Venture Financing & the Dating Game

After having now gone through a few rounds of fundraising for Divvy, I noticed that the venture funding process is comparable to the dating game.

In the world of tech startups, the typical funding round progression goes like this: Seed Round, Series A Round, Series B, Series C, etc.  A Seed Round is typically the easiest to procure.  A founding team of entrepreneurs uses their seed funding to take an already built alpha or beta product (i.e., prototype) to market and show proof of concept, or in some cases, the seed funds are used to build the initial product (or if you worked at Twitter, you can raise millions of dollars across multiple rounds of funding, without even launching). 

The Series A round might be the most difficult to procure.  I don’t know what the actual statistic is, but given that 27% of statistics are made up on the spot, I’m going to say that 75% of the time, the seed-funded startup doesn’t make it to its A round (3 of my good [and incredibly smart] friends just shut the doors on their startups after a few years of hard work, and I only have 1 friend who has raised his A & B).  However, when the company does make it through the next phase, the Series A is raised once the business has effectively used its seed capital by showing proof of concept and receiving some level of traction in the market.

Given that the company has succeeded in the eyes of most and the business model is proven, there is more clarity on how the Series A funds should be utilized; so, with those funds, the company scales and proves its value proposition further by acquiring more customers and generating more revenue.  In time, the company will naturally have interested investors in its Series B round, often with the Series A investors leading or co-investing in the subsequent round.

The reason this process that seems so boring from the outside looking in is actually quite interesting and analogous to the dating process is that it is just like the number that Ryan Gosling did on Steve Carrell in the movie Crazy, Stupid Love to get him back in the game.

1) The Seed Round is the capital you use to get set up.  You get a nice haircut, you get a tan (if you’re from LA or NYC), you get some pimpin’ shoes, fitted jeans, a sportcoat and other items that may enhance your steez. Once you get your “product” ready to rock, you showcase it to the girls/investors to see if there is any interest on their part in getting involved.  With the appearance of potential success and the “audacity of zero” (See The Lean Startup by Eric Ries), there often is interest to take it to the next phase.

2) Skipping to the Series B Round…The Series B is akin to a guy that already has a gorgeous girlfriend.  Other girls take notice and want to get involved.  Similarly, if Kleiner Perkins did your Series A and you went out and got a boatload of traction, Sequoia and Kleiner may each be vying for you to sign their term sheet for the Series B, just as a group of girls at a lounge might vie for your attention, if Cristiano Ronaldo’s girlfriend, Irina Shayk, was on your arm (Note: Cristina Ronaldo is well funded).

3) The Series A, unfortunately, is often that in-betweener.  You have a decent looking product, but not enough going for you to have a lot of interest from other girls/investors.  And so, you either pivot your business model (e.g., change your look and see if girls like you more as a hipster) or undergo a firesale (e.g., just take what you can get and go on Match.com or, if you prefer algorithm-based solutions, eHarmony)…or you cut your losses and shut your doors (e.g., go back to your ex-girlfriend or join the priesthood).

And that is why fundraising is so much like blocking and tackling through the dating game.  If you have any questions or comments about capital raising, feel free to email me directly.  If you have any questions or comments about dating / soliciting interest from the uninterested, please email my colleague Omar at bizdev@paydivvy.com.

-Mike

Social Financing: Monetizing Your Network (…and Angel List)

In the last year and change, PayDivvy has raised approximately $1.3 million in funding for our social payments platform. When it came to supporting the business financially, I utilized what I refer to as “social financing” across several platforms in order to fuel the flame that was PayDivvy a couple years ago into the fire that is PayDivvy today. By social financing, I mean the act of tapping into one’s social relations in order to raise capital for a business.

It is imperative that you utilize all resources available to you and leverage any strong relationships you have with others, as I attempted to do. PayDivvy’s investment capital came from accomplished entrepreneurs, investment professionals, public company executives and other seasoned angel investors that I met throughout my career in investment banking and private equity. We also received an invaluable amount of capital in the form of incubation services from The Wharton School and one of our seed investors, as well as the awesome resources made accessible by Angel List. It is across these platforms that I was able to cash in social credits for capital in order to finance our business.

Here I offer up a few takeaways to those that are considering delving into the world of entrepreneurship.

