The Social Entrepreneur podcast is for aspiring and early-stage social entrepreneurs; and for those who want to make an impact on the world. Stories about the grand challenges in the world and the solutions that they are creating. Listen to the interview on Stitcher or Soundcloud or download it on iTunes. Links to the talks and companies mentioned in the interview: 1st Fledge Demo Day, 50 years...
As nascent markets turn into established and proven industries, there comes a critical moment when the time is right for consolidation and scale. For clean cookstoves, that moment seems to be quickly approaching, if not already here. Five years ago was clearly too soon. Five years ago, the UN Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves was born, setting a goal of 100 million stoves by 2020. From...
The last time I presented at an event for investors, the first five people all asked me the same question, “Any exits yet?” The more years I spend focusing on revenue-based investing, the more that question is getting on my nerves. Perhaps some of that is on me, as the talks I give are generally titled “Investing without Exits” or “Alternative Exits” or...
Way back in 1991, Geoffrey Moore’s now seminal Crossing the Chasm taught the startup community how to jump over the chasm between the early adopters and early majority customers. It’s a great book that I wish I could recommend far more often. That is a wish rather than a commonplace occurrence as well before that chasm comes another, larger gap. The “pioneer gap“, also...
What is the story with the unicorns? Is there a tech investment bubble? What on earth is going in in the venture investing world? The short answer is that we’re at a crux of a paradigm. The paradigm wrapped around investing venture capital in startups. Few people I talk to know that venture capital, as practiced today, is a fairly new concept. People instead assume...
The U.S. State Department sends delegations to visit Fledge every month or two. We’ve had visitors from: Norway, Albania, Poland, Romania, and Switzerland; Oman, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Jordon; Mexico, Brazil, and Columbia; Bangladesh and Pakistan, and more. The delegates that visit are typically either social entrepreneurs or working for (typically government sponsored) organizations...
My morning today includes 18 pitches at the quarterfinals of Social Venture Partners Seattle’s Fast Pitch competition. 18 first-time entrepreneurs, each with just five minutes and no Q&A, hoping to impress the judges enough to make it to the semi-finals. It’s a tough format. 40 judges in auditorium seating in a University of Washington classroom. 40 judges staring down on the...
In the last post, I talked about how revenue-based investments are a lower cost of capital than traditional equity. In this post, as promised, I’ll explain how they also better align the the incentives of investor with the entrepreneur. To start with, always remember to put yourselves in the other person’s shoes when raising money. Investors invest to make a positive return on their...
Revenue-based investments are quite uncommon in startup investing, and as such, few entrepreneurs and few investors understand their benefits. The traditional form of startup capital is equity, with investors expecting a “10x” return on their investment, i.e. they expect that the company will be acquired for a sufficient amount that the investment will earn the investor at least 10...
Just about every post I write comes from a conversation with an entrepreneur or fellow investor. Same with almost every chapter in every one of The Next Step series of books I’ve published. When the same topic keeps coming up, I write it down so I don’t have to explain for the third time to the next entrepreneur who asks. When is the best time to launch your company? Have you...
