#76: How Claire S. Raised $1M in VC Funds For Her Company
Episode Summary
Claire S. is back to Coffee & Coin for a very special episode: she recently raised over $1 million in venture capital funds for her wellness/health app, Flourish. In this conversation, she gets into the nitty-gritty of all things venture funding: how she approached the process, what she learned along the way, and what she's going to do with this recent funding round.
Episode Notes
Listen to Claire's first episode on the Coffee & Coin Podcast.
Follow @Flourish on Instagram.
Follow Claire on Twitter and Instagram.
Apply to the spring Wealth Circle.
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Click here for the full transcript +
I'm so excited for you to hear today's episode with my dear friend Claire Segal. She is the CEO of flourish and someone who inspires me daily as an entrepreneur. And really just as a health and wellness guru, she knows how to live life with balance, even though she is doing big, hard things all the time. So we're gonna get into how she raised a million dollars in venture funding for her company. But before we get into the episode, I wanted to ask you a question. Do you love this podcast? If so, I hope you will leave us a review, because we are the place where women come and openly share about their wealth and money journeys. So every single review helps us reach more women and empower them to do the same. Here's a review from Marge bank that I loved. Coffee and coin is one of my small joys that I look forward to weekly. It's an ongoing financial education that is so valuable to have as a woman. Hearing women talk about where they started off in their financial journey and where they want to go with their financial goals, makes you feel like you are not alone. It's my go to podcast for encouragement, financial motivation, education, and some light hearted fun. Thank you. This is a Lego at brandley. And you're listening to the coffee and coin podcast where women talk well, I'm the founder and CEO of factoria of company on a mission to lead 1 million women to 1 million in net worth. Because when women have more money will have more power to be the change we want to see in the world. If you're ready to hear real women share their real numbers and investment journeys and have a sneaky feeling you should be doing a little more with your money, you are in the right place. Just sit back, relax and turn me up.
All opinions expressed by Team factoria and podcast guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of factoria Incorporated. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used as the basis for investment decisions. Team factoria and podcast guests may maintain positions in the securities or investments discussed in this podcast.
Welcome back to another episode of Coffee and coin. I have my dear friend Claire s back on the pod today. Welcome back, Claire.
Hi, Allegra. Thanks for having me.
I'm really excited for today's conversation too. Because last time we had you on the pod It was about your personal financial wealth transformation after taking a while circle. And while I love digging into women's personal finances, I brought you back on because you just did something really exceptional with your business finances. So I don't want to give too much away. But basically, Claire is a registered dietician who started her career at snap kitchen and then moved on to creating her own company to help coach women through ditching diets for good, something I'm sure we can all get very passionately behind. And she has this new incredible company called flourish. So tell us all about it. And then let's break down this massive thing you just did.
Yeah. Well, thank you. I'm so excited to be here. This is actually the first time I will be kind of speaking publicly about this huge milestone. So I'm super excited. But yeah, I'm the CEO and co founder of flourish and we help women get healthy for good. So we teach our members to build sustainable habits across the full spectrum of behavioral health through a subscription membership, that offers unlimited access to credentialed experts, as well as community support and an evidence based education. So started back in 2018. And well, it's kind of speak through the evolution but really excited about this new chapter that we're in now.
Okay, first of all, I just have to dig into what do you mean by like behavioral food? Just I'm imagining being a listener being like, Oh my gosh, that sounds like a mouthful. break that down a little bit for us, because I know how significant your program is and how well it works. But like, who's coming into it? And what are they getting out of it? Yeah, so that's a great
question. So there's a ton of factors when it comes to health, whether that's, you know, your genetics, your access to health care, things like that. Behavioral Health, our you know, health behaviors, it's the the things that you have kind of responsibility, autonomy and agency over so we focus a lot especially, you know, early on in our member experience on nutrition, and specifically their relationship with food. But we're also talking about things like movement, hydration, stress management, sleep, and we even talked a lot about community values, things like that. So it's about understanding, again, what health really is all about and what role you play in promoting it for yourself versus, you know, some of the areas where you can't have full autonomy and control. So yeah, that's that's kind of behavioral health in a nutshell.
