The Foureva Podcast
Welcome to The Foureva Podcast, where we break barriers and redefine success!
Join host Jamar Jones, a dynamic entrepreneur, national speaker, and author of "Change Your Circle, Change Your Life," as he takes you on an extraordinary journey of inspiration and motivation.
In each episode, we bring you an impressive lineup of star-studded guests, each with a unique voice and a wealth of insights to share. From industry leaders to renowned experts, we uncover their secrets to success in personal, business, and marketing domains. Prepare to be captivated by their stories, strategies, and experiences that will empower you to reach new heights.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a marketing professional, or simply seeking fresh perspectives on life and business, The Foureva Podcast is your ultimate destination. Discover the transformative power of changing your circle and unlocking your full potential. With each episode, we delve into the minds of the most influential voices in the industry, providing you with the tools and inspiration you need to overcome obstacles and achieve greatness.
Don't miss out on this dynamic podcast that will fuel your ambition, challenge your limits, and propel you toward success. Tune in to The Foureva Podcast and join a community of driven individuals who are ready to make an impact. Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and 'foureva' transformed!
The Foureva Podcast
How to pitch your idea and get funded
What does it take to raise capital, scale a startup, and stay sane in the process?
In this inspiring and insightful episode, we sit down with Nathan Beckord, founder of FounderSuite.com and FundingStack.com, on his birthday, no less, to talk shop about the highs and hurdles of startup life.
🎉 From bootstrapping and building a team to mastering the art of investor relations, Nathan unpacks:
His top 3 methods for raising startup capital
Why fundraising is really a sales process
The secret sauce behind FounderSuite’s growth
Creative marketing strategies (like live events and podcasts!)
How his podcast, How I Raised It, became a growth engine
Common founder pitfalls — and how to avoid them
What early-stage investors are really looking for
Whether you’re pitching to VCs or still validating your idea, this episode is a masterclass in founder mindset, resilience, and resourcefulness.
💡 Pro tip: Nathan shares why building relationships with investors before you need funding might be the smartest move you'll ever make.
🔥 Plus, don’t miss his hot take on LinkedIn growth, giveaways that work, and how to avoid hiring mistakes that could stall your startup.
👉 Follow Nathan on LinkedIn and visit FounderSuite.com or FundingStack.com to explore tools for raising capital.
🎧 Subscribe to the Forever Podcast and remember: Change your circle, change your life.
I think our largest one was almost 500 founders and like a couple different panels of investors and who's moderating and who's like introducing. Of course it's me. Yeah, hey guys, this is Nathan. We're launching founder suite. Oh, by the way, you're all here to meet investors and talk to investors. It was kind of a triple win-win because we got exposure to our product. We made a little bit of like a couple thousand bucks per event, not a ton of money.
Speaker 2:What's going on, nathan? Welcome to the Forever Podcast man. What's going on today?
Speaker 1:Oh, today, today's an exciting day. Today's my birthday. Happy birthday. I turned 39 once again. I'm not going to say more than that, but yeah, it's pretty fun. I've got a dirty martini and a steak dinner ahead of me tonight and a fun weekend right behind me, so all good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're going to end the day with a bang, because I know you said that today was kind of crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so, At least the martini part right. So I think I'm wrong.
Speaker 2:At least that's guaranteed. The martini is guaranteed.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Since it's your birthday, I'm going to do something a little different. What's a reflection moment for you? Since this is like this is a rare moment on the podcast, we could actually have somebody on their birthday. So what's a reflection over the past year or whatever? Whatever's going through your mind?
Speaker 1:You know that's a good question. It's birthdays are funny. I mean, as you get older I think you start to dread them a little bit, you know, but at the same time it's also bit, you know, but at the same time it's also, you know, I'm getting texts from friends, family, people I haven't talked to in a while, just wishing me good stuff, and it just you know. The reflection part, I think, is just like man, people like you feel the love and it kind of brings home once a year that people love you. Reflection Party is just being grateful for that right. It's like so awesome to just feel the love of your friends and family. So that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, 100%. Well, let everybody know who you are and what you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm Nathan Beckard. I run two startups actually. One's called Foundersuitecom and that's software for raising capital for startups and we've been around about eight years, helped almost 100,000 startups raise capital. And then our new platform is called FundingStackcom and that's only been around since February, so pretty new, stackcom, and that's only been around since february, so pretty new. And for that one we're helping about 400 emerging manager, venture funds and advisors, consultants, uh, raise capital.
Speaker 2:So nice thanks. And what is what is a day in the life for you? So you're the ceo. What is what? What is the day in the life? Are you in the day-to-day operations? Are you just a visionary? I mean, like, give me a little insight.