Work Hard, Leverage Your Resources, and Don’t Be Afraid to Ask

Most of the capital I raised for PayDivvy was either contributed by a former boss or co-worker or a contact of a former boss or co-worker. I spent several years working 80+ hour weeks in investment banking and private equity, and while I may have always known in the back of my mind that each job was merely a stepping stone, I treated each as if it were the last job I would ever have. I made countless personal sacrifices (e.g., missing family events, spending less time with friends and girlfriends, not taking vacations, and rarely having free weekends), but I never regretted it, because I was confident that it would yield dividends in the future.

If you are confident that you did work your tail off and deliver consistently, you should realize that you have incidentally created a vast pool of social credits. Think of all the people you went to school with, all the mentors you had at past jobs, all the clients you served, all the advisors you worked with, all the friends you had to RSVP “no” to because you were working that weekend… Trust me, they made note of your efforts and commitment and haven’t forgotten that you are a talented individual that also works harder than the next guy. Whether or not you have done a great job at keeping in touch with those individuals, reach out to them…not for money, but for feedback. When you tell them what you are up to, if they were impressed by you historically and are financially capable, they will make the first move. I never actually solicited a former co-worker for capital; I simply kept them up to speed with what I was working on and they proactively asked if they could participate in the financing of the venture.

Sometimes, however, your contacts will not ask, as they feel like they may be imposing. In this case, just take a stab and ask them. It will not adversely affect your relationship with them, one way or the other. The unfortunate aspect of raising money from your contacts is that you have to swallow your pride somewhat and put your hand out to those closest to you. The good thing is that you’re not starting from scratch but are rather riding the momentum of your own hard work, achievement and positive impact on others; so, while it is a sales process, you can act more as if you are mentioning the opportunity and subsequently allowing them to express interest or to offer to reach out to those who may be interested.

So again…Work hard, leverage the resources available to you, and don’t be afraid to ask. There is little to no downside in doing any of these three things.

Start Early, Stay Organized, and Develop Champions

With the exception of a few cases I have seen, it will always take longer than you think it will. If you think it will take you 2 months to start and close, assume 4-5 months. Get everything geared up (e.g., your investor deck, your financial model, your potential investor list) and get started. Your investor deck will morph based on feedback as you progress through the process, so don’t hoard your deck because you think it needs a couple more tweaks. Also, you better have a well thought out financial model, and you better understand every assumption you made in that model; while few investors will actually expect those numbers to play out, not having obsessed over your model shows that you haven’t given much thought to actually turning your set of cool features into a real business. At the end of the day, your financial model is your business plan.

Also, keep everything organized in a spreadsheet or your preferred means of organization. I maintained a running spreadsheet of the investors that I reached out to, who I sent the deck to, who they sent the deck to, whether they expressed interest, what their potential commitment could be, what their likely commitment would be, etc. The list grew from 5 potential investors to 30 by the end of the process, and 20 of those investors participated. This is a high hit rate, but because I worked hard, leveraged my resources and wasn’t afraid to ask (or bug the sh*t out of people), I was able to convert most potential investors into actual investors.

Also, be prepared and don’t take it personally…but people are flaky. You may reach out to 5 people, and all 5 say that it “looks interesting” and they “may be looking to commit a few hundred thousand or so.” At the end of the day, 1 may come through, and he or she will commit a third of what they originally indicated. It has little to do with your idea or you; it often is a matter of general human laziness and apprehension or that investor’s personal situation. Almost everyone will say that they are interested, but trying to get a signed check out of their pocket is a different story. If everyone committed the amount they initially told me they wanted to commit, we would’ve been 4x oversubscribed with moderate effort. Additionally, a lot of angel investors will take month-long vacations, or they may think that a $50k investment in a seed stage startup simply isn’t a major priority. Or, maybe he or she is about to have a kid, maybe they have a liquidity restraint or tax issue, maybe a family member suddenly passed away, etc.