I love it, because it actually reminds me of the term behavioral finance, which is more my world. And really, you have to look at your financial wellness holistically. Otherwise, if you're just focusing on my student loan debt, that's keeping me up at night, you're not seeing the full picture. And I think it sounds like it's the same with health, like, yes, you need to focus on your nutrition. But nutrition isn't isn't the only component that's going to lead to a quality life.
Totally. Yeah, we have so many members who will come in to flourish and feel they feel like nutrition or food is the problem, when in reality, we look at kind of everything that's going on, we recognize, oh, we actually have like a massive like sleep debt issue. And if you focus on your sleep, well, then guess what, like your carb cravings will go away, your appetite will normalize things like that. So you really do have to look at the whole picture and understand the ways in which these behaviors are inherently connected.
So basically, every woman needs this checkout flourish, we will link to it in the show notes. But let's get into this incredible thing. You just did. You raised a million dollars for your business, through venture funding. Tell us everything.
Where do we start? Yeah, so we certainly didn't start here. It's been quite a journey through the business. Like I said, I started my own business back in 2018, it wasn't called flourish at the time was called nutritional freedom started it really simply as a 12 week group oriented program focusing on nutrition and mindset. Eventually, we added a membership element. At the time, I didn't know what these terms meant, because I thought this was the only way to run a business, I thought, you know, to run a business, you have to sell something. And then you take that revenue and put it back into the business, you pay yourself a little bit yada, yada, yada. What I now know is that this is called a bootstrapped lifestyle business. So that's what I was, I was running. And while we were generating revenue, I found myself frequently not in my zone of genius. And there were a lot of elements of the business that weren't totally aligned with my values. So kind of the, the hustle around the lunches that we would do once a quarter as well as, you know, doing group calls, for example, at 7pm. On Sunday nights, like I found myself really at the beginning of 2020, starting to kind of resent the business I was running, even though I really maintained, like my inspiration and passion around the mission and the problem we were solving. So and then even beyond that, I continued to see from the very beginning, just the opportunity for impact. So we had, I'm sure we'll get into it, but I have like my own personal diet story, I felt very alone in the 10 years that I was dieting come to find out now this is like such a massive problem. And it's a way that I really connected with our customers. And then on top of that is that we had women coming to us from these like billion dollar diet programs, these billion dollar, you know, tech giants, that were not only not solving the problem that they said they were going to solve, but they were actually causing more problems on top of that. So like more body image dysmorphia, you know, a worse relationship with food, things like that. So I started thinking, Okay, if this is kind of the landscape, you know, outside of of what's happening here, if we figure out how to leverage technology and how we can achieve scale, then we can have a massive impact on on the world specifically for women.
I love this. I'm also just thinking. So, listeners, when Claire and I met, I had come from New York and spent my whole beginning of my career my whole career really, in startup world. So I knew all the terminology. I also had this big mission that hopefully every listener knows but to lead 1 million women to 1 million in net worth. And I thought well to get that much market share and to reach that many women I have to raise funding Not to mention, I wanted to because that had been my been my realm. When I met Claire, as she just mentioned, she was a bootstrap lifestyle business. And what is really funny is we call each other probies basically entrepreneur friends, which is the most important friend to have when you are an entrepreneur because it is such a intense, just all consuming experience. But we have almost watched ourselves cross paths that now she is in the venture world and I'm in the bootstrapped lifestyle business world. So maybe where we should start is before we talk about how you raise the money, you know, more tactically, what kind of businesses should be venture backed and and then maybe even share a little bit about your accelerator experience. Yeah.