Speaker 1:Oh, I wish I was just a visionary. It's very much in the operations and probably to a fault, I would say almost. I was having a conversation with a friend recently. We're still pretty small, we're like 27 people or so and we're not big enough where I have a layer of like managers, Right. So I'm literally still in product, in sales, in you know engineering, in financials and just operations and just keeping it all you know moving Right. I'm too many things, to be honest, but it's also kind of fun to yeah, yeah, yeah for sure For sure moving right Too many things, to be honest, but it's also kind of fun to spread around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, for sure. I know oftentimes people think that CEOs is a glorified position, right, I mean, but really you're rolling up your sleeves and you're getting into the weeds because you got to make sure you keep the engine engine going right and keep it moving, especially at that level you're. You're also at the at a place of like where a lot of companies will either they're going to go up or they may just fizzle out, or an implosion happens, almost because you get a certain level of success and then, when you have a lot more people to manage, you got more things right. You know like, uh, biggie smalls have more money, more problems. I think it's very true. In your line of work, what do you see as far as with founders? That's the most exciting thing about founders, as far as working with them, and then also what's one of their, I guess?
Speaker 1:shortcomings of a founder? Oh yeah, Great question. I love founders. That's kind of why I started this. I started my career in investment banking, which is this sexy, glamorous world, but I hated it. I didn't like wearing suits and working these crazy hours. I loved entrepreneurship, which has what do I like about it creativity right, You're creating something from basically nothing, from almost magic. You know like building something from nothing, and just the drive and hustle and energy of founders is so fun.
Speaker 1:I went to two different events in the past two weeks. One event was called SF Tech Week and it was like 600 events here in San Francisco, all startup related events. You walk into an event and you're just chatting with people, what do you do? And you're learning all these interesting businesses and all the fun kind of crazy chaos of early stage founders. And then the week after that, last week, I went to a family office conference. Now, these are mostly CIOs, chief investment officers, representing wealthy families, and it was very dry. It was like tax strategies for doing this and that and I walked in.
Speaker 1:I'm like, I'm a little underdressed here. Everyone else was in, you know, very business casual, and it was just a much more dry, dry crowd and like, and I remember having the moment like God, I kind of wish I was back with the founders, right, Because there's so much more fun and interesting. So that's what's fun about founders, what's difficult about them, the second part of your question. I mean founders. I heard a great quote one time which I love. It's like you become a founder, how the quote goes. It's basically like many people become a founder because they're basically unemployable, Right, it's like, oh, you just can't seem to hold yourself.
Speaker 2:I think that's me. I don't think I'm going back.
Speaker 1:You know, but there's a personality type for founders you have to be a little bit crazy and almost irrationally, you know, have an irrational belief in what you're doing to make it, Cause it's so hard it's much harder than we think it it will be and so I guess the negative side of that is like yeah, people are crazy, Sometimes a lot of nut nutty people out there being.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, yeah, we got it. We got to be a little crazy, a little delusional to to do what we're doing, but, honestly, that's how invention happens, that's how creation happens. Um, because it's all crazy until it works right. Yeah, I mean, that's just, that's just the truth, uh history remembers the crazy ones that succeeded.
Speaker 1:They forget the 98 of the crazy ones, right, that failed. Yeah, exactly that failed. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. So as far as working with founders and you've helped a lot of founders actually raise capital what are some of the best ways that you've seen founders as far as to get access to capital just in your line of work, right, I mean? And just what? And maybe actually break it down into if you could give me the top three, what's the top three ways that people can really get access to capital so that way they can get the funding to actually get their business off the ground?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know I won't include this as one of the top three, but you have to have something you have to start with. You have to have something you have to start with. You have to have something that's fundable. Okay, let's just start with basic.
Speaker 2:You got to have some business that's.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe it, maybe it's still early and small and you don't have a lot of traction, but it's out there in the market or you have such a clever idea and and a back background experience that people will believe you can pull it off. So let's assume you have something that's fundable. I mean, probably a lot of startups don't make it because they really aren't fundable, but let's assume you have something fundable. I'd say the top three is number one is thinking of fundraising as a methodical process. Right, a lot of founders just kind of go out there like asking everyone they know if they can introduce them to investors, but they have. They're just like bouncing around like a, a pinball and a pinball machine, you know, like trying to raise money and and they don't get anywhere. So instead, having a very methodical process and I always talk about fundraising as a sales process where you go in, you know medical devices at the seed stage, based in Southern California, whatever it is right, doing the research, identifying the list of targets and then having a really just methodical approach to how you're getting in touch with them, getting the intros, pushing everyone along through kind of your sales cycle, through the stages of your funnel. So that would be, that would be one of them.
Speaker 1:The other is having a good pitch. These investors get so much right. Talk to an investor. Ask an investor who's actively doing deals how many pitches they get per day, per week, per month. It's probably in the hundreds, sometimes, you know, thousands, right, so you gotta stand out.
