#lionscage

[gimmetinnitus]

Good one tonight at the @bkbazaar cellar #lionscage #seminals #ppl #deathdealer (at Brooklyn Bazaar)

[picryl]

Charlie Chaplin — The Lion’s Cage. The circus. 

[rjmadonna]

View this post on Instagram

The Circus. 1928 ~ #CharlieChaplin #LionsCage #TheCircus

[startupmumblr]

The 10 Types of Investors

It's been a solid mixture of bloody boring and super exciting doing this investment round, and I can't bemoan the skills I am picking up along the way. What's been really fascinating is the attitude people take with you - those looking to put a little less in, or that know you are twice as sceptical as those that have seen you at an event they respect, despite never having met you before. And so it is, that the money being offered to support our Startup Dream is now coming in thick and fast, offers left right and centre - I am proud to say we have more offers than we have money we want to raise, and as such are in a situation we never would have predicted - choosing our investors.

It seems there are many types of investors;

1) The first type is the overly "positive investor". Usually they are a newer investor, just excited to have an opportunity to support you, and they take pride in discovering you as an opportunity. No matter what you do, this investor has decided you guys are going to go far, your business is a savvy investment and as such, he will speak nothing but positively about even the mistakes you have made. Ask a question and he's there in seconds to help you out. Highlight a mistake and he'll tell you a 100 reasons why its insignificant to your progress elsewhere. Unequivocally, this type of investor, whilst hard to find, is out there and does wonders for your self belief. Try to find at least one of these.

2) The second type is the "negative investor". The person who tells you that the reason they want to invest is because he can see how much you might do wrong, what went wrong on other investments he's made, how many things can go wrong, why they go wrong, and inevitably, why you, without his help, will be wrong about everything. Say something intelligent that everyone else thinks is a valid point? He'll find the one thing wrong with your statement. There is certainly room for this kind of investor - but it can be grating, damaging to morale, and usually they position themselves so as to mentally assert their pedigree and quality, and inevitably tell you why you need to offer them a better rate, or "sweetener" that no one else should have. It's actually good to work with people like this because they will look for all your mistakes before you make them, and that's a good thing - but it's still a negative experience, so you need to be really sure they can genuinely add value to your business before agreeing terms with them, as they will always be difficult, and could even complicate your exit strategy.

3) The third is the "Tech Investor". This is always an interesting one, as they generally possess a mixture of positivity for your opportunity, hesitance due to their expertise in the field of growing fresh businesses, and awareness of how they can help you. The great thing about the tech investor is that usually, if you can get in front of the right one, they are meeting you for one MAJOR reason: They have invested in other companies within their portfolio that can support you, and have identified ways you can support them. This is a very common theme, and if I were providing advice to anyone who was looking for tech investment from a tech investor, and was great at using LinkedIn then it would be to think about what other areas your business can add direct value to your long term strategy within your industry, find out who invested in them, and hunt down that person. They will not only be impressed with your tenacity, they will want to explore the opportunity. This is the best type of investor - they have usually done it all before, have lots of contacts, don't want complicated terms or to make things difficult for you as they understand that is detrimental to all, and will do everything in their power to introduce you to everyone they can, because if they do that well, he is more likely to get multiple exits and become many times richer, than if just one of his portfolio companies do well. This is a great person to know.

4) The fourth is the "speculative investor". This is someone who, quite simply, really doesn't know anything about the space, anything about what you are doing, invests in solid, quantifiable safe investments, and is basically meeting you on a hunch, and is really looking to be sold by you. He has nothing to add to your proposition but money, but will definitely try to make himself stand out from the crowd, mostly because he doesn't want to come across as a rookie. One way or another, you will identify this type of investor immediately, so you will need to decide whether just taking the money is enough.

5) The fifth is the "money/tax efficient" investor. This one is really simple; big tax bill, tax breaks on investing, doesn't really give two shits what you do but would rather burn some money on a punt, than pay the tax man. Fair enough - this is not such a bad thing, he will basically give you the money and run, and you wont have to speak to him again until you exit, so it has its merits - the definite plus side is that they will leave you to just get on with your business.

6) The "done it all before" investor. This guy has been in your shoes, and can definitely add tons of value, but you will have to work your arse off, regularly, to keep him happy. He knows how hard it is to get investment, he knows how hard it is to be a success, and run a business, and he is going to help you, but in a very analytical, and sometimes obstructive way. The more successful he was, the more likely he will be asking you for weekly reports, and providing feedback non stop. This is a fantastic opportunity for outsider advice you cant buy to help you grow but can be a huge distraction during busy times, and they will make themselves feel like your most important investor, at all times.

7) The "ex banker" investor. This is quite often a good one, if they understand what you are doing. Many have more money than sense, but the good ones have lots of money and even better sense. If you are fortunate enough to spend time with one of these, and my advice is don't just take the money from someone like this, really get to know them for at least one long solid meeting, then you can strike lucky. The one thing they will confidently tell you is that they have tons of rich friends, powerful friends, and will give you access to money in a later investment round. This is what you want to hear. This isn't an arrogant statement - this is, in fact, them negotiating with you. They know they are up against tech investors, entrepreneurial investors and so forth, but they want to sell why they should have an investment opportunity too - and money is as good a reason as any. Always try to have at least ONE investor with access to money for later stage funding.

