Happy Friday + Thoughts on Tomorrow's Meeting
Mark November
Founder @ Venture Starters | Moonshot Investor | Family Office | Board Member
I hope all of you have a great weekend. For me, I am worried about tomorrow's meeting. I decided to call a meeting for the Venture Starters community for Saturday at 12 noon PT / 3 pm ET to discuss the elephant in the room. I rarely do Saturday zoom meetings, but this topic can't wait any longer.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was the pinnacle example and proof that the startup ecosystem is now broken. I have been saying since last April that the ecosystem broke.
Startups depend on investment, and by all indicators, investors in all sizes, including but not limited to family and friend investors, angel investors, seed investors, venture capitalist, corporate investors and institutional investors, have been slowing their level of interest and slowing their levels of investments. Each month we see more evidence that we have a broken ecosystem.
Tomorrow, I will share my ideas on what to do in this situation. Hint - It's 100% about networking. You might think you know what networking is and what networking means, but tomorrow I will explain the ways I network to find who I need. It's most likely not what anyone has ever told you before. It's tips that I know will help many startups.
If you want to hear my ideas, register at www.VentureStarters.com. I offer these ideas for free. We will also have a Q&A and an open discussion.
Mark November
BAY ANGELS - CHIEF EVANGELIST - StartUp Advisor/Mentor - Executive Director - Entrepreneur Lab LLC - Mentor Entrepreneurs CSUEB -Contributor ESCEN, ESAM - Paris, Lyon,Bordeaux -Contributor InnovitSF
1 å¹´Juliette Donohue ~ Activator, Coach and Mentor @johnbusch @nataliesanchez Selina Xuan Zhang Shawn Flynn Ruxandra Muys-Stoian , SHRM-SCP Roland Chow
BAY ANGELS - CHIEF EVANGELIST - StartUp Advisor/Mentor - Executive Director - Entrepreneur Lab LLC - Mentor Entrepreneurs CSUEB -Contributor ESCEN, ESAM - Paris, Lyon,Bordeaux -Contributor InnovitSF
1 å¹´Bingo! Dead on!
Supporting diverse entrepreneurs
1 å¹´Mark, it's been broken a lot longer than that. One need only look at the scale of unprofitable companies backed by investors, when research shows that growth-first mindset is more likely to fail, than profit-first mindset. Add to that the huge disparity in to whom the funding goes - white men start fewer businesses than any other group, but get virtually all the funding. I wish I could believe this will be a wake-up call, but it won't, just like all the previous crises have not led to change. And honestly, networking is a core part of the problem. Networks are built around similarities, not diversity. Networks are one of the three pillars identified as the greatest barrier to what the government calls SEDI (socially and economically disadvantage individuals) entrepreneurs. So I hope that part of the discussion tomorrow will be about how to diversify our networks... and maybe how investors can support more, already profitable, businesses, that just need a little bit of help to grow and achieve greater success.
GTM & Enablement. Husband & Cook.
1 å¹´Thanks Mark! Great idea. FYI, I'm currently helping a Venture Studio to connect with Tech B2B Early Stage Startup Founders, Idea - to MVP - to PreSeed. All the best! ??