Speaker 1:There's so much noise out there. It's almost like trying to become a professional singer or musician or something like only the little top of that iceberg makes it right. So, um, having a really, really good pitch and that takes work too. You got to put in the work to get your pitch right and practice it over and over and over again. And then the third one is a bit more fuzzy, but just kind of creating this like energy and FOMO and momentum around your deal. Right, you've got to kind of get people like worry that this, this guy or this gal, they're gonna do something here. I don't totally understand what they're doing, but there's something here. There's an energy there that I've got to jump on or I'm going to miss it and and that's harder, that's a fuzzier one to to, to boil down, but you know that's got to be there too yeah, it's so necessary.
Speaker 2:Though you have to to your point, you have to create some kind of feeling or connection or excitement around what you're doing. I mean, even if it's very, uh, utility based, it's still hat. We still got to feel excited, especially for an investor to, you know, actually be a part of the company and kind of see where it's going. They need to also feel excited about where their money is going, and not just the money, but which I think that it's even more important, is the time investment. So I mean, some investors are silent, but then some of them, they actually want to be a part of it. Maybe they're an advisory board, maybe they're actually like, hey, maybe I could play a role in the company and just get it to a certain point. There's all different types, but that's why the excitement is so important. So, yes, it's kind of one of that warm and fuzzy thing, but I think it's also so critical to actually having success in raising capital.
Speaker 1:Yep, totally, you're 100%. You've got to connect with them emotionally, like, hey, this is something that's going to make me look good when I talk about it on the golf course or on the, on the pickleball court or the basketball court or whatever I'm saying, I'm involved with this startup. Is it going to make me look good in the eyes of my peers? And that's the emotional part. But also, like, do I think I can make money off this, right? Is this like financial, is it logical? And you know how's that those are a good combo, right yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:I I also want to talk about you kind of, uh, kind of were talking about it, but I want to talk about how. How did you grow, uh, your, your first company, like what was, what was some of the the avenues, the channels? Um, because, as other founders are listening and watching this, you also have successfully grown your own company as well multiple and so what were some of the ways that you were able to get client acquisition, get people to learn about what you guys are all about and also trust the platform?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And this kind of goes back to your earlier question of why do I like founders? Because they're scrappy and creative and creating something for nothing. We, when we started off, you know, I pretty much bootstrapped this to get it something built. I'm not a coder, I'm not a programmer, so I would go work my consulting jobs, earn some money, take that money and give half of it to some coders and developers in Poland to build it, and then we put it out there and to the customer acquisition part, like we're selling software to startup founders raising capital okay, those are our target audience. How do I get in front of that target audience?
Speaker 1:One of the things we did that I thought was pretty creative, um, is we would put on events. We called it like funding 2.0, I think was our, our series of events and I would go out and find some place like a law firm or even WeWork, I think in the early days, or other bigger startups that had some space, and say, hey, we want to hold an event at your place, you know, can we get your space? Then we would go and recruit some like VCs, venture capitalists and maybe a prominent angel or two and say, hey, we're putting on this event, funding 2.0, do you wanna be a panelist or a speaker, keynote speaker? And so then we get some, as I call them the magnets, and then we publicize it on Eventbrite and LinkedIn and other places like hey, we're launching Funding 2.0, sign up here 20 bucks, whatever, something cheap.
Speaker 1:But I think our largest one was almost 500 founders and like a couple different panels of investors and who's moderating and who's like introducing. Of course it's me. Hey guys, this is Nathan, we're launching founder suite. Oh, by the way, you're all here to meet investors and talk to investors. It was kind of a triple win-win because we got exposure to our product, we made a little bit of money like a couple thousand bucks per event, not a ton of money and we're building relationships with investors and it was marketing right. So it's kind of like win-win-win on all accounts. So that was one fun way doing events.
Speaker 1:Didn't really events, yeah yeah, anything made some money off of them yeah yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 2:That's like I love um, innovative marketing. Um, of course, you have your traditional ways, but I love the innovative stuff. I love the experiential um. I just think there's nothing. Yes, every channel to marketing there's there value in each area, but there's nothing like experiential marketing, because you may leave an impression on somebody that will last a lifetime, and I'm sure there's people that went to your event are still talking about it till this day. You never know who they're connected to because of that event, what um relationships or partnerships were built from it, or just you know what spin-off things have happened from it. I mean, you have no clue from all the different ripple effects that could happen, but there's somebody, there's a couple people out there that are still like man. You do them events that nathan was. Oh my goodness, those things were it man? Yeah, no, you're totally right though, because you think about like you do an event like that?
