Mastering Investor Pitches (pt 2)

When assessing startups, look at the problem, look at the customer, and look at the market. The combination of those three categories will show you traction. There are many different definitions of traction. Whichever one you use, you’ll be in good shape. For today, we’ll go with: traction–your startup’s evidence of success within the market. 

So let’s talk about what traction looks like in a story: movement. 

Can you move people? Do people care about what you are doing? Do they sign up for more information? Do they gasp and smile once they “get” what you are doing? Do people want to give you money but can’t because you don’t have a product?

The more people you can move, and the more profoundly you can move those people, the more traction you have. This is the evidence investors look for in the context of problem, customer, and market. This is how investors identify opportunities.

Traction is the compelling force behind the story of your venture. In a presentation, the story is how you make traction matter. Here are some real investor stories of companies. Which do you find most compelling? 

“I am not a marketer or sales person, but with the few sales I have achieved, people come back and buy more. One in four customers returns and on average and buys 3x more the second time. Over half of our site’s new visitors come from entering the URL, not from search results or ads. How do they know our URL? People are talking, not searching. The product is sticky. I just need more places to stick it.

“I thought people would use this product because it was convenient.  They tell me they actually buy it to avoid interacting with our competitor!  It turns out our go-to-market strategy allows us to not only avoid 90% of our competitor’s overhead cost, but charge 3x the markup and get 8x more repeat customers.  Help us rescue customers from our competitors!”

“This market doesn’t resist change, it’s simply been skipped over for 30 years.  When we apply basic technology used elsewhere, and apply it to this niche, we see a 100% sales conversion rate even though our price point is 50% higher than their current costs. Without marketing we have more inquiries than we can service.  We don’t need help with sales, we need help with onboarding!”

Each example shows traction. Proof of traction builds investor confidence in the opportunity; the story builds investor confidence in the entrepreneur. Good business models are built on good information, not on good ideas. Investors invest in people, not ideas.

Where Marketers are Spending Their Money in 2020

Written By: A.J. Rounds

2020 Marketing Landscape 

We are now entering the second quarter of 2020. At the time of this writing, you and I are currently under heavy restrictions of quarantines and physical distancing for COVID-19. However, that doesn’t mean that marketing budgets disappear. In many cases, companies are ramping up their marketing spend. The following paragraphs are the top marketing objectives, budgets, and results predicted for 2020. 

Top Marketing Strategies and Objectives 

Marketing channels most implemented in 2019 and carried through 2020 continue to be email, social media advertising, and blogging/content marketing tactics as reported by Sales and Marketing Management. SEO strategies follow as a close fourth place. 

Top marketing objectives for 2020 include converting leads to customers, increasing sales leads, increasing brand awareness, producing thought leadership content, and increasing website traffic. Interestingly enough, SMM also reports that most leads are still found through referrals, trade shows, and events. The percentages are as high as 63% (referrals) and 44% (trade shows) respectively. Print advertising and direct mail are the least utilized at 3% overall. 

Marketing Dollars Spent

In support of these marketing strategies, SMM also reports that 56% of budgets are being allocated to digital marketing, 52% of budgets to website development, 36% to trade shows/events, and 27% to content/email marketing.  

RevRoad Marketing Initiatives for 2020

This data coincides with current RevRoad and portfolio company marketing strategies.  RevRoad is also ramping up our marketing spend online, building home and landing pages to convert that marketing spend, generating more content on LinkedIn, social media, and blogs, while still building person to person relationships (at a socially safe distance). RevRoad continues to invest resources into new videos produced by our amazing video team to promote online. 

As mentioned, we will be revamping our website to be more focused on you and other entrepreneurs who’d like to apply. This includes restructuring and formatting content better. Our goal certainly falls in line with converting leads into sales and increasing brand awareness. As a start, we recently launched a services page complete with videos to ‘show’ not ‘tell’ about the services we offer to scalable companies like yours. 

Summary

Without question, the largest portion of marketing budgets for 2020 will be allocated to digital strategies. Based on what SMM reports and what we’ve seen at RevRoad, the marketing channels mentioned above produce the greatest ROI. 
Good luck with your marketing efforts. Whether it’s a pandemic or other changes to the economy, don’t be afraid to adjust your marketing strategies to accommodate changing business needs. Keep going. You’ve got this!

Keepin’ it Clean—Why We Gave Every Employee a PhoneSoap

COVID-19 has already caused different levels of panic worldwide, and it seems things are just ramping up. There are plenty of recommendations about how to stay safe and healthy floating around the web. We agree, washing our hands, applying sanitizer, covering our mouths when coughing and sneezing, and other basic hygiene and health practices should be carried out. However, what precautions are we taking when it comes to one of the dirtiest, most touched items in almost every household? The cell phone.

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It’s Time to Champion Underrepresented Talent

Diversity, or the lack thereof, has been the topic of conversation as the highly anticipated Silicon Slopes Tech Summit came to a close. Though tech companies in the Silicon Slopes area have provided an influx of new jobs in Utah, the amount of underrepresented talent employed by these companies is low. We could blame it on Utah’s general “lack of diverse population”, on the homogenous religious communities, or on the difficulty of finding qualified underrepresented talent. We could  blame it on numerous factors, but it doesn’t change the fact that underrepresented talent in Utah is just that—underrepresented.

