Podcast Review: Quiet Innovation Podcast on Obtaining $ for Your Startup
Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.
I wanted to highlight an interesting interview (What it Really Takes to Get Money for Your Startup) with David S. Rose, serial entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of Gust.com, which is a global collaboration platform for early stage angel investing, connecting hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs and investors in over 75 countries. The interview with David and CFA John P. Gavin was broadcast on the podcast Quiet Innovation (from PodCast Addict @Podcast_Addict) from. I had tweeted it out on my Twitter account below (see the http link)
… but will include some notes from the podcast here. In addition you can link to the podcast directly using the links below:
QI-013 David Rose Interview_01.mp3
Or download the mp3
This post is a followup from yesterday’s post Protecting Your Biotech IP and Market Strategy: Notes from Life Sciences Collaborative 2015 Meeting.
Some highlights from the podcast
- IDEAS DON’T GET FUNDED
David Rose discusses how there are hundreds of thousands of new ideas, some which are great some which are not… having an idea may be an initial step but for an investor to even consider your idea it is more important to have
- EXECUTION
This is what David feels is critical to investors, such as himself, to decide whether your idea is investable. A startup needs to show they can accomplish their goal and show at least a rudimentary example of this, whether it is putting up a website or writing up a design blueprint for a new widget. He says starting a business today (either tech or manufacturing) requires a lot less capital than years ago (unless you are starting a biotech). He gives an example of internet startups he had founded in the 90’s versus today… in the 90’s you needed $2 million… today you can do it for $2,000. But the ability to show that you can EXECUTE this plan is CRITICAL.
David sites three aspects which are important to investors:
- Integrity – Be humble about yourself. He says there are way too many people who claim ‘our idea is the best’ or ‘we do it better than anyone’ or ‘we are the first to have this idea’. As he says Jeff Bezos of Amazon was not the first to have the idea of selling books over the internet, he just EXECUTED the plan extremely well.
- Passion- Investors need to see that you are ‘all in’ and committed. A specific example is angels asking how much money have you put into your idea (skin in the game)
- Experience- David says there are TWO important types of experience in developing startups and both valid. The first is how many startups have you done and succeeded and the second is how many startups have failed. He says investors actually like if you have failed because they are learning experiences, just as valuable if not more than having startups always succeed. Investors need to know how you can deal with adversity. All three points goes back to execution.
David Rose gave some reading suggestions as well including
Lucky or Smart? Secrets to an Entrepreneurial Life by Bo Peabody – He highlights this book to help people understand that a startup entrepreneur should always hire someone smarter than themselves.
Derek Sivers post Ideas Are Just a Multiplier of Execution – where a great idea is worth $20 but a great idea plus execution is worth $20 million.
Eris Reese’s post The Lean Startup in his blog StartUpLessonsLearned – being frugal (gets back to what he said about not needed as much capital as you would think i.e. Don’t Burn Through the Cash) and also get metrics on your startup or idea (as long as you have the IP). He suggests taking out an ad to see what the interest is out there. You can measure the clicks from the ad and use that as a marketing tool to potential investors i.e. Getting Feedback
Some other posts on this site about Investing and Startups include:
Protecting Your Biotech IP and Market Strategy: Notes from Life Sciences Collaborative 2015 Meeting
Updated: Investing and Inventing: Is the Tango of Mars and Venus Still on
The Bioscience Crowdfunding Environment: The Bigger Better VC?
Tycho Brahe, where art thou? Today’s Renaissance of the Self-Funded Scientist!
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