Speaker 1:let's Goodness those things. Were it man Off the hook? Yeah, no, you're totally right, though, because you think about it like you do an event like that. Let's just take it even two steps further. Yeah, okay, great, you've got a guest list of everyone that registered, right? So now you're building a list of people that you can do marketing to, if you choose to. You can, using email addresses and names. You can look them up on LinkedIn and connect with them on LinkedIn, right, and now they're starting to see you on LinkedIn, and, of course, you can invite them to future events. I mean, there's just so. It kind of all builds on itself, right, and that's what's fun about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, and I also want to talk about the content engine for your podcast, how I raised it. Can you just talk about what? First of all, why did you feel like as a company, that you wanted to launch a podcast and then, second of off, like, second off, like how, how are you able to grow it to what it is today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, okay, that's a great question. So events are cool, right, but they actually do take a lot of time and effort, right, you know, there, it it's, it's hard, you, there's so much work that is involved in putting an event. We thought a podcast would be a little bit easier, and one of the things that we try and do in in my company founder suite is usually around like january 1st, almost like a New Year's Eve ritual is like, hey, start of a new year, let's come up with one or two new marketing experiments to try, right, and this is a couple of years ago, but like, one of them was like let's just try a podcast, see what happens. Right, beauty about a podcast. Again, it doesn't really cost much or anything. I mean, maybe you get a nice microphone. I mean you could tell me how much it costs to start a podcast, right, but you know, maybe you're in it for a thousand bucks or whatever, right?
Speaker 1:So the thought there is like how can we do something like an event, but with a larger, more scalable audience? Same general concept as we're getting like prominent founders and investors on the show talking about raising capital, so that will attract our target audience. And you know, you just start doing it. And, of course, one of the beauty things about podcasts, as you very well know, is all right, I just recorded this podcast with this investor and this investor has 20,000 Twitter followers. You can't force them, but there's a good chance they might promote that podcast to their followers, so you're able to sort of tap your guests, you know, network around that right To help grow it. And I think just being consistent and putting out pretty good quality regularly is what gets people to kind of pay attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And what about repurposing it? Because I know you guys repurpose a lot of content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually I like that part. So you know you record these podcasts, right, and now you've got an audio and video recording. There are there are different ways to get that turned into written content. I mean, there's everything from ai tools that will just do it, kind of, for you, to using humans to do it. Everything in between, uh, we actually do use some third parties that will take our content and write blog posts from it, right, okay, and these are really well written. It's not just ai generated crap, it's actually like well written. Yeah, so, so great, we've got this content written.
Speaker 1:So what do you do with that? Well, we always kind of almost have like a hierarchy. We'll try and guest publish it on, you know, tech crunch or Forbes or something like that, and maybe a quarter of them gets accepted, okay, so if we can't get it on there, what's our next tier? You know LinkedIn publishing or our own blog, or we have a medium channel too, so we might publish it on there. And and then oftentimes, if it's really really good, we'll chop it up into like shorter clips and publish it on Instagram or Tik TOK. We're really just starting on TikTok and stuff like that, but, like you know, other platforms that are more shorter form content, and so one interview can become, you know, five different pieces of content for five different platforms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. And have you seen, I guess, a return on your investment or in time as far as doing the podcast?
Speaker 1:so far, yes, but that is. That is a actually a great question, Cause I don't feel we're very good at tracking. Yeah, or?
Speaker 2:we can do a much better job.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I mean, I I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Like, how do you we do get people say, oh, I heard you about it on the podcast and everything, and we'll have like a, you know, sign up here, like in the, in the show notes or in the comments, sign up here, get a free investor list, or something. So there's some ways of tracking it. But I often feel like we're putting this out there in the universe and sort of hoping, almost like karma, it's coming back to us. I don, sort of hoping almost like karma it's coming back to us. I don't, I can't tell you an roi, I can't tell you like a, a true number of customers regenerated it's, yeah, probably a fault in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah because I I think also too, it's it is a lot of brand building too with the uh, with the podcast. Now, what I can tell you is that there's certain platforms that will give you more data than others. So, depending on, like, the back end that you're, that you're using, there are, there are platforms that will give you a little bit more of like targeted data of who's listening when, what are the most popular episodes, um, you know what is those interactions, who's actually subscribed, who's not subscribed, that type, that type of day. A little bit more information. And then, and then it's about, honestly, you were kind of you were kind of mentioning it already, but the uh repurposing content, like just being very intentional about you know, making sure that those links are trackable. You know, when you're saying like hey, the sign up link, how many people clicked on that link?
Speaker 2:You know, because I think podcasting is also a mold with social media and then also email marketing. So there's like kind of a three-prong approach to it. And then it's just making sure that you're tracking as much as possible that each one of these engines that you have is running at a good pace and you're actually getting results from it. But the thing is just being very intentional about either the call to actions and then also saying, hey, how did you hear about us? Like just asking, like, hey, you know, so if there's a sign up on on on the website, um, on the platform, it's like hey, how did you hear about us? If people are selecting podcasts, okay, then you may know that they came from the podcast. So it's just just, you know a couple of those metrics and things like that that that sometimes help.
Speaker 1:I like that. Actually, we need the. How did you hear about us? I'm writing that down if I ask you a question what's your favorite back-end platform or tracking platform? Do you have something that's working well for you?