8) The "I believe in you guys" investor. This is someone who doesn't actually care what you are doing, he just thinks that one way or another you, your business partner, and your passion for making something of yourself will eventually work out. Look at Michael Acton Smith. The guy did well setting up many businesses but most came close to failing, even the cool Firebox brand didn't do as well as investors hoped. Yet his investors though he had something special and kept putting back into him. He eventually created Mind Candy and Moshi Monsters (in a completely new field to anything he had done before) and has turned it into a global phenomenon. Some investors just care that they back the right people, so make sure you are always coming across genuine, and passionate. You wont know if you are onto a goldmine now until you look back in 20 years, but if your energy is addictive and your enthusiasm is enticing enough, you will attract investors to you regardless of your idea.

9) The "when do I get my dividend" investor. This is someone who hasn't paid much attention to what you have said, is looking at investing in a few startups, and really cares about short term gains, and wont ever get their head around your product, vision, or opportunity for exit. My advice on these ones is to forget about them immediately.

10) The "These are all the things I can do for you" Investor. This is a tricky one - usually they will spend a lot of time selling their services, network, contacts, experience, etc and then one of 2 things is likely to happen. The first is that actually, they will start gently telling you about all the mentoring they do, and how they can help you, and you will slowly but surely realise they are not an investor, dont really have any liquid cash, and are actually trying to pitch you for business. This takes a while to clock onto as it seems pretty unlikely, but it certainly is a wind up once the penny drops! The second, is that they will probably offer you to join their incubator/leadership programme/"insert startup acceleration name here" type operation. Usually this comes at a much higher value to them in terms of equity stake VS real attributable value, but it's not to be ignored. It can, in fact, provide a lot of value to your business, so long as you aren't precious about your equity. 

Which we are...

So there you have it - from doing 2 rounds of investments, entering and winning competitions, and meeting over 50 investors - I feel I have only scratched the surface, and yet seem to have accidentally written a short novel on it. If you have ever got to the end of this post - congratulations, and I hope it provides some value. 

If you need any investment tips, introductions, advice - hit me up on twitter @murraymuzz and I'll gladly help!

[startupmumblr]

Winners

So it begins, the winning streak. After what has been a pretty bloody positive couple of weeks, we came, we saw, we conquered.

Lion's Cage was a competition that required 2 previous rounds, some feedback, and eventually - we smashed it. That may sound arrogant, but after what were some very good pitches by competitors, the investors not only spoke up, but the audience too. Our rating with the audience was especially high who, through a platform called sli.do, could vote in real time. 

We managed to hit a 65% rating of "4/5", with about 15% on "5/5" and the remainder mostly coming up with "3/5". One bastard voted "1/5". To gain some perspective, no other company received more than 40% with "4/5". 

Now for the investor's point of view; I'll put it this way... One investor, Colin, gave every single company 1/5 (he was a pretty harsh man). He gave us "5/5". So we love good old Colin. The others gave us a particularly strong response - one "3.5" (because he doesn't believe in backing B2C businesses), and four "4/5"s.

Anyway - the prize was free legal from Taylor Wessing who have been very active in requesting our services since Wednesday. I am a proud man to say that we currently have the top 3 Tech Legal firms fighting each other for our business, rather aggressively. We are receiving 3 competitive rates and the offer of some additional free work, simply because they want to represent us with a view to a big VC round. It makes us feel special. Don't get me wrong, I know a sales pitch when I see one, but these lawyers will be losing a lot of money taking our measly fee for the amount of work required to get our complicated investment round through. 

The long and short of it is that since January, everything has started coming up roses thick and fast. To list the number of business successes we have had that go beyond simply winning on Wednesday night would just become gratuitous but the at the moment things could not be going more smoothly. We've even made 2 more official hires to the team, starting from next week, growing to a full time team of 6.

So, with our investment round continuing to bear fruit, our commercial partnerships driving forward at great momentum, our app agency hired, and the release of our first Android app planned for late March, not to mention bringing on board one of the UK's most influential bloggers to the team, and finally having a team of top quality developers we can rely on.. I am looking forward to getting a good night's sleep. At some point. I still woke up at 5 am, as routine, and worried about everything for 2 hours before getting out of bed. 

However, I will take a bad night sleep if every day continues to provide such promise.... Fingers crossed for the next 3 months - I'm starting to get really excited about it all.

