Early-Stage Financing
04/20/21 • 37 min
Meet Arun Iyer, CEO of Alpha Direct Insurance Company, and Zach George, general partner at Launch Africa Ventures, and learn what it takes to transition your funding from friends and family to angel investors and venture capital.
Like most entrepreneurs, Arun relied on friends and family to get his Botswana-based insurtech company off the ground. But bringing insurance to the masses — both within Botswana and across the region — required more substantial sums. And thinking small was preventing him from making it big.
“I believed that only these three people would finance my business. Today, I'm raising money from funds that are located across the world. You know, part of our pre-series A was a fund from Switzerland, Launch Africa Ventures is in. So, now the whole world has been opened up. And technically you can do that at any stage, there's nothing preventing you. The only thing that was preventing us from doing it was my mindset. And once I removed that self-doubt, now the world became my oyster.”
Arun learned that building relationships based on mutual trust is key to securing capital. And Zach George agrees ... along with what he calls the ‘napkin test’. Zach looks for founders who can explain in just a few minutes how they plan to get to $100 million. “The majority of founders can never do that. They fail miserably at it, or they'll say, "hey, can I open up my spreadsheet or I'll talk to my CFO". If you give me the, 'let me talk to my CFO', you've lost me.”
Listen to Arun’s capital raising strategies and Zach’s investor insights to help fund and grow your own company.
Resources:
Alpha Direct, Botswana: https://www.alphadirect.co.bw/
Stanford Seed: http://stanfordseed.co/Grit
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Meet Arun Iyer, CEO of Alpha Direct Insurance Company, and Zach George, general partner at Launch Africa Ventures, and learn what it takes to transition your funding from friends and family to angel investors and venture capital.
Like most entrepreneurs, Arun relied on friends and family to get his Botswana-based insurtech company off the ground. But bringing insurance to the masses — both within Botswana and across the region — required more substantial sums. And thinking small was preventing him from making it big.
“I believed that only these three people would finance my business. Today, I'm raising money from funds that are located across the world. You know, part of our pre-series A was a fund from Switzerland, Launch Africa Ventures is in. So, now the whole world has been opened up. And technically you can do that at any stage, there's nothing preventing you. The only thing that was preventing us from doing it was my mindset. And once I removed that self-doubt, now the world became my oyster.”
Arun learned that building relationships based on mutual trust is key to securing capital. And Zach George agrees ... along with what he calls the ‘napkin test’. Zach looks for founders who can explain in just a few minutes how they plan to get to $100 million. “The majority of founders can never do that. They fail miserably at it, or they'll say, "hey, can I open up my spreadsheet or I'll talk to my CFO". If you give me the, 'let me talk to my CFO', you've lost me.”
Listen to Arun’s capital raising strategies and Zach’s investor insights to help fund and grow your own company.
Resources:
Alpha Direct, Botswana: https://www.alphadirect.co.bw/
Stanford Seed: http://stanfordseed.co/Grit
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Previous Episode
Introducing: Grit & Growth
Introducing: Grit & Growth with Stanford Graduate School of Business
In this new podcast from Stanford Graduate School of Business, travel across Africa and South Asia to meet some of the region’s most intrepid and inspiring entrepreneurs as they share stories of trial and triumph.
Host Darius Teter also interviews Stanford University faculty and global business experts who provide insights, guidance, and practical tips to help you succeed on your own entrepreneurial journey.
Learn more at: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/seed
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Next Episode
Masterclass on Early-Stage Financing
Welcome to Grit & Growth’s masterclass on raising capital, featuring Zach George, general partner at Launch Africa Ventures and co-founder of Startup Bootcamp Africa. Zach provides honest, practical advice on what founders really need to focus on to attract and secure the right investors.
Zach George has been investing on the African continent for over 10 years, but his advice to entrepreneurs at any stage of the funding journey — from pre-seed to Series C — is universal.
After earning a master's at Stanford University, a short holiday to see the World Cup in 2010 led Zach to make Capetown, South Africa his home. Today, he is a general partner at one of the largest Pan-African specialist seed venture capital funds with $15 million in funding and investments in 50 - 60 of the largest or most prominent tech founders in the continent. So, he understands what investors are looking for and what makes founders stand out from the crowd.
Top Six Masterclass Takeaways
1. Ask for advice early, while you’re building the business. As the old adage goes: if you ask for advice you may get some money; if you ask for money, you may get some advice.
2. Know your market and your competition really, really well.
3. Articulate your value proposition. Before you even think about asking for money.
4. Perform due diligence on potential investors. Know their mandate, strategy, portfolio performance, and how you can add value.
5. Look for investors who add significantly more than just capital, including help with customer acquisition, recruitment, and talent sourcing. “Smart founders have learned to say no to investors that don't add any of that value.”
6. Spend more time on operations than raising funds. Especially in the early rounds.
Listen to Zach’s investor insights, founder advice, and capital-raising strategies to help grow and fund your own company.
Resources:
Launch Africa Ventures: https://www.launchafrica.vc/
Zach George: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachariahgeorge/?originalSubdomain=za
Crossing the Chasm (book): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm
Stanford Seed: http://stanfordseed.co/Grit
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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