So in terms of kind of which businesses should raise venture, because you're absolutely right, not not every business should and not every business can. And all businesses have a purpose and are good. They're certainly not one that's better than the other. And I've now lived both, I guess. So I would say that the businesses that should our businesses that are high margin highly scalable and are interested in rapid growth, like rapid, rapid growth, because as soon as you get investor funding, specifically VC, the expectations shift, and now you are in the process, you know, you're kind of signed up for a pretty wild, you know, Many will say, like seven to 10 years,
the key thing you said is like, you have to not only be the right type of business, venture funding isn't going to work for, you know, a standalone coffee shop, maybe if you want to create a subscription coffee product and be nationwide, okay. But there are just certain small businesses that it would never make sense for we're talking recognizable names, is what you should be able to turn into like an Uber an app that everyone can have on their phone, like a flourish, everyone who's trying to get healthy, could be talking about their flourish program and their results with friends, something that would be able to even get that much market share. But then the other piece is, do you want to get on the train of rapid scale and growth, because you're really on that track. And it's hard to get off. And so I don't think enough people talk about that. And that is ultimately why I decided not to do it. And I think because this is a women's wealth podcast, I will share, one of the main reasons I decided not to do it is because I'm at a stage in my life where I want to start a family. And I didn't think it would be fair to try and build a family and a business with that much pressure. But I know, for example for you, you're like, kids not really in the cards for me at this minute, which allows you so much more brain space and ability to go all the way. And I have no doubt that you'll go all
the way we're signed up for it. So we're gonna we're gonna figure it out one way or the other.
So this kind of came about when you did your TechStars experience, right? Can you share a little bit about what TechStars is? Why you did it? And what came out of that?
Yeah, so TechStars is an accelerator. It is an accelerator is kind of more or less like a business boot camp is how I like to think of it. And I started kind of thinking through the steps towards again, this kind of highly scalable subscription membership thinking that, okay, building technology, and you know, building an app and raising VC money, or or just getting investment, whether it's from angels or VCs, I thought, okay, that might be part of our journey, but I wasn't really sure. So the first thing I did was I basically transitioned our 12 week coaching program into just a membership offering where members instead of just coming in for 12 weeks, they could now come in for as long as they they needed or as long as they would like to, we now kind of call that our beta, we launched that in November of 2020. And we were running it on third party tech. And then at the same time, we applied to the TechStars accelerator, because I knew that if we are going to go down this venture path, or if we are going to build technology, I know how to run this business, I have no idea how to run that business. And I have no idea really, even though I can see the vision for it, I don't know how to get from point A to point B, and I was really attracted to TechStars. And there's, you know, a number of accelerators out there. TechStars is certainly one of the the top ones. I was really attracted to it for a number of reasons. It's small cohorts, we had nine other companies in our cohort, and it's really mentor oriented. So now I look and I have you know, a network of 100 people that I wouldn't have met otherwise who are incredibly giving incredibly intelligent and you know, I send out I'm actually right after this gonna send my my regular update to them. And I have questions and ask them and things like that. So it really taught me some, I would say kind of business foundations and honestly gave us the chance to like slow down enough to really understand again, what this transition is going to look like I thought I wanted to build an app, I thought I wanted to raise venture a lot of that from being completely honest. And you and I have spoken about this, I think initially came from a place of like ego and a place of like, Oh, I think I should do this through the 12 weeks and TechStars actually validated the need for it, and did so in a very data driven way. So when it did come to the the time of you know, hiring a dev shop to build our platform, and then ultimately bring on a CTO and bring it in house. Starting the fundraising process. I did it from a much more confident and purposeful place versus Well, I want to do this because I want to be clear seagull the girl who built an app and became venture backed like now I understand there's a real like business case for it. And our business is directly tied to the impact that we're having for the lives of our customers.
Then you go through TechStars and you validate your idea to build technology and decide that in order to do so. You're going to need to raise funding. And then what happens? How do you start on the path of raising funding? I guess I'll leave it there. And then I'll and then how do you determine how much?