Our round was oversubscribed going into our closing, but one of our largest investors had a parent pass away the day before the closing. Then, a club of investors from the East Coast asked for an extra week to create an investment vehicle to pool their capital. During that week, the investor that was the core of that club got married and went on his honeymoon. When he returned, he got burned on an existing seed investment and thus decided that he wasn’t comfortable making another seed investment. Because he fell out, the entire group came unraveled, and we went from being 2x oversubscribed to having a 25% shortfall on the day of closing. Then, enter Angel List, which I will get to shortly.

In my opinion, the key to a successful fundraising is something that Jody Sherman from EcoMom said to Mark Suster in This Week In #39: “develop champions” (i.e., those who believe in you). If you think that you are going to raise $1m from 10 unrelated people, you are mistaken. You are going to raise $100k from 2 key people, who end up bringing in your entire round for you. We had 20 investors in our round that were organized into a few groups: my former co-workers, and clients, my entrepreneur contacts, and of course, the Angel List cohort. All you need to do is focus on those people who truly believe in you and any idea you are involved with; they will in turn bring with them their massive pool of resources and capital. So, identify your champions and leverage them. They are the ones that are willing to vouch for you, and you are going to need a lot of vouching if you are managing a seed stage startup without significant traction.

Utilize the Incredible Startup Platforms at Your Disposal

So, let’s say you’ve done all of the above. You’ve worked hard over the years and built up goodwill. You’ve leveraged your network and their resources, and you’ve sacked up and asked your contacts for money. You’ve started early, stayed organized, and identified and leveraged your champions. Unfortunately, even all of that may not get it done. If it doesn’t, you can’t be too upset about it, because you tried your best and utilized almost every resource at your fingertips. However, don’t neglect some of the most powerful platforms out there: your university’s incubator program, Y-Combinator, TechStars, Angel List, etc.

By far, the most accessible of these is Angel List. I admit that I was skeptical at first. After all, I worked so hard in college, in my professional career, and in graduate school. Why would I need to use this Angel List network to raise money for a solid idea being implemented by a strong team? Swallow your pride, because it’s not a matter of “needing” it. You can utilize it, and so you should. Nivi and Naval are preeeetty smart guys. I trust they know what they’re doing.

Because of my skepticism, I jumped into the AL game a bit late. My round was already oversubscribed, and it wasn’t until things wavered that I decided to give Angel List a shot. I was referred by a long-time friend, Matt Mireles, who I went to high school with and who later founded SpeakerText, a cool tech company that uses automated technology and crowdsourcing to bring video SEO to a new level. Matt and his mohawk were one of the earlier teams that went out on Angel List, and he suggested that I correspond with Nivi and Naval and utilize Angel List as well. After review, they decided to feature PayDivvy to their investor network.

Our first day after being featured, we had a couple dozen introduction requests, and that’s all we needed. One of those potential investors was a managing member of a prominent angel group, as well as an investor in LinkedIn and several other successful startups. We grabbed lunch in LA a few days later, and he asked if I was interested in an introduction to a C-level executive at a large payment company, who was interested in looking at PayDivvy as both an investment opportunity as well as a partnership opportunity. One thing led to another, and we were oversubscribed again a couple weeks following our initial closing, demonstrating how Angel List can expeditiously provide exposure and legitimacy as well as a new avenue for financing that may not be accessible via one’s personal network.

We ultimately closed on over $1m of capital and have a solid investor roster, and now that Labor Day has passed and investors have gotten back from their month-long vacations, it is time for us to kick off our Series A round, potentially with a little help from Angel List again. Good luck with your fundraising, everyone! Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

- Mike

Get Your Cash in a Flash!

We've been working hard to reduce processing time for all Bank Account and Bill Payments and we've done just that...Payment timing has been reduced across the board!

Payments to friends and family now only take 2-3 days to process, and payments made with a debit or credit card take less than a day. Payments to landlords and service providers now only take 5 days. PayDivvy is striving to make the best bill pay solution even better!

There is a lot more coming...

Our New Bill Pay is Live!

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Set up your bill in seconds to start getting Reminders. Pay your own bills or include roommates and family. Then use PayDivvy's recurring payments feature to ensure that you'll never have a late payment again - set it and forget it!

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PayDivvy imports e-bills in PDF and makes them easy for you to view. For the first time in the history of the internet you can view your statements, pay your bills, and split the bill with friends and family all in one place!

