Tzakhi (00:00)
Hi Jamie.
Jamie Harford (00:02)
Hey, great to be here.
Tzakhi (00:04)
Thank you. We're at the Meet That Capital startup podcast with Jamie Harford. And I've wanted to have you on the podcast for a long time. You do a lot of great stuff for startups. We've spoken a few times and I've been following you on LinkedIn. I saw your post today. You've helped raise more than 20 million pounds with pitch decks that you've helped build, which is a nice number.
But maybe you want to say a bit about yourself.
Jamie Harford (00:36)
Yeah, sure. Thanks. It's great to be here. Always exciting to talk to other operators in the space who kind of get it. But yeah, nice to meet everyone. I'm Jamie Harford. For those who don't know me, I'm from a restaurant background in 2012, I started my own healthy fast food takeaway business, which scaled to multiple sites. After that was acquired, I started an automotive business where I raised VC
funding in 2020, I did 13% of all successful crowdfunding raises in Europe, since raised tens of millions with entrepreneurs. So yeah, I've sort of sat on all sides of the table and now I've kind of become passionate in helping people write pitch decks, build good, strong investment narratives, understand their own business models and ultimately grown scale of businesses that as the foundation.
Tzakhi (01:29)
Okay, cool. So you know what, let's talk about that. Let's talk about really the essential part of fundraise, which is building a pitch deck and really building the story that you're going to tell investors, why should people invest in your startup? So what is your framework for that?
if you have one.
Jamie Harford (01:48)
I think from a consulting perspective or if I was a business owner as well, it kind of comes from the same point. We're both taking a helicopter view at either your own business or someone else's. I always see where we're starting with and that you either have to choose a narrative of promise or performance and it's very difficult to fundraise on both and actually that's where people get tripped up.
So I sort of see a speedometer or the fuel gauge in a car, and I'm just sort of balancing it on there, basically. So that's the first step, always is looking at promise versus performance.
Tzakhi (02:21)
Maybe explain it a bit more. I mean, the name is pretty self-explanatory, but just to spell it out. So Promise vs Performance is a stage for a startup.
Jamie Harford (02:30)
Yeah, so when you first go into fundraisers, obviously it's important to remember the context that someone's buying a share of your business. And ultimately they're going to decide that based on two factors. It's either how promising your startup is, so how big's the market, what is the opportunity that they're participating in, or it's the performance. So you know, you've ran the hundred meters in five seconds, you're the fastest on the planet. I want to back that person. I want to pack back that business to win.
So ultimately, when I'm coming into a business for the first time, I take all of the available information and I decide where we're going to land that. So in a context of, you know, a health tech business, they may have a couple of NHS pilots, however, they've got very little revenue because it's all sort of testing phase and in that case, it's not great to talk about performance. We need to really talk about promise, use the validations that they have and build a really exciting story and vision based off the back of it.
However, if I come into a fashion business and they've got a lot of customers, hundreds of thousands of orders, then I'm gonna use that as my leverage. Look how well we've done and look how promising we are as a business, I guess.
Tzakhi (03:38)
Okay, and then of course there are all the scenarios in between, which are where things get complicated.
Jamie Harford (03:45)
Yeah, for sure. So in that case, ultimately we want to have context for the reader. So a big part of fundraising is owning your own truth and your own story. And I think that comes into business generally, you know, we've seen a big push in founder branding and we've seen a big push in all of these other areas. But in reality, the business has got a story that needs to be told and authenticity around that's the most important bit. So that's a really long waffly way to say that.
If you're in that middle bit where you know, you've had some sales and they're not very good, or you've haven't got a big promising story because you've kind of already launched and it's not there, then the most important thing to do is to tell your story authentically how it is right now, you know, what elements you can improve on, what elements can be scaled, because that's what an investor is looking for ultimately, the opportunity, and the opportunity normally lies in the scale. So you know, again, if you've only sold 10 apples,
and there's still 30 apples on the tree, you may be embarrassed because you've only sold 10 apples, but the investor will be looking to think, yeah, but we've still got 30 more to sell and now I'm going to be a part of that and I can make money on the other 30. So there's always a balance there between the business and the investors sort of motivations, I guess.
Tzakhi (04:58)
Well, obviously if you yourself are still pushing the business forward, that means that you believe that it has real potential. Otherwise, why would you do it? And what do you mean?
Jamie Harford (05:09)
Well, well, you know, we said we're the pre-bit and we said we don't always have to agree. So I mean, ultimately, I do find that a lot of entrepreneurs are sort of pot committed, where in poker, that would mean that they've played a hand and they've bet on that hand. So when the counterparty raises, they're pot committed and they're more likely to bet again. We see that a lot with entrepreneurs. They maybe have over committed in their first fundraising round and taken money from friends and family.
the business hasn't performed well and they're kind of just going through the motions to not let other people down. So normally just being present and being at the table doesn't always mean that you're sort of committed.
Tzakhi (05:47)
Yeah, but that's not a story you're going to tell investors. And I mean, if that's a situation, you probably should take a hard look at the mirror and think about what's next. Because if the investor gets the understanding that you're only there because you're stuck and you have to push forward because there's no way back, they're not going to want to join.
Jamie Harford (05:50)
Uhhh...
And again, that comes down to that story ultimately, and that sort of sets the tone for the narrative. So yeah, it's interesting, definitely interesting. But yeah, we meet all people on these journeys, people who loathe their business. I meet people who hate their investors. I meet lots of different entrepreneurs. And again, with the volumes of conversations that I have on a daily basis, it's quite amazing when you see the full spectrum for sure.
Tzakhi (06:37)
How do you deal with these situations? I mean, can you give maybe an example?