Speaker 2:So so far, one that's working well for us is Buzzsprout. It's pretty good. Riverside is okay, but Buzzsprout, I feel like is is pretty good. And then there's a. There's one other one oh, I forgot the name of it. I can get it. But another podcast that I was on it's called a business development podcast that I was on and he's he's been testing out also a lot of different platforms that he like swears by this other one that I have never heard of before. That's the thing. There's also like it's such a new space. There's platforms popping up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, left and right I can't keep up totally but bus draw has been pretty good and they they actually are constantly updating um their platform, as, which is helpful when, unlike some of the other ones that are like, yeah, it was great for a time, but we need more data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, interesting, I'll check it out. Thanks, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's cool. It's cool, no, this is great, because this, this helps out the audience and, as they're trying to, you know, launch up their own stuff of like where to go. What I want to ask you, as for your, for your platform who are the type of founders that you're really looking for Like? Is there a founder that's too early to go and sign up for Founders Suite, or is there, can they be at any stage? Like what? What is, what is the type of founder that you're really looking for to connect with?
Speaker 1:The only too early stage, I'd say, is where it's really just an idea. And you know, if we get people all of a sudden like I have an idea for something that's really going to help the world, can I get money for this? Like, well, you got to take it a little further, right? Yeah, it's just people aren't. No one wants to fund an idea. There's too much execution risk, market risk, everything All the risks are involved when you're at the idea stage. Now, having said that, it is good to actually start this process and start thinking about raising capital way far in advance, right, it's kind of like if you want to be a professional athlete, you kind of need to start when you're 11 years old or 10, you know.
Speaker 1:Right athlete, you kind of need to start when you're 11 years old or 10, you know, you don't wait till you're in college, and there's a little bit like that with with raising capital too, because you have to start building, you know, identifying the right investors, building and nurturing those relationships over time. Because there's a great quote I've I didn't invent this, mark Suster of Upfront Ventures, I believe, is the one that said this but investors invest in lines, in lines, not dots, right? So you want to kind of build lines with investors, and that takes time. You want to kind of tell them early on. This is what I'm doing, I'm working on this. We're still really early, we're not yet launched. Blah, blah, blah. And then meet them two, two or three months later at an event or or even just online, uh, and you say, oh, we launched and we're done it up, and you know you're kind of building these like okay of a relationship with investors, and and so you want to start that process early, right.
Speaker 1:So if you're um, I'd say that maybe the ideal time, if I had to pin this down, is when you're actually building a product, even pre-launch, but maybe you're within two or three months of launching. Good time to start identifying the right investors and starting to nurture relationships with those Doesn't mean you're going to get funded right away, but your funding might not happen for another year. Um, but they need to get to know you and see that you can make progress, that you're you're pushing this thing forward, that you're driven, you break through walls all that good stuff, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. That's good, and because I I think everybody wants to raise money, but it's about the process, right, of actually what does it take to actually acquire the capital, and I think a lot of people are thinking about it in dots. I think that was an awesome thing that you just said dots, and really it should be lines, lines, so you should already be building relationships early instead of just being like, all right here. It is like let's go like how much you're gonna put in, like what are you gonna do? Who can you introduce me to? It's like well, you also got to have a little bit of a track record too, and people like to see the journey that you're actually gonna do what you say you're gonna do too.
Speaker 2:People got tons ideas, but, like, a good friend of mine is always like ideas are cheap and ideas are free. Everybody could have an idea, but who? Who's actually executing and showing the market Like, is this really viable? Can you at least get this off the ground? I was going to ask you what about, like proof of concept? Is there a certain level of proof of concept where, hey, I got X amount of customers on my platform, I have a website and I have a few testimonials of people that have actually gone through the process of using my product or service. Is there kind of like a baseline like that where people can be set up a little bit more for success?
Speaker 1:Yes, but it's really depends on every business, right? If you're an enterprise business building something sold to Fortune 500 companies, then even just one or two proof of concepts that large fortune 500 companies are looking at this and playing and giving you time and attention, that's great. If you're more of a, a web, web startup or or social or you know social media type of thing, then you're probably talking like tens of thousands of individuals using it. Right, you've got followers or subscribers or whatever the metric may be. So it really kind of depends on the business.