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Social Payment Etiquette

Yahoo! Associated Content 

Originally posted on here

You're out with 20 of your closest friends celebrating a friend's birthday. The drinks have been flowing since you arrived and everyone had something to eat. One friend ordered a steak, another a salad, another couple split a bottle of wine, while another person has been knocking back the shots. Everyone is having a great time laughing and sharing stories until the bill comes - $1500 for the group. Only a few people have cash and everyone else goes to throw in their credit card. Suddenly that fun evening out is becoming a headache of trying to figure out who owes what and how much tip everyone is going to leave. Plus, the restaurant will only allow you to split the bill among four credit cards. It's an experience we've all had at some point. So what do you do? Play credit card roulette? Divide the bill right then and there? Or have one person pick up the tab and collect from everyone else later?


Immediately Record What Everyone Owes

In this instance, it may be easier and quicker for one person to pick up the tab and collect from everyone later. If this happens, take the receipt and note what everyone ordered. Some groups of friends are fine equally splitting the bill while others want to pay their share to the penny, so keeping close track of who owes what and confirming the amounts with everyone before going your separate ways will save yourself potential hassle down the road. It also helps avoid a situation when a friend leaves less than their fair share for the bill. You can also take out your smartphone and divide and send everyone's portion of the bill before leaving the restaurant.


Rotate Who Pays the Bill

If you always find yourself stuck with the bill for your same group of friends, then agree on a payment rotation for your weekly dinner club or monthly happy hour and stick to it. Setting up an order of who pays when and making it a habit to follow the rotation will eliminate the awkwardness of deciding who pays the bill.


Use an Online Service

Manually keeping track of who owes what amount can be a nightmare. Spreadsheets aren't fun and hunting down your friends for their portion of the bill is time consuming and uncomfortable. To simplify the process, use an online service that does the work for you. Just enter the bill, add your friends, set the split and everything else should be taken care of automatically '" including sending payment reminders and notifying you when someone pays their bill.


Set Deadlines and Send Reminders

Set a firm payment deadline with your friends from the start and they will be more likely to pay you back. If you're using an online service, make sure automatic payment reminders are sent every day or two to an e-mail address your friends frequently check. For the really difficult friends who "disappear" when the mention of payment comes up, add interest to the amount they owe you for each day they're late paying.


Make It a Habit

Make this process your and everyone else's M.O. After you've found the online service that you like the best (and that automates all of the above for you), encourage your friends to join that service. By being on a common network, you have established a core method of reimbursement, which will facilitate the entire group payment process. Treat these situations as ones driven by habit '" regimented but nonchalant.
While collecting money from friends is never easy, these steps should help eliminate a lot of the awkwardness. Don't make a big deal out of group payments; just start utilizing a service that handles the ordeal for you and allows you to continue enjoying your time with your friends.

-Mike

Prepare the Youth for a Future of Fruitful Finances

We live in a time when borrowing to buy 'things' is only surpassed by borrowing to be educated, as noted in this Wall Street Journal article. The fact that financial literacy is not on our national high school or elementary school curriculum is befuddling. These facts add up to a sobering reality; the youth of the good'ol USofA are coming up in a society that buries them in debt and doesn't teach them how to avoid it, use it wisely, or climb out of it. We live in a "buy, borrow, earn, save" economy. Parents, mold your children's habits early in life, and give them the tools to be "earn, save, buy, borrow" success stories.

Everybody knows the basics of child financial education; open a savings account, let them earn an allowance, encourage them to save, teach them how to balance their accounts, blah blah blah. Although these lessons are essential building blocks to financial literacy, they will not give your child all of the tools they need to succeed.

Our economy is based on credit, as scary as a glimpse in the mirror may be, most Americans won't own their homes or cars until many years after they are purchased. So why are we afraid to teach our kids about credit, to expose them to credit, or even to let them fall into debt? Most young adults first exposure to credit is student-loans. This is one of the worst times to take on debt; focus and energies are on school and extra curricular activities, there is no time to earn a substantial income, and if you dedicate time to a job you're cutting yourself short in your primary objective of getting a higher education. Try adding your child as a cosigner to your credit card at an early age, and then let them make purchases with that card which must be paid off with allowance. This will familiarize them with interest rates, paying bills, saving enough allowance to make the payment, and most importantly it will give them a long credit history so that attaining cheap financing later in life is easy. If they fall too far into debt, let them struggle to get out, and then help them wipe the slate clean. It's a lesson they'll appreciate, remember, and be sure not to repeat later in life when it could be much more expensive.

