linked in the comment below 👇🏾 #SBIR #STTR #GrantFunding #StartupSuccess #SmallBusiness #KeepYourEquityCo #ShayCPA #cpafirm #techaccountants #startupaccountants #techstartup #techcompany #nondilutivefunding

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I believe two of the big winners over the next 10 years in the SMB category will be PE who are rolling up the businesses and GenAI powered software that makes running these businesses significantly more turnkey and/or profitable. Thanks for having me on Jay Kapoor. If you want spicy takes fast forward to 25 min mark. If you want to get deep in market analysis buckle in for the whole thing. https://lnkd.in/d8M7Jyrx

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NY friends! Please come see me at Tech Day on my panel discussing the future of the NY tech ecosystem and what I hope to bring to it!

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Episode #102 Fireside with a VC speaking with Tige Savage who cofounded Revolution with Steve Case, founder of AOL – America Online, one of the biggest internet companies in history reaching a peak market cap of $200bn dominating email, internet connectivity, online news, and chat. Tige discusses all things venture capital with a wealth of multi-decade experience covering a wide area of topics on how to run a high-performing VC fund year over year and best practices on investing, governance, legals, portfolio construction, sectors, overall strategy, and today’s exit market. Discussing the organization of Revolution with 1) Revolution Rise of the Rest – their $150m pre-seed fund, 2) Revolution Ventures – the $150m VC fund Tige manages with a concentrated 15 portfolio companies per fund, and 3) Revolution Growth which continues to invest in Series B and beyond. Discussed the pioneering thesis of investing across the US rather than being concentrated in the Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, or other highly evolved tech corridors and why Washington DC matters. Find the full episode on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gyB-yjvG. Find this and all full episodes for Fireside with a VC on your favorite podcast platform here: https://lnkd.in/gtzuxjJh. https://revolution.com/ https://lnkd.in/gyCbq7jy https://www.7bc.vc/ https://lnkd.in/gFa_AAZ7 Join our Newsletter - Fireside with a VC: https://subscribe.7bc.vc. Join the conversation, leave comments, and tell us what you think about these topics and this episode.

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After 100+ Bootstrapped founders here's something I've noticed. One of the hottest new business types is the remote recruitment agency. Most founders today are aware of these agencies that help businesses recruit lower-cost, high-quality talent from overseas. Just the other day I saw Danny Postma posting about hiring from global recruiting agency, Support Shepherd. I interviewed couple of founders running these businesses recruiting from places like the Philippines, Colombia, Argentina, and Ecuador. But how did they start these businesses? Here are the two most common ways: 1. Start a business in one of these countries and go through the recruiting/hiring process yourself. I interviewed Gino Ferrand of TECLA who started by creating a couple video game companies in Peru. Through this, he created a network of coders he now hooks up to the US. https://lnkd.in/e75pGRxZ 2. Another good method is to run an agency first. Get some clients and figure out exactly what your role responsibilities are. Then start training people into full-time positions in these roles. It's tempting to follow the classic sign-up sheet model for MVPs of these types of businesses. AKA You get a bunch of freelancers to sign up on one end and match them up with businesses who sign up on the other end. The problem here is that you'll have no way of establishing quality control or understanding exactly what skills clients need. If you want to run a recruitment agency, you should try to do it in a field that you the founder specialize in. Then you'll be better prepared to vet talent. Otherwise a couple bad experiences tank the whole thing. One good example of doing this right is GrowthAssistant: https://lnkd.in/e75pGRxZ Cofounder Jesse Pujji had a highly successful background in marketing. That made it easier for him and cofounder Adriane Schwager to vet recruits for growth marketing positions. I'm finally posting insights after about two years of work interviewing founders, Follow my account for more posts like these. And read my work on Bootstrappers.com

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Early traction or success for founders can be a double-edged sword because it can lead to overconfidence. When we launched Scaped, a marketplace connecting construction professionals with suppliers, we did $5K in revenue over the first few weeks. That early traction went straight to our head, and the mistakes began to take place. 1. Assuming the pace would continue 2. Foolish spending 3. Building anything our first customer wanted 4. Ignoring advisors because "don't worry, we got this" When founders experience something like $5K in revenue in the first week, they might assume that their product-market fit is solid and that continued success is guaranteed. This overconfidence can result in several potential pitfalls: 1. Neglecting Market Research: Founders might skip further market research, believing they already understand their customers perfectly. This can prevent them from identifying evolving needs or preferences. 2. Ignoring Feedback: Early success can make founders less receptive to customer feedback, leading them to miss critical insights that could improve their product or service. 3. Scaling Too Quickly: Overconfident founders might rush to scale their operations, investing heavily in marketing, hiring, or production before their business model is truly validated. This can lead to unsustainable expenses and operational inefficiencies. 4. Complacency: Believing that initial success will naturally continue, founders might become complacent and not put in the necessary effort to innovate, adapt, or address underlying issues. 5. Misjudging Market Demand: Initial revenue spikes can be misleading if they are driven by one-time factors (e.g., a large order from a single customer, a successful marketing campaign). Founders might overestimate the true demand and fail to plan for a sustainable revenue stream. 6. Poor Financial Management: Early revenue can lead to a false sense of financial security, causing founders to manage their finances poorly, overspend, or fail to plan for leaner times. 7. Underestimating Competition: Overconfidence might make founders dismissive of competitors, leading to a lack of strategic planning and differentiation in the market. Ultimately, early success should be viewed as a positive sign but not a guarantee of future performance. Founders need to remain vigilant, continuously gather feedback, adapt their strategies, and ensure they are prepared for potential challenges ahead. Avoid these mistakes by building collectively xVentures

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To all #founders and #entrepreneurs out there, our intro meetings are conversational and easy going. Feel free to message me to setup a call. Learn what Pioneera Ventures can do for you!

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Participating in Cohort 14 of the VC Lab has been an energizing experience so far. I am learning so much about the ins and outs of being an emerging fund manager and how to succeed in this space. Today they hosted a panel for Women in VC that provided some real world advice from some fantastic panelists. The curriculum is rigorous for sure, but rewarding. If you are curious about why this is such an exciting area check out this article. #venturecapital #vc #investing https://lnkd.in/gMMM_mwp

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Struggling to extend your runway before the next funding round? How can you use Generative AI to your benefit? Join us for Building Your Runway: Debt Financing Strategies for Startups on Thursday, April 25th from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. This event is designed to equip early-stage founders with the knowledge and tools to leverage debt financing as a strategic growth lever. Here's what you'll gain: 1. Understand the different debt financing options available to startups. 2. Learn how to use Generative AI to structure loan proposals that resonate with lenders. 3. Discover effective strategies for negotiating favorable loan terms. 4. Gain insights on using debt to fuel your startup's growth. This event is perfect for: 1. Startup founders and CEOs. 2. Entrepreneurs exploring alternative funding options. 3. Investors and advisors looking to expand their network. Don't miss this opportunity to secure your spot! Limited seats available. https://lnkd.in/d8YQMkrt #debtfinancing #startups #fundraising #entrepreneurship #webinar #workshop #growth #GenerativeAI #MentoringMatters

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