Yeah, so there's a huge learning curve. And we learned a lot in TechStars. And then we learned, like the rest just through doing it. And honestly, I don't know how else to teach or learn fundraising other than going through it. And that's something that, you know, in the future, I hope to be able to have a greater impact on. But I guess one of the first places that we started was figuring out just how much we needed to raise. And there are, you know, milestones and things like that, or you know, averages or ranges, I guess that you'll see based on kind of the round that you're in, whether it's pre seed, seed series, ABC, so on and so forth. But at the end of the day, a lot of those ranges, frankly, exist for like coastal companies. So like companies, for example, in Silicon Valley, and not all businesses need that much. So it really is important to understand your numbers, the milestones that you're trying to reach, and things like that. So we kind of figured we'll likely want to raise again in about a year, that's pretty typical, what are the milestones that we want to hit in that year, in terms of revenue, number of customers, so on and so forth. And then we work backwards from there. So we looked at our numbers, we looked at our cost of customer acquisition, we looked at our lifetime value, we know that we because we have this experience of being like this bootstrap lifestyle business, we operate from a place of like extreme capital efficiency, which is not the case for a lot of startups. And in fact, women led startups are known for being extremely capital efficient. There's a question of is, is that a chicken or the egg thing? We know that the, you know, kind of venture numbers for women are dismal. I think 2.3% of all venture capital last year went to women, which is, I just want to say that again, 2.3% of all VC dollars went to women led companies last year, that was actually down from 2019, horrendous, horrendous, there's just no excuse, I'm sure what we'll get there. But anyway, so yeah, so basically, again, you establish milestones, and you work backwards, by knowing your numbers, knowing again, that the kind of runway that you'll need, and probably add on a little bit of padding just in case because things take you know, tend to take a little bit longer than you think they will, and they tend to be a little bit more expensive. Okay.
So you kind of looked a year out and said, based on these milestones, we end with padding because just the entrepreneurial journey with totally what you what you think you're going to do, there's always going to be a few fears along that road, and then you determine that you need to raise a million dollars. Yep. And then how do you go out and get a million dollars as a woman running a woman focused company with these dismal statistics of only around 2% of women getting venture dollars to begin with? And and then also, you mentioned that there's different rounds of venture. So what round Are you in? Yeah, so
technically, our million dollar round is our seed round, and we consider the investment, we did get some investment from TechStars, we consider that our pre seed round, but it almost kind of doesn't matter. Honestly, again, you can like look at and go to TechCrunch, or crunchbase. And you'll see like companies at such different stages, raising pre seed versus see it, it's what it doesn't matter. It's really all about, again, like your business, what you're going to do with that money, and again, kind of just where you are in the process. So we made the decision to make our seed round a price round or an equity round, which often means that you're getting it from venture capital instead of angels. And there's a number of reasons why we chose to do that based on you know, our previous investment, but that was kind of where where we started again. So here's how much we're raising. We're targeting mostly VCs, specifically, early stage VCs, and sometimes you hear the, you know, the phrase, early stage VCs, and you'll go and pitch and they'll say, well, we think you know, you need to have 1000 customers before we're interested. That's fine. I'm not super early to meet my not
early factoria doesn't have 1000 customers, and we've been around for three years.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So again, there's a lot of nuance here. And it can also be very difficult to find information. So okay, so you think about your stage and again, who you're who you're seeking investment from, whether it's typically angels or VC, and then you start looking for investors that fit your vertical, you know, or investors that have complimentary portfolios. So for us, of course, we were looking at a lot of investors who specifically invest in health and wellness, we were looking at investors who specifically invest in women, things like that. And then, you know, we're also looking for like a personality fit, you know, especially with bringing on investors at such an early stage, these people really do become part of your founding team. And it's really important that you're not just looking to these people, as like check writers that you're really understanding Okay, at the end of this round. When I look at my cap table, I want to make sure that I have a certain skill set covered and I want to make sure that I feel really comfortable. Going to these people when things are not just not only going great, which is fun for everyone, but also when you know, shit is really hitting the fan and I need actual help. So in TechStars, and I think this is a resource you can find online, Jenny fielding, she's the managing director of the New York program, she has an entire process laid out, she can explain better than I do for building what she calls like your investor pipeline. So the people that you're going to go out to, to pitch and try to get in front of. So I basically built out an investor pipeline of I think it's, gosh, it's probably at least like 150 investors or funds at this point in a Google spreadsheet. I sent that to as many people as I could saying, Who Can you give me an introduction to, we also did have a lot of inbound because we are a TechStars backed company. And that's one of the perks of being in TechStars, or any accelerator hopefully. And then from there, you know, I started pitching and I stayed super organized, we'll talk about how important that is, I created a notion board, I took notes at every single meeting, I treated it like a CRM did a ton of research on like crunchbase, and Twitter. And then the last thing I'll say is I tried not to pitch my dream investors first, because the first pitches were horrendous, just awful. And so you want to give yourself time to like warm up to, I mean, I still am probably tweaking my pitch deck, even though if we close the round, I think we probably had at least like 30 versions of the pitch. It's it's definitely there's there's a lot of like, administrative aspects to ultimately, you know, getting in front of the right people. And in closing around,
I just realized that we've said a few terms that people might not be that familiar with. Could you explain what a cap table is?
