Fractional CFO + Advisor for early stage companies, real estate developers, and investors. Fmr investment banker - M&A/Capital Raising. Home Builder. Passionate about housing development. Silicon Valley native. Mexican.
I’m getting a huge influx of inbound from companies who have raised capital and have very little to show for it. Over the past few years, massive amounts of money has been flowing into the startup ecosystem. Lots of companies received money and had no idea what to do with it. I’m devoting the Q2:24 30 Days of Mentoring cohort to customer acquisition strategy and bootstrapping. I can't think of anything more important than educating entrepreneurs on how to raise the best type of capital – customers’ money. When you’re getting money from customers, you know you’re on the right track. So many companies approach me to help them raise capital for their startup. That’s backwards. Raise capital from your customers and investors will come find you. When I launched my DTC dessert line, I avoided raising capital. I went directly to the customer to learn whether it made sense to pursue the line. One day I’ll do a full write up on why I put the line on hold. TL;DR it’s capital intensive and sugar free can be controversial. I had investors asking me if I wanted money. I didn’t. I wanted customer feedback and validation. If I couldn’t develop a product customers were crazy about, no amount of money was going to make a difference. If you're building in CPG, Read Ramping Your Brand by James Richardson at Premium Growth Solutions. He’s advised the best brands and has been in the trenches. And if you’re formulating with erythirtol this is a good read – https://lnkd.in/gaugbefd As I start to put together new tutorials on customer acquisition and bootstrapping, I'll share highlights here.
