Karl Hughes, Founder and CEO at Draft.dev talks about content marketing, specifically focused on targeting developers. We discussed some strategies that can be applied and budget for good content marketing along with some use-cases. Karl's personal site: https://www.karllhughes.com/ Promotion checklist: https://draft.dev/learn/promotion Low-cost content marketing ideas (forgot to mention this, but might be helpful for early-stage founders on a budget): https://draft.dev/learn/low-cost-marketing-ideas

Fundraising Radio

You don't want luck-based marketing - Karl Hughes about proper content marketing.

Kirk Marple, Founder and CEO at Unstruk Data talks about their fundraising round and how they doubled their valuation in less than 4 months. We also spoke about some useful techniques that can help founders fundraise. Kirk's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkmarple/ Unstruk Data: https://www.unstruk.com/

2X valuation in 4 months - how and why? Kirk Marple about Unstruk Data

Paul Martino, founder at Bullpen capital talks about investing in founders who are "falling out of pattern", making post-seed investments and how such investments are different from bridge rounds. We also spoke about how founders should view such post-seed rounds and how to approach them.  Paul's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljmartino/ Bullpen capital: https://bullpencap.com/ Work is still very much in progress, but you can preview the upcoming course on outreach to investors created by Fundraising Radio team here: https://fundraise.thinkific.com/

What is post-seed, how is it different from bridge round and is it really bad for founders to "fall out of pattern". By Paul Martino, Bullpen capital.

Taylor Burton, Co-Founder of Till Financial talks about the creation and fundraising of it and how they have gathered analyzed and later presented the feedback to the investors. Taylor also touched onto the major problems that they faced while building the company and some mistakes they've made early on. Taylor's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-burton-93073215/ Till Financial's website: https://www.tillfinancial.io/ Fundraising Radio's course preview: https://fundraise.thinkific.com/

Gathering feedback to build the company on - the story of Till Financial by Taylor Burton.

Casey Fenton, co-founder at the legendary Couchsurfing and currently founder and CEO at Upstock.io talks about what RSUs are and how are they different from standard stock options. We also discussed why exactly Casey hates stock options so much and what is so wrong about them. And of course we talked about Casey's experience with couchsurfing and its transition from a non-profit into a for-profit company.  Upstock: https://www.upstock.io/ Casey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyfenton/ Casey's email if you want to discuss equity: casey@upstock.io  Couchsurfing: https://www.couchsurfing.com/

RSUs VS stock options - why do stock options suck so much? Explained by Casey Fenton, founder of Upstock.

Thomas Li, Co-Founder and CEO at Daloopa talks about explaining complicated tech in simple terms and selling it to investors and buyers. We also discussed deep tech in greater detail and who are the primary targets for fundraising in these cases. We also touched onto the importance of listening to your customers and how that can directly affect your fundraising process (great quote at the end of the episode).  The preview of the course isn't up yet, but it will be very soon, if you want to make sure you don't miss it, go to https://www.fundraisingradio.com/ and subscribe to our mailing list! Thomas' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-li-a6189245/ Daloopa's site: https://daloopa.ai/

Selling complex tech to investors and customers - how Daloopa made it in FinTech. By Thomas Li

Omry Ben David, General Partner at Viola Ventures talks about investing in Israel and Israeli founders all over the globe and why it seems to be working than most other demographics. We also discussed how does Viola Ventures work and why is it spread over 4 funds and how do they cooperate.  Omry's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omry-ben-david-2436371/ Viola Ventures site: https://www.viola-group.com/fund/violaventures/ Another episode of Fundraising Radio about Israeli founders: Why invest in Israel and how do Israeli founders expand to the US? By Cynthia Phitoussi

3Bn fund - Viola Ventures, largest VC in Israel, how do they operate and what do they like to invest in? By Omry Ben David

Andrew Milich, Co-Founder at Skiff talks about the importance of college education while building a company and raising funding. He also talked about how investors reacted to him as the first time founder and how it affected his fundraising efforts.  Andrew's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amilich/ Skiff's website: https://www.skiff.org/ Skiff's Twitter: https://twitter.com/skiffprivacy

Does a Stanford degree help while raising money for your company? By Andrew Milich, Skiff

Christopher Lustrino, Founder & CEO at KingsCrowd in this educational episode talks about equity crowdfunding, what are the major pitfalls in it and how to avoid them. He also gave a brief step-by-step guide on raising money through equity crwodfunding and shared some of the knowledge about the process that he gained while raising money for KingsCrowd. Checklist: 1) Be prepared for the time frame: 4-12 weeks to go live on equity crowdfunding platform. 2) Determine how much you want to raise and at what valuation. 3) Find the platform that fits your brand and begin your own fundrasing outreach 4) Get your financials in order - before going to the crowd, make sure your financials are in order and keep them that way.