Speaker 1:But you know, bottom line, like, take a step back, put yourself in the shoes of an investor, entrepreneurs coming to you. They have an idea, they have a vision. Have they been able to get people to kind of validate that vision right In some way, shape or form? And again, it might be a single enterprise customer or might be 10,000 consumers who are logging in daily, doesn't really matter what that is. But yes, people are actually. They care about your solution to this problem, they're adopting it, they're using it, they're sticking around. One of the problems we had in our early days when we launched is people like loved the concept of Founders Suite, but our product wasn't very good, so we they wouldn't stick around. You know we have people signing up but not not staying around, so can you demonstrate people are coming back and using you and sticking with you, even though you're imperfect and you're flawed. And really simple right now? Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. No, this is, this is fantastic, fantastic advice. I want to talk real quick also and then maybe this might snowball into you know from the podcast but a little bit about your LinkedIn. So you've built up a great LinkedIn audience. I know a lot of our listeners and followers and audience are all building an audience in some way, shape or form for the brand or for their business.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What is what? How did you, how did you actually get to getting some traction on LinkedIn and what were some of like? If you can just give us some golden nuggets as far as what worked for you to be able to get the audience that you have today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, with, with all social media and I'm not a social media expert by any chance, but with all media comes down to quality and consistency, I think right. And LinkedIn, you know very much so so we tell you a couple of things that worked on LinkedIn. Obviously, our content's just like you would expect it to be. It's about how to raise capital for startups.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That can mean different things. It could be talking about like would expect it to be. It's about how to raise capital for startups. Yeah, that can mean different things. It could be talking about like the process of raising capital. It could be the you know, analysis of, like, broader trends, like it's funding up down, you know, going sideways, sometimes giveaways some of the most successful LinkedIn posts are giveaways where it's like here's a list of 500 deep tech investors or we're going to launch one pretty soon. That's like a list of a hundred family offices. So it's a little bit of our product, a tiny little bit of our product. We have an investor database in Founders Street, but it's a little tiny sample.
Speaker 2:I guess you could say, yeah, sample size.
Speaker 1:Sample size of our product with some content around it and then giving that out and asking people to comment or like or share all that stuff kind of juicing that. And again, I can't tell you how this works, but so much of it is like trying to trigger the algorithm, where the extent of my knowledge is like this If I think this applies to most platforms if people are pretty frequently and consistently liking and sharing and commenting especially like sharing, then that's going to trigger the algorithm to show your stuff more often and so you're trying to build content that does that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure Easier said than done, but that's the general gist of it, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's great and I think it gives people another idea of are you guys doing any kind of giveaways? So we just did actually a personal branding retreat in New York Times Square, literally like a week and a half ago. It was absolutely crazy. I featured all the entrepreneurs on a billboard in Times Square and then we also did podcasting in Times Square and then we also had workshops where we actually helped each other. I brought in experts and speakers, but it was awesome. It was like 25 just powerhouse entrepreneurs all learning and building our personal brand.
Speaker 2:And I brought in a guy named Jake Fleschner.
Speaker 2:So he used to work with David Meltzer and he now has a business called Nucleus Network, but he had started this thing a few months ago. It's basically on LinkedIn where he says, hey, months ago, uh, call it's. It's basically on linkedin where he says, hey, keep reading if you like coffee. And all he does is say that the he's going to choose it started off with just 10 people are going to, you know, get a free coffee on him, and so he kept sending out the gift cards to people. Now, when he posts it, the post goes nuts every single time hey, keep liking or keep reading if you like coffee. And this is similar to your strategy too, where you're giving something away, right A value to people, and people want to participate in that and have a shot at, you know, getting the item, and it's the same thing like coffee. So now he actually goes around in events in different spaces and he's known as the coffee guy and he's got Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks actually contacting him to do deals and like brand deals with it.
Speaker 2:It's just crazy. But it just goes to show you how far it can go if you just are giving a little bit more and kind of creating your own kind of unique niche in a social media platform. So I think your list giveaway is an awesome idea. I think others can think about. What is your giveaway, what is your thing that you can do? That once again hones in on your business and your brand, because if you're always asking stuff from people all the time, it's like it's going to get annoying. It's like this guy's selling to me all the time. I don't want to hear about it anymore. But that's probably why you built up the audience too, because of great content, podcasting, frequency of posting, like you said, consistency and quality. But hey, giveaways and things that actually will build a community.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it, I think is it. Uh, I've never seen this guy, but my kids watch him. Mr beast, yeah, this whole thing on that right where he's giving away like, yeah, big ticket, now he's giving away, I mean millions of dollars, he's just, he's just giving it away, which I I'm like man.
Speaker 2:I mean, if he's giving away that much, how much does he have? Crazy, crazy amount.
Speaker 1:He's figured out his own algorithm. I can give away a million and generate 10 million from views and whatever else. Sponsorships yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:And then I know in our past conversation you talked a little bit about controversial pieces. Do you do any type of content or anything that kind of maybe triggers where it's a little controversial or a little on the edge of like hey, should I interact with this, or maybe it's a different idea that are unlike most.
Speaker 1:We don't do much of that. I think that's actually pretty effective. I know people who do and it gets anything. That's you know. Obviously politics is the perfect example, but anything that sort of has almost two equally weighted opinions right and that you can get people fighting about is going to probably go viral because people are passionate about that. You're triggering, you're waking people up and getting them. We don't do that much. It's hard. That's a bit of a a tricky path, right Cause yeah.
Speaker 1:I've seen it done really well and I've seen it where people just get kind of tired of it's like all right, we don't want your drama. I think it's like all right, we don't want your drama. I think it's a kind of a shortcut. I mean, it's a bit of a shortcut to getting virality and and views if you're willing to play that game. It's just not something we've done that much.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, yeah, um do you do like highly controversial posts or?