Yeah, so cap table is basically who owns equity in your company, and a priced round? Gosh, let's see, you know, how when you watch Shark Tank, and they'll say I want, you know, $100,000 for a 10% stake in my company. And so the, the implied valuation, there is what a million dollars, so that million dollar would be your price. So when someone invests, you're giving them a percentage of your company, or equity, the alternative, and this is an option for you know, early, even earlier stage companies is doing what's called a note round, which is basically a form of debt that then converts into equity at your next or at your brother, your first price round.
Okay? I'm gonna say over time, but yeah, I can probably say it better than I can. Well, no, I think you said a great, I think it's basically there's kind of two ways to go about it, when you're early, you can say, I've determined a value, do you agree, you would put in this much money and based on my value, that much money in would get you this much equity in our company, knowing that as you get more rounds in the future, that's going to dilute but put that aside for now. And then the other option would say, I don't know my value right now, I'm busy trying to get to the next level of the business, let's just put your money in. And when we do have a valuation, when we are raising more money, and a value is determined, your debt will convert into equity.
Yeah. And then I'll say the only other thing about a price round that I think most price rounds or most equity rounds those terms can be used interchangeably is that typically, you'll get what's called a lead investor, your lead investor will invest the you know, the most in your round. And they will ultimately actually set your valuations there, there's something called a party round, where you don't have a lead investor and you set your own valuation. valuations at early stage companies is truly more art than science. And, frankly, I was sort of happy to have that process deferred to, to our lead investors. And of course, we had certain goals and numbers in mind there. And that's another thing is to just like, that is another point of alignment that is really important.
Having your lead Ambassador be really strategic. Yes. And
aligning on your valuation if they're the you know, if they're the ones setting it,
yes, yes. Okay. And so, just kind of honing in on this right investors. On the flip side, what does it mean to have the wrong ambassador, because I think people go into this venture world looking for capital, and if they're raising a certain amount, like you're raising a million dollars, if it's difficult, you might start taking anyone. And so the impression that I get is that the wrong investor is the person who is kind of squeezing you changing the the terms to make it more in their favor, and basically not going to be as either committed of a partner when you need more money in the future or need help along the way. As well as someone who's just adding extra pressure and don't really have the resources that are helpful. So like, it's like, really important to have good investors who believe in your startup who believe in your mission and want to help you because you're not done when you've finished the first round. You're at the beginning. Like that's what people need to understand. It is so incredible Claire that I'm sitting. Well, I'm not really across from you. But I'm, you know, virtually across from you and you raised a million dollars. There are not many women who did that. By the way, when she told me this, y'all I cried because I think it's, it's phenomenal. Like, and that's why I wanted on the podcast. And that's why I hope listeners choose this episode, even though it's not a personal financial reveal. But it's a big deal that women companies are getting a million dollar investments and like, not many are doing it. So you did it. And we have you here to share about it first, which is awesome for our listeners. But I went off on a tangent. I don't remember where I went with that.
No, it was great. We're talking about just the importance of picking the right investor.
Yes. And having a lead investor that is the most on your side totally sees the benefit and thinks that this is going to be the the biggest thing ever. And I know that you got that. I don't know if you're Are you able to share?
