Timing
How we make decision
There’s a lot to weigh in but we focus on a few key criterias such as what product and what market we’re going in? How’s the demand look like? How long would it take for us to reach our breakeven point? Are we going conservative, optimistic or aggressive
And truth be told, we would be weighing the quality of human capital that we invested in. How competent are the founders? Are all team members committed? We are going to spend time a lot together and making sure that job is done accordingly
Investment Process
These answers vary from company to company, but there are some basic steps everyone goes through. While we often try to move at the pace of the founder, an important rule applies: the less time we have to make a decision, the more conviction we have to feel about a company. Sometimes we spend months developing a relationship (which, honestly, we prefer). Sometimes we move from intro to close in under a week. Generally speaking, here’s what you can expect:
- Initial meeting: In advance of an initial meeting, we’ll look at any materials sent by the founder, determine whether the business fits our basic investment criteria, and try to ensure it’s not directly competitive with any of our existing investments. Your first meeting (or phone call) with a member of the investment team will typically be between 45 minutes and an hour. We let the founder do most of the talking, and hope they use the opportunity to dig into the specifics of their team and business.
- Second meeting: Most of our “passes” occur after the initial meeting. If you’ve made it past that meeting, you’ll spend more time with your MyVC point partner as we both continue to learn more about each other. This is our chance to focus in on particular areas of the business where we have questions — and for founders to ask us more about MyVC, what working with us is like, and what they could expect as a member of our community.
- Follow-up: Our partnership makes all decisions as a team. So, we often introduce promising founders to another MyVC partner for an additional conversation. We often like to introduce the founder to the partner who has the “most skepticism” about the company at this point – as it ensures that all questions are addressed and gives us the ability to probe more deeply into the core assumptions of the business for an hour.
- Partner meeting: If these conversations go well for both of us, we’ll typically make some reference/diligence calls and invite you to meet with the rest of the partners at our twice-weekly investment meeting. Here, you’ll have about an hour to tell your story to the entire partnership and answer questions. Typically, we fund about half of the companies that make it to our partner meeting.
- Final Decision: After your presentation, our partnership will discuss your company in great detail with the goal to give you a final answer usually within 24 hours of the meeting.
Basics
Our investors and partners come from various backgrounds which have been screened thoroughly. The relationship built also takes time through vast investment experience together.
We share common values and really make sure new people onboard to see in the same glasses as us which will help to further elevate this organisation.