Speaker 2:I so not. I don't really touch politics too much, but on purpose I do try to think of things that are a little bit against the grain, especially if it's something I really believe in or my values, my morals are attached to. Yeah, because one thing what I found out is is by it's not necessarily to trigger people, it's more to. It's either thought provoking or it's choosing a certain side and a moral value approach. But what I found is that it almost separates the people that maybe you don't wanna do business with in the first place and it says, okay, we'll go over there. Then it attracts the people that are like, yeah, business with in the first place, and it says, okay, we'll go over there. Then it attracts the people that are like, yeah, I believe in the same thing, or I was kind of thinking that too, and then all of a sudden they started to say, like, I really really like jamar and forever media, because they actually align with my mouth, my, my values and my morals.
Speaker 2:So it's a little bit of a game of like you're trying trying to repel, you know, out the people that you don't want to do business with anyways, because when it came down to it, even if they got the money. It's kind of like we don't see, we're not seeing the same here and that will probably, you know, turn out to not be a really great working relationship, maybe later on, you know, um, so I think it's just, uh, I don't do it a ton, but if I really am like on some, I'll just be like hey, and I'll make sure it's. It's very like apparent to people like this is how I'm feeling about this interesting, yeah, yeah, cool yeah, yeah, there's.
Speaker 2:There's one post I did one time that was like you're not black enough.
Speaker 1:That's a good loaded topic, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that was one of the you know controversals type posts, because I'm like okay, on one side I got one group telling me that I'm not black enough and I got the other side telling me I'm not black enough. So what does it mean to be black, black enough? And I got the other side telling me I'm not black enough. So what does it mean to be black? And then it was like my comments were just like oh my god, I felt that way too. This and that. Oh, I've seen this. And then people were just going back and forth. Oh, it was great. This is actually a reminder. I need to maybe spin that one back up yeah right, oh my gosh I'm to stay away from that landmine or that minefield.
Speaker 1:But I think that's genius.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I want to ask you a question about. You say you built up a team of nearly 30 people. What are some learning lessons that we can all learn from building a team? Who were some of your first hires and what is some maybe some some critical lessons that you've learned with actually building a team and leadership?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good question. I think one of the things whenever you, if you're in like the tech world or tech startup world or you know, I'll use that as my base because that's what I know best but hire a product manager as soon as you can. When I first started out, I was kind of designing the products myself and using the whiteboard and like, oh, what if we do buttons here and color? I'm like, oh, I'm not a product guy, right. Like I realized over time, like most of my ideas are bad. I even say this today to my product and design team Like I have an opinion, I always qualify, like I have an opinion about this, but overrule me because I'm not a designer, I'm not a product person. I think you know it should be like this. But like actually trusting a product team.
Speaker 1:So getting out of your own way, right and and maybe you went to rhode island school design and you are a product person, great. But if you're not, I'm a finance guy by by nature. Yeah, I shouldn't be designing products. So hire a product person as soon as you can to really kind of own that part of it. Um, and don't hire a pr firm. We hired a pr firm in our early days. Uh spent a bunch of money. I even gave him a little bit of equity and then I had to like it went total disaster I had to like get a lawyer to like basically scrounge the equity back from these guys Cause they were just terrible.
Speaker 1:I think you know I'm not the best hire. I think people are good and methodical about about this. I kind of go on gut. My gut is especially at the start. So maybe this applies to the early days of a startup, maybe not as a company gets bigger. But I'm always kind of optimizing for you know does. Do you feel like you're just someone that gets? Can I swear on this podcast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Okay, are you get shit done Right? Gsd, are you someone who just I feel like you're just a little turbocharged. You know person that gets stuff done and I can give you stuff. I know it's going to come back pretty, pretty close to being done or right without a lot of oversight and management, and so I'd actually optimize for you know people who are junior or even right out of college or whatever, but they just have that sort of innate. You know, get stuff done quality versus someone who's got seven years at big company that are going to be lost in a startup. So that's one thing.
Speaker 2:Key lesson. Right there, Key lesson. I mean you said it very kind of humbly and quick, but not necessarily does the resume mean that they're qualified to work in the time and space that your company is in.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think that that is so. I've heard that many, many times. People make that mistake of hey resume looks great, they're going to get us to the next level, everything, you know all the things, but they're coming from a big company and you got to be scrappy. You got to be scrappy. When you're a startup, you don't got all the processes and everything laid out and you know and everything laid out, and it's just different mindsets, different mindsets. I've made the mistake, too, of hiring certain individuals that weren't in the mindset. I'm like look, we're in growth mode right now, guys, we're not in coast mode. Okay, so there's a different mindset when it comes down to getting to work, maybe wearing a couple different hats, trying some new things, working a little bit longer, but it's those little things that you need really to set the foundation right away for your team. So I feel you on that. That's a really good point.