In the same vein as credit exposure, teach your children how to value money. Money can be valued by how hard it is to earn or by how easy it is to give away. I learned a valuable lesson early in life. My father is in the car business, at 10 or so I started going to work with him in the summer to wash cars and move cars around the lot. I got paid a decent wage, and I remember how excited I was to get my first pay check. On the way home from work my dad told me that I was going to give at least half of the money I had earned to my mom when I got home. I had a mixed reaction to this. At first I felt like I had wasted time working for nothing, then I felt honored to be able to contribute to the family and do something nice for my mother, and the last lesson that sunk in, which I think is the lesson my father intended to stick was when I realized that money was earned to be spent and that I can always work harder to earn more. Commerce, the cycle of earning and spending, is the backbone of a healthy capitalist economy, don't raise a Commie.

Lastly, encourage your kids to utilize technology and online tools to manage their accounts. Online banking and bill pay will help them get organized and make them aware of their financial accounts. Have them check interest rates on their credit card each month, make payments ahead of the due date, and track charges and credits and then report their findings to you. Sites like PayDivvy make paying allowances simple, and offer the added bonus of an all-in-one bill pay solution.

As most parents know, kids learn by doing, not by being told. Put your kids in real world situations, give them the freedom to make mistakes, and teach them how to learn and recover from them.

I Do, Therefore I Divvy - Money and Marriage

For many couples getting ready to tie the knot, the idea of joining finances causes anxiety. The conversations surrounding how to arrange finances after marriage can be magnified when there are disparities in income, credit scores, family entitlements or outstanding debt. Nobody wants to get the raw end of a deal, especially during a time in life when so much is changing. To further exacerbate the issue, finding sound advice is difficult due to the fact that money is a personal matter in our society, and asking about how money is earned and allocated can be a faux pas.

Well, soon to be Married people, no need to fret. Adhere to the following principles and you will live happily ever after.

Start by internalizing the idea that finances in the course of marriage are both social and personal. This means that the money you make and the way in which you choose to spend it affects your personal wealth and your family's financial well being. This is a major departure from the days of singledom, in that you are obligated to work in cooperation with another person in order to keep your financial house tidy. However, this does not mean that financial independence is dead.

Create a plan that works for you. Prior to getting married, my wife (fiance at the time) and I spoke with a family friend who is an established estate planning attorney. His advice to us was a bit shocking, but we learned something valuable from it. He recommended that we keep our finances completely separate, file separately, keep our own bank accounts, split purchases as we agree but keep it documented, and ultimately have a very defined understanding of each person's financial contribution to the marriage. The driving force behind his recommendations is the fact that over 50% of marriages end in divorce, and splitting assets during a divorce is messy business. That approach at face value was much too pessimistic for my wife and me, but it got us thinking about our financial independence. Prior to the conversation with the estate planning attorney, I think we assumed that 'normal' would be to get married, throw all of our money in one bucket, and go from there.

We decided to each hold a personal checking account to which we allocate an 'allowance', and to open one joint account to which the majority of our income would go to pay bills and for savings. We reached this plan after realizing that we have very different spending habits; she might want to spend $8 a day at Starbucks, whereas I would rather blow $250 playing poker once a month. Her daily Starbucks habit might drive me crazy if I felt like it was coming from a community pot, and she might see my poker playing as wasteful. But since we decided to maintain personal accounts for discretionary spending, we are free to spend as we please and we maintain a sense of financial independence. Whether you decide to split everything down the middle, pay bills proportionally to each person's income, or keep completely separate finances; come up with a plan that allows each of you to be comfortable and happy while allowing you to achieve your financial goals together.

It's just money! So please don't fight over it. There are no steadfast rules when it comes to your marriage and your money, there are only principles and PayDivvy. Managing bills for two people and joint household bills is almost a full time job, PayDivvy really helps organize and streamline the process. Work together to find common ground, be fair, be loving, be compassionate, be generous, and communicate.