Yeah, so we have to kind of give you the you know, to the extent that I can some of the round dynamics, so we actually raised $1,075,000. So we set out to raise a million. That technically means that we were oversubscribed, which like in this world, that is such a strange world that's like,
it's a big deal. It's a big deal to have your cuz I just gave that example of if you go to raise a million, and it's like you get your first 250,000. And then it's crickets. It's really a struggle. But you guys had so many people interested. I mean, they were oversubscribed didn't even have to turn away money.
We did have to turn away money. Because you also have to recognize that with knowing your numbers is so important. I think that is a great lesson for factorial women, regardless of you know, if you're going to get investment for your business or not. But knowing your numbers is important and understanding again, the round dynamics like yes, it's really cool to be oversubscribed. Because again, this is like a weird startup world. But also understand that there is additional dilution that comes along with that. So you're not just trying to get more money for the sake of getting more money. It is really about having value added investors on your your cap table. So raise, you know, just over a million our lead investors, our true wealth ventures. So true wealth is a VC fund that's based in Austin, led by two amazing women partners, Carrie Rapp and Sarah brand. They are amazing. Carrie is on our board. We absolutely love them. I've actually known them both while I originally met Sarah, by way of you at an event that you did. And then I met Carrie through beam, which is a women's organization in Austin. So long before I had venture on my mind. And that gave us so much time to obviously get to know each other I saw them both as like hugely value added. So when they were interested, I was like I mean it was it was really a no brainer. And you know, they they do a really thorough diligence process. They're a What is it called? They're an impact fund. And so they really made sure that we were making a real impact. And I so appreciated that because I sometimes look at the landscape of what's happening. And I think it's it's snake oil, or that's not a great solution. And, you know, I don't know that every investor does like that level of of diligence. And so I really appreciated that in the process. In addition to true wealth ventures, we also have halogen ventures on our cap table, which is another women led fund. That's a fun led by Jesse Draper. They're based in LA and their consumer focus fund. And then we have Monique Nolte, who is an angel investor. And she's another prolific woman. She has a ton of tech experience, and she's based in Houston. So that's another kind of unusual thing about what we've done is that we have almost all women on our cap table, which feels sort of like historical.
It is it's amazing. Like it's literally newsworthy, and almost sad that it's newsworthy, because it shouldn't be such a big deal. But I have seen a lot of people raise funding, and I haven't done any of them to have female lead investors to even start if there's a female focused venture fund in the round. Yeah. I mostly know women who raise money. So that just goes to tell you something. Also, yes, to Kerry Rep. And Sarah brand. They are so incredible in this Austin Community. And I met them early on from moving here from New York and just wanting to get a lay of the land of the entrepreneurial and startup realm, and they give so much back to this community. It's crazy. So I love that they get it and that they are a part of flourish. So I guess my next question is, you raise a million dollars, what are you going to do with it? Where does that money go? What are some of the milestones?
Yeah, so I kind of look at our goals as twofold. And I have to like zoom way out because it can get super overwhelming if I get too caught up in the day to day at least right now. I look at our goals is number one is of course to grow. And number two is to to learn and then to grow more as a result of those learnings. So kind of thinking about what do we need to do those two things, a lot of it will be about hiring and getting the right people in place in order to ensure that growth. So we brought on our CTO full time. He's amazing, Dwayne Mian. He's the former CTO of Camp Gladiator. We love him. We have a head of growth coming on board at the end of the month. Her name's Emily. She's actually a former member, which is epic. We have a digital content manager, Aliyah. And we also brought on a part time social media and community coordinator. Her name is Carly. And then we just brought on I think she started last week or the week before a part time product manager who's Kelly, who is a factorial grad. So it's all it's all full circle. That's how I met I met Kelly through factoria. And so you know, again, of course, we've got to pay our people, and then the rest of it honestly, will be put towards growth, whether that's paid marketing, partnerships, of course, to some extent, you know, continuing to build our technology, things like that.