Speaker 1:Can you point someone in the general direction? We want to get over there. Can you figure it out and get it done Right Like?
Speaker 1:all the other stuff in between. We know where we're trying to go, but all the other stuff is wilderness. You've got to figure it out and get shit done. I think maybe something else just in the early days. Now we do a couple different standups. I think I have like four or five standups with different team groups per week. That didn't do that at first and probably should have right, just to keep everyone on the same page, even when you're all you know in the same room together or pretty small team. I think it's really good just have this standing weekly tuesday morning 10 am product product discussion or thursday sales call, whatever. It is right, just have that, that rhythm, which is really good yeah yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:No, I, um, and do you guys do like scrum is that? Is that where that's coming from as far as the standout?
Speaker 1:on the engineering side?
Speaker 2:yeah, okay okay, yeah, cool. Yeah, I've always been a. I've always been a big um, uh advocate for, for scrum, that kind of mentality, even even in the uh in my line of business. It's not into software, but we've actually adopted some of that framework and mentality. When it comes down to getting things out, we don't have releases but we do have project deadlines. We do have we got to keep things moving. Maybe there's events that we're planning, like the retreat we just did. You know there's, there's things that are happening that we need those quick standouts. We need those quick check checkpoints because it opens up for conversation. You just got to make sure that you stay within the timeframe, because it can definitely get bloated pretty quick. If you know, people start bringing up all types of stuff and it's like, okay, we're not talking about that right now, we're talking about this.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, this is great. This is great, nathan. I think this is a lot of great information. So if, one last question for you, for you. So if, if, uh, if a founder's listening right now and they actually are out there pitching maybe it's been a year, a year and a half they're just not getting any traction.
Speaker 1:Any advice for them yeah, it's so we I raised money on my third try, right. So from front and street and and I'd probably done what almost you're describing where I went out, started pitching, was getting nowhere, and so I took a break like, all right, let's go back, just focus on the business, kind of heads down, you know, and get, get the business further. And then I tried again. Was it still wasn't far enough and I wasn't getting any reaction. I think I waited six more months and went out, kind of third time's a charm, and went out there to raise and finally did raise.
Speaker 1:But I think if you're not getting any bites Now, I have to caution that by saying one of the metrics I always tell people is and I use myself as an example I pitched over 200 investors, ended up with one venture fund, 10 angels, which is about 5% conversion rate. That also means I got rejected 95% of the time when I was out there raising capital. So you have to distinguish between am I just not getting much traction and I just need to keep talking to a lot of investors to get my 5% conversion rate, or am I just really not getting any love? And that's a hard line to figure out which side are you on so?
Speaker 1:I think you just have to talk to a statistically significant sample size of investors and use just your gut Like hey, I'm not even getting callbacks or second meetings on any of these. Maybe I need to go move the business forward Versus. You know, a handful of these guys and gals are interested. I just need to keep kissing frogs and talking to a lot more investors. It's a hard one to figure out, but yeah, it's been out there a year, though, to go to your question specifically. It's been out there a year, though, to to go to your question specifically, you've been out there a year and no one's really even talking about putting that on a term sheet. Probably take. Take a pause, get the business further, get your traction metrics up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Or or you also may need to work on your pitch.
Speaker 2:Maybe your pitch is just like to your point in the beginning of the podcast, like maybe you're, maybe you're all over the place on your pitch and people can I know I get pitched ideas all the time and I'm telling you the people that can tell me clearly and concisely exactly what's going on quickly, what's going on quickly, those are the ones that are going to succeed as far as getting any kind of interest into partnerships, collaboration or even getting involved in any way, shape or form. If you're taking me on a whole journey of your whole life, I don't even want to. You already lost me. You already lost me. So, yeah, I think that's really really great advice. Man, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Hey, where can people find you and get connected?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. The websites of my startups are Foundersuite F-O-U-N-D-E-R-S-U-I-T-Ecom for startups, and then Fundingstack one word, just like it sounds FundingStackcom, if you're an advisor, consultant or VC and then we're at Twitter or X-Foundersuite Same with Facebook and, I think, instagram and TikTok. But probably the best way is to connect with me on LinkedIn. Nathan Beckord, b-e-c-k-o-r-d, Say you found it on the Forever Podcast and happy to connect with you. You will start to see a lot of fundraising content in your stream, probably, so keep that in mind, but happy to connect and chat and help if I can.
Speaker 2:So that'd be great, yeah thank you so much for uh for being on the podcast. So if everybody's listening, watching, please like, comment, subscribe to the podcast. Uh, we are everywhere where you can get podcasts. And don't forget, guys, if you can change your circle, you can change your life. Thank you so much, nathan, for being on the podcast and we'll catch everybody on the next one. Peace. Thanks so much. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe, and don't forget to hit that notification bell for more amazing content that we're going to be putting out. And don't forget you can change your circle to change your life, thank you.