[startupmumblr]

Yes and no

That's been our week. Lots of "yes", lots of "no". I guess the good news is, one way or another, we have been busy making so much progress, so many intros and pitches that we can afford to take the "nos" as and when they come. Since the last post we have done around 6 pitches. From that we have had 3 "yes" and 3 "no". I think if we kept a 50% conversion rate on investments, given that our minimum is £10,000, we'd be happy boys. However, some of the nos have been very hard to take. Following a 60 question form, for which each answer was an essay, we were eventually turned down by Seedcamp. Our problem, which we already knew but hoped wouldn't matter, was that they had already invested in a competitor. Ultimately, despite 2 personal recommendations from judges we happened to know, their final decision was that it would be unwise to back a competitor of an existing portfolio company. We respect their decision, but didn't take it lightly. From our perspective we have a superior product, realized much faster with better growth opportunities. But you know what? We're also severely biased. The next no was simply an incubator and once again, because they back a fellow portfolio company. If this continues to be the reason we receive nos, I won't be too disheartened, because these people are blunt with feedback. Our product, vision and team feedback has been second to none, and so these rejections are actually quite easy to take. So, it's best to concentrate on the yes men. Well, we have had 3 investors commit into our round in the last week, taking our running total beyond £150k for this round, meaning we have only £100k left to raise (although Joel and I do consider that we might want to raise £300k, just in case). I am currently writing this before we go for 2 more conversations/ presentations. This afternoon we have a call with "Zag" which is creative advertising giant BBH's investment arm, which should be interesting. The second is at Lions Cage, on stage in front of a room of investors. If I were a gambling man I'd be pretty excited given our current form, but you can't keep 50-50 odds forever... Fingers crossed for later, let's see how long this streak lasts...

[cuaqea]

MDirector ofrecerá una cuenta premium de su herramienta de email Marketing al ganador del Primer Lionscage Madrid

Tenemos novedades!

  En el primer Lionscage Madrid organizado por cuaQea que tendrá lugar el 06/02/2014 en el Salón de Actos del Vivero de Vallecas (Calle Diligencia, 9) contaremos con la participación de MDirector, plataforma de email marketing profesional para gestionar bases de datos y fidelizar a clientes mediante campañas de email.

  MDirector es una empresa del Grupo Antevenio, una empresa que lleva 16 años operando en marketing interactivo, fue la primera pyme de Internet en cotizar en bolsa fuera de España, en Alternext París (NYSE-Euronext). El Grupo cuenta con diferentes unidades de negocio y una de ellas MDirector.

  MDirector le proporcionará al ganador del concurso de pitches una cuenta premium con 50.000 envíos de emails al mes. De esta manera, el ganador de Lionscage Madrid tendrá la oportunidad de gestionar su base de usuarios y canalizar la comunicación con sus bases de datos a través de email marketing y sms de forma sencilla. La herramienta facilita la creación y gestión de campañas y a la vez ofrece un completo reporte que analiza la efectividad de los envíos.

  La plataforma original fue creada en español por un grupo de desarrolladores expertos en email marketing y ya está traducida al inglés, francés e italiano. Además de la ventaja idiomática que supone para el mercado hispano, la versión gratuita de MDirector.com ofrece realizar 5.000 envíos de forma gratuita a 5.000 contactos. También tiene funcionalidades extra para usuarios de la versión gratuita, como los test A/B, que los clientes pueden realizar desde el primer día. 

  MDirector adopta el modelo freemium con el objetivo de dar un salto cualitativo en su base de clientes tales como PYMEs, después de demostrar su capacidad de generar ingresos y ser rentable con un producto sólido, incubado dentro del Grupo Antevenio, una de las compañías nacionales pioneras en email marketing, con más de 16 años de experiencia en captación de bases de datos y envíos.

  Queremos darle las gracias a Rubén Calvo y al equipo de MDirector por este acuerdo y apoyo a las startups, a los cuáles tendréis la oportunidad de conocer en el evento Lionscage Madrid.

[startupmumblr]

HOW do you know?

The last 7 days has provided some interesting insight into the startup fundraising world. We haven't been successful on 100% of our pitches so far for investment, but 95% of them, wouldn't be too far from the truth. This is nothing like raising funds the first time around, at this point we have added to our original pitch - user growth, market validation, an impressive client list including ASOS, Topshop and Burberry, and a strong, growing social media following. We have created a 5 minute 'super pitch' which is starting to paint a nice picture for investors without taking up too much of their time.

At the end of December, Angel Lab had contacted us to say we were successful and could pitch them. This provided, at the time, pretty much our only lifeline to fund out £80K round required to keep us going. Then something strange happened, and the offers started pouring in, angels that had invested already were introducing us to others, and at present we have a very strong list of meetings lined up to add to those we have already executed.

In fact, of our initial £80K round, we have now had offers of anywhere between £150 - £200k. We even presented the exact same 5 minute pitch yesterday to "Lion's Cage" another group of established Angel investors and the first response to come back in 'feedback' was: "I have no feedback, that was perfect, you guys are highly investable, well practiced, sound brilliant, the company is at a great stage, I think that's the best 5 minute pitch I've ever heard, and this is the first time I don't have negative feedback'. 

The other investors on the line were equally positive, in fact the only 'comment' anyone could offer was "Take more money because that's the only thing stopping this going brilliantly'. These were encouraging words - we have follow up meetings individually with all 4 of these investors, who followed up in under a minute as 4 separate emails hit our inbox to meet them immediately - this week if we could.

And so, whilst our fundraising continues at full steam I suppose it's crucially important to remember that you will have set backs, people will ignore you, laugh you out the room, tell you your product is shit etc, but the only thing to do is find more people to speak to because, it turns out, you may just be on to a winner....