Amazing. Well, I feel like having gone through this experience and being so fresh off the fundraising trail, what advice do you have for women who are even considering raising venture funding, and then all the way through? If you do, I guess the number
one thing I would say, and I have some notes here, number one is to really own the process. This was advice that I got from a mentor David Mandel. So that looks like certainly knowing your numbers. Knowing how this works. Again, a book that I'll recommend to everyone is called venture deals, I think I literally have three copies, because I've been sent it like from like accelerators and giveaways and things like that. It's Sara also recommended it to me, way back in the day. So you have to know how this world works, you have to know what incentives your investors are interested in so that you know how they work. So okay, on the process, know your numbers, staying super organized, as well as a huge part of owning the process. So again, building out your investor pipeline, there's so much pre work involved, if you want to have a really tight fundraising process, which I would recommend that you do, because it's going to drag on no matter what. And you want to eliminate as much of that, you know, kind of drag on processes as you can. So be really tight about your your email, communications, your follow up, stay really organized on your pitch deck revisions, there's lots of tools and things like that stay organized and creating your data room. And then I would just say plan ahead in terms of your runway. So your runway is basically like how many months you have to live until you run out of money. And just expect that your fundraise is going to take longer than expected, especially if you're raising in the summer, I thought that was a myth. It's not it's true, people really do go on vacations, and they really do not email you back. And like every week that someone's on a vacation is is a week of your runway, right. So especially if you're raising the summer, especially if you're raising during the holidays, it's going to take longer than you think it will. And when you are in a place where your runway is low, you have less leverage, right, you're more desperate. So that's when you're going to start to take on, you know, potentially that you could take on the wrong investors because you have no no ground to stand on. Okay, so that's all about owning your process, I have a lot of tips, because I'm just like, again, I'm so fresh on this, I'm so fresh on
growing, these are great. I love even the seasonal aspect. I mean, I can relate to that. Because factor, we only run a wall circle and spring and fall because we do not believe that people want to be paying attention to their money in the summer, they want to spend it and they want to deal with it back Back to School season that
is so and it's true of investment dollars as well. So that's a very real thing I thought was a myth. It's not a number two, I would say to just be prepared that this is a full time job. Because again, there is all this pre work, there's the administrative aspect, there's the follow up, you'd need to be you know, timely in your communications, you really want to be on top of it. But I would say even beyond just the time requirement of it, it will require your full range of emotions. I have had few times in my life that I've been as vulnerable as I have been in some of these pitch decks not because I'm like bearing all in telling my whole story. But because I've spent three years working on this company, and I'm asking you for money, in essence, really I'm giving you a huge opportunity for massive returns in the future. But still in that moment, right. It's It feels like asking for money, and you're gonna hear far more nose, then you're gonna hear yeses we heard I think over 50 nose before we got our first Yes. Get a great lawyer, get a great startup lawyer who you trust who's going to answer all of your questions, who's going to help you work through all this like legal jargon nonsense, because you will not know what most of it means and that's okay. But you need to know who to go to. And that needs to be someone that you can trust. And then number four is to recognize that fundraising isn't for every business. In fact, it's not for most businesses, like the vast majority of businesses. And you know, something that I remind myself of all the time, especially like this exact moment because yes, we're celebrating it is a major milestone, especially the way that the odds are so sort of stacked against us. It's a huge milestone, and yes, it's a source of external validation. But ultimately, it's all about the value that you provide for your customers. That is like the ultimate metric of business success your customers that the earth whatever whatever your business impact is, that is still the most important thing regardless of investment or not.