While Utah’s startup community is on the road to becoming the next Silicon Valley, companies face significant recruiting challenges in the most competitive talent market since 1969. “Leaders can no longer afford to ignore any opportunity that could present qualified candidates. This includes creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels like they have a place”(Mentorli, 2020). The truth is, Utah is 78% white and predominantly Mormon. While many of the cultural responsibilities that come with Utah’s dominant religion prove beneficial for entrepreneurs, “the very thing that is transforming Utah into the next tech mecca could be the very thing that ends up holding it back” (Bluestein, 2020). 

It’s no question that the companies on the Slopes are in need of cultural pivots to better recruit, hire, and retain more underrepresented talent. The call for diversity has been issued, and a new company, called Mentorli, appears to have the solution. Through their mentorship platform, Mentorli increases a candidate’s chances of landing a job by 15x. “We’re leaning into that power to close the opportunity gap underrepresented candidates face,” says CEO Luke Mocke.

Creating equal opportunity for job seekers is simply the right thing to do, but it turns out there’s a significant business case too. For one, there’s a linear relationship between earnings and racial diversity on the senior leadership team—to the tune of .8% in earnings for every 10% lift. However, the most compelling reason for fast growing companies in the US, and Utah specifically, to hire diverse talent is to open their talent pool for future hires. Homogenous organizations unknowingly marginalize talent that looks different to them. To ensure they’re creating an inclusive environment for all qualified talent, they need to create a representative workforce. Failing to do so is already creating monumental challenges as minorities in the US become the majority. 

Mentorli supports this philosophy by empowering underrepresented employees to recruit candidates from similar backgrounds—showing candidates how to set themselves up for success in the interview process and thrive in a new environment—building diverse networks from the grassroots level. Read Mentorli’s full press release here. As a participant in the recent Silicon Slopes Tech Summit, Mentorli is offering a FREE first hire to companies that schedule a demo before February 7, 2020. Check it out today!

RevRoad Portfolio Partner Momni Secures $1.75M in Funding

Momni Team

In July of 2018, Karmel Larson and the Momni team joined the RevRoad family. It was among the first drops of what will grow to be a tsunami.
Within weeks, Karmel secured coverage on the Dr. Phil Youtube channel. The story about the global childcare crisis caught the attention of more than a million viewers, and soon local press took notice.
Moms from around the country joined as Momnis, apps were published, and a rivulet formed.
On Friday, the Momni team turned those first droplets into a roaring river. She and her team secured a total of more than $2 million in funding to aggressively develop new features and open new markets for caresharing around the world.
The round was led significantly by Tamarak Capital, a Utah family office, and was accompanied by investors from Utah venture service firm RevRoad and angel investors.
“Now the Momni family is getting bigger, bigger and bigger and I”m feeling so grateful today,” Karmel said during the signing celebration. “I am so grateful for all the support I’ve received as Momni has taken off.”

Momni’s Beginnings

Larson was inspired to start Momni after learning about the global childcare crisis in 2017. The company released iPhone and Android apps earlier this year to help moms connect with one another digitally.
Momni’s platform connects moms’ existing network of friends they already know and trust. Most recently, the company was featured on the Dr. Phil Youtube channel.

Family First

Fighting back tears, Karmel expressed thanks to her first supporters — her husband and children.
“Brigham was our first investors and the secret behind the power of Momni,” she said, “And my children have sacrificed so much to have their mother be a part of Momni. Thank you so much for supporting their mother so other mothers can have childcare.”

Funding for Women-led Startups

Before the signing part on Friday, Karmel expressed gratitude to Tamarak for seeing the promise in her company.
“Statistics show that it’s hard for female startup founders to get funding, and I am encouraged by the overwhelming interest we’ve received to help moms worldwide support one another with a cutting-edge and network-based childcare platform,” she said.
“Few things are as socially significant as what Momni is focused on” said Nate McBride, partner at Tamarak Capital. “Momni is making a difference for families worldwide by harnessing technology to both improve the quality and accessibility of childcare in our communities — all while allowing Moms an additional source of income to improve their own lives. We have been so impressed with the Momni team, their product, and the impressive traction they’ve generated so quickly. They are a very talented team, working on a significant challenge, and we are proud to work with them in solving it for good.”
Larson considers Momni’s recent round to be an encouraging step in the right direction for female entrepreneurship, although female founders still encounter difficulty in raising funds.
A study released by the Boston Consulting Group and MassChallenge, a network of startup accelerators, found disparity in the size of deals as well. The average female-founded startup received $935,000 in funding, compared to $2.1 million awarded to the average male-founded startup. That’s despite the fact that female-founded startups performed better, bringing in 78 cents on the dollar in five years compared to 31 cents for men.
For Karmel, the funding is a sign of progress for women in entrepreneurship. But most importantly, it shows the power of what Momni will become.
“We are growing from a drop to a stream, to a river, to an ocean, to a wave, to a tsunami, she said, brimming with joy. “We will conquer the earth with this Momni tsunami.”

About Momni:

Momni is a revolutionary, sharing-economy tech company that seeks to link all moms everywhere for caresharing. Momni offers instant access to trusted care by mothers in your Momni Circle and community. The company works closely with the Momni Foundation to provide caresharing opportunities to women and families in the developing world as a solution to the global childcare crisis.