Educational episode #9: step by step guide to equity crowdfunding. By Christopher Lustrino, KingsCrowd

Christopher Lustrino, Founder & CEO at KingsCrowd talks about his experience raising 100% of the funding for his company online. We discussed what are the major pros and cons of equity crowdfunding and how he maneuvered through them. Crhistopher also spoke about the repeat investor and their importance in any type of fundraising process and he explained how to stay in touch with your existing investors to make sure the next round will be easier to raise. Christopher's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislustrino/ KingsCrowd site: https://kingscrowd.com/ Fundraising Radio episode on CAFE - alternative to the standard SAFEs: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Thibauld-Favre/

Raising 100% of the money online: equity crowdfunding, it's major perks and downsides. By Christopher Lustrino, KingsCrowd.

Akeel Jabber, Investment director at Horizen Capital talks about rules of growing a SaaS business and later on selling it. He explained how Horizen Capital makes its investment decisions and how a startup founder can get closer to an acquisition. Akeel's podcast - SaaS district: https://horizencapital.com/saas-podcast/ Akeel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akeel-jabbar/ Akeel's twitter: https://twitter.com/AkeelJabber Horizen Capital: https://horizencapital.com/ For A/B testing: https://vwo.com/

Acquiring SaaS businesses systematically - how does it work and how do you get there? By Akeel Jabber

Tanvi Gupta, Founder and CEO at SwoonMe talks about how she left Facebook and stability that it provides in order to build her own company. We also spoke about building a startup in a crowded space (online dating) and how she managed to stand out from the crowd and get her pre-seed round oversubscribed.  Tanvi's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanvigupta773/ SwoonMe website: https://www.swoonmedating.com/ If you are curious to hear more about online dating, the interview with an Ex-Tinder Chief Product Officer is here!

Quitting Facebook to build a startup - story of SwoonMe. By Tanvi Gupta

Hussein Kanji, co-founder at Hoxton Ventures who presents himself as an analyst on LinkedIn to avoid spam messages from dozens of founders (I just find it hilarious that those messages go so out of hand, this kind of measures have to be taken so decided to mention it here). We spoke about the way Hoxton got to such a high rate of IPOs per investment and how Hussein finds those companies. We also spoke about IPOs and some other good stuff.  Hussein's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hkanji/ Hussein's Twitter: https://twitter.com/hkanji Hoxton Ventures: https://www.hoxtonventures.com/ For our European listeners: Firstbase, where I work, can help you incorporate in the US fast and painlessly so check it out and use my code to get a discount - RADIO15

2 of 17 investments go for an IPO - how did Hoxton Ventures get to that rate? By Hussein Kanji

Billy Libby, Co-Founder & CEO at Upper90 talks about what the term "hybrid fund" implies and how is it different from a "regular" fund. We talked about who should try raising debt and how can a startup separate the part of their business that is safe and raise debt backed by that chunk of their business. We also discussed what kind of companies should really go after debt and how to do it. Billy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billy-libby-76464b1/ Upper90: https://www.upper90.io/ QSBS - what is that? Here is the explanation: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/qsbs-qualified-small-business-stock.asp 

Hybrid fund - what does that mean and how does it work? By Billy Libby

We got to the 300th episode and decided to celebrate with a bit of extra fun for our listeners. This episode is about the mistakes that were made during the creation of this podcast - it includes the stories of the team and some random bloopers that were removed from the original episodes and saved "for later use" and the day for that "later use" came! We hope you enjoy:) Here is the contact information of our key team members: Elizaveta Belinskaya: email, LinkedIn. Luis Bravo: email, LinkedIn Konstantin Dubovitskiy: email, LinkedIn.  

300th episode of Fundraising Radio - special edition.

Fundraising Radio is a weekly online conference focused on the process of fundraising. I invite investors and founders who have successfully raised funds for their companies and they share their fundraising experience. I know how hard it is to start your company and raise pre-seed and seed rounds and this is the reason why I invite professionals of the field, such as Venture Capitalists, angel investors and successful entrepreneurs to help you in this hard journey of fundraising.

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Fundraising Radio

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