I love it. I think this is all such great advice. The part that stood out to me that I want to ask more about is handling the nose. I mean, I almost feel like as women, it's really hard to thicken your skin sometime when you're bearing at all. I mean, factor is everything to me and I am damn sure of this mission and wanting to make sure I achieve it. So I can imagine myself in your shoes, trying to say, I need this money so I can go off and do this mission. And to get that no, no, no, is basically saying I don't believe in you and your mission. So how do you handle that? How did you? How did you go from no to No, yeah,
it was it was really hard. I'm not gonna lie and like, especially when you're just in a stretch of nose, it is so intensely just, it's it's so challenging. And and yeah, you'd be begin to doubt yourself, you get a ton of imposter syndrome. Also, you're having to like literally go from pitch to pitch and just like kind of snap out of it. And then be this like mission driven, inspiring CEO it is, there's just no way around it. It is really freaking hard. And clear noes are also a huge gift. Because a lot of investors will say not right now you're too early, and they'll kind of stringing you along. And that can be one of those things that again causes a round to drag on far longer than it needs to be. So even though those noes really stung, at least there was clarity. And so I was able to kind of look at it that way. And also I just kept telling myself every no I get is one step closer to a yes, we are not unique in the fact that it took 15 years to get a yes, in fact, I think the statistic is like most founders will take like 100 meetings or do 100 pitches before they get a yes. And so just knowing that was really was really helpful, because I just knew, okay, this is gonna like buckle up, this is going to be a long process. Amos, our TechStars Managing Director also said, and I forget where he got this from. But he said, most founders will basically like run out of steam fundraising before they actually exhaust all possible options. And so I just kept remembering that like, it's out there, I just have to find the right person. And I got as much feedback as possible from those nodes. And of course, I put it into action, where it made sense.
I think that's actually great advice that the quick No, or the clear No, is actually a benefit because it's getting you closer to the Yes, instead of the drag on situation. Any last advice for women who are maybe not even fundraising, but starting companies and you've got you've, you've done it all, like you've been the lifestyle business, you've been bootstrapped, you've raised a million dollars, and you've also got a big, impactful mission.
Yeah, I would say I guess if there's one thing that I can, I think, share with every business owner, and I'm by no means I've done a lot, but I've certainly haven't done it all. And I could like literally talk about this stuff all day. That's how you and I end up talking for way too long. Most times, understand your core values and know that your core values are ultimately going to become your business values. And at any point, if you feel that your business or your investors or what you're doing is running up against your values, it is the wrong thing to do. So I really encourage all founders, I think I tweeted this the other day to like, whenever you're getting ready to make a big decision, applying to an accelerator, getting into an accelerator, you know, saying saying yes to funding, making a huge pivot in your business. Slow down, check yourself, make sure it's coming from not just your gut, you know, hopefully, it's a data driven decision. I'm big on that now, especially as a result of TechStars. Make sure it's not coming from your ego. And again, make sure it's aligned with with your core values. And I would say that's been kind of my my guiding light over the last three years.
I love that so much. We are actually in the place of the wild circle where everyone just determined their values, which is so funny, because I really do think that we have so many women who are like, this is my favorite exercise. I wanted to do something ooey gooey and understand my core values. And then we have definitely a slew of women who are like, how is this financially related? I don't want this fluffy stuff, give me the spreadsheet. But you are sitting here validating the whole point of why we do this. You have to use your values as a filter for your life. So if you don't know clearly what is important to you, how can you make any decision decision whether it's a purchasing decision of a new car or a financial investment decision or a business change? You need to go back to something and I agree the gut is important, but the gut is really those values. So what are they write them down, make sure you can turn it Look at them and understand them so that you can use them as filtration for that decision that you need to make
100% Amen.
Well Pruitt, it's been a blast. Thank you for sharing this incredible milestone with the coffee and coin Podcast. I am rooting for you. I hope there are some women in their cars right now if we even drive anymore banging on their steering wheel for you because what you did is a big freakin deal. And you're at the beginning and I want to see all women flourish. So I love your business very much. We are very aligned.
Love it. Thank you so much. And yeah, if anyone wants to reach out with questions I obviously love talking about this stuff. And fundraising is something that I'm newly very passionate about. So holler.
Where should they reach out? Should we link your Twitter as well? Are you are you a tweeter now? You said I'm
a tweeter now I mean, I'm deep in the startup world Yeah, I'm it's clear seagull on Twitter, and on Instagram, which is where I spend honestly still more time Claire underscore Segal so oh, you know where to find me can put in the show notes. We'll link
it all. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode, come join us in a while circle. It's our live online 12 week course and community where we teach you how to create a personalized financial plan alongside hundreds of other women building wealth. It will change your life and your money for good. You can apply at factorial wealth.com forward slash wealth circle. That's factorial wealth.com forward slash wealth circle. See you in the next episode.