Jamie Harford (06:42)
Sure. I was working on a business where they had a single investor in the company. So ultimately, you know, I go into work on the pitch deck and this is why I love pitch decks because they sort of create the, you know, they're the anchor of the funding round. It's the only place where you can discuss with the entrepreneur cash in bank, marketing strategy, hiring strategy, mistakes that they've made, positives that they've achieved. You can have that conversation with them.
And understand that. And once you've got that base, you can then spread out into other areas of the company. However, there was one business we're going through that process and it was just a resentment towards the investor. It was a single ticket investor who'd done like a million quid in the business. So it was like, wow, for me, I would feel like, wow, I really owe that person something. The feeling from the entrepreneur was that they were sort of getting an easy ride and they had a big share in the business and ultimately weren't contributing. It's not all about money.
And ultimately what my job became then was really investor relations, trying to facilitate those conversations openly, let the investor know of the frustrations from the entrepreneur and just try to sort of understand where they were ultimately misaligned. Yeah, very, very interesting. But again, they all come from, you know, just having an understanding, like an honest understanding of the business, which happens through the pitch deck process, I generally find.
Tzakhi (08:04)
But this happened through the process of working on the pitch deck, but it didn't end up being reflected on the pitch deck in any way.
Jamie Harford (08:07)
Yeah.
Well, it had to kind of because ultimately what the investor in the end was looking for was sort of a de-risking from that situation. So they wanted to bring a couple of investors on board to, you know, sit alongside them and they didn't want to reinvest again for obvious reasons. So the number one question when you're quite involved with an investor outreach process, I get anyway, is why is the current investors not reinvesting? So we sort of had to allude in the document, at least to the fact that the current investor, you know, is
invested and you know, was a hands-off investor. So, you know, you still have to set the scene of why we're looking for new investors and new investment after someone's put a million quid into a business, you know, so it's, it's very interesting.
Tzakhi (08:54)
Okay.
Good. Now, Jamie, I know it's not the same for each startup. And we already spoke about two different types of scenarios. And there's a lot in between. But is there a kind of order in which you want a pitch deck to appear?
Jamie Harford (09:12)
So the important thing to understand when creating a pitch deck, and this is if you're an entrepreneur yourself and you're building this document, the first thing to understand is that there's someone else on the other side of the screen and they are a reader. You know, they want to be engaged. No one is doing this just like, you know, just like, oh, I know we're modest, read a pitch deck and see if it's not, you know, they're there to be.
inspired to see the opportunity they've been waiting for. So that's the first thing, you know, ultimately in that framework is understanding that there's someone on the other side. Now that someone on the other side won't just be reading your pitch deck, any investor I would suggest gets around 30 a month. I would suggest that that's probably a relatively normal amount. VC funds see about 3000 a year, you know, so there's a massive scale. And what we have to do is help them benchmark. So...
If I tell a story that's completely wacky and doesn't fit any format, they're going to be like, Oh, that was fun. It's very hard to compare it against the other people that are in their pipeline. And ultimately fundraising is a case of comparing apples with oranges and hoping that you pick the right one. So with that in mind, I always follow a flow and a format and the most common format we all know it is the problem solution format that way it gives you a really nice way to sort of set your narrative up and tell your story.
Um, so yeah, if I was to skim through it really quickly, I always start with a, a title page, you know, just like a very attractive title page that sets the tone for the branding. I then come into company purpose or mission statement, or if you've got a lot of traction, just like a sort of a, you know, like a reminder, here's what happened last week in the Netflix series type thing. Um, I then go into problem followed by the solution. So the reader's thinking, Oh, this is a problem. Oh, that's a good solution.
We're going to go into why now. Fundraising rounds need that sort of spark of like, okay, I'm going to invest my money now. So that can be an economic position. It can be the horrific war and atrocity we're seeing. It can be the horrific economy in the UK, you know, it's just collapsing. Like it can be a load of different things, but we have to pin our fundraising. Our problem solution is relevant now. And then we're the team to fix it. So, you know, we're just trying to always take the reader through those.
those type of journeys, but yeah, without reading through 12 slides, it's kind of, you know, I was set up with the problem, the solution, sprinkle in some context, you know, with your mission and then really start hitting why now, why us, you know, all of those type of things come after it.
Tzakhi (11:45)
Okay, Jamie, so we've gone over, I think, a lot of the basics. Let's take it from the other end. What are common mistakes that you see? You see a lot of pitch decks and you talk to a lot of founders. Can you give us like common mistakes to people?
Jamie Harford (12:02)
I mean, you know, the biggest common mistake that people make is obviously, um, assumed context or assumed knowledge or assumed, um, interest. You know, there's a lot of assumptions made about the reader. And I think that's what gets people in the biggest hot water. For example, say for every slide has like a sort of a progress or summary slide and they'll do stuff like 272 % up.
You know, and like, that's the figure there. And it's very difficult for an investor to look at something like that and get any meaningful output from it. So, you know, the big mistakes that people make, or for example, say I'm working in hydro power or, you know, an odd sector that's not sort of on the tip of the tongue for these investors. They'll start using acronyms or they'll start to use sort of industry specific jargon or just expect that an investor will know what a Venturi flow is. You know, it's very difficult for.
investors who are going through documents. And again, the average investor is going to read like 30 of these things a month. They're not going to, you know, it's not like one investor gets one deck and they're like, oh, wow, this is the one I've been waiting for, you know? So it's like, people always put this assumed knowledge, assumed context. Really what we're trying to do is take the investor through a process where they learn about your business, get engaged in your sort of solution.
Tzakhi (13:10)
Yeah.
Jamie Harford (13:23)
and then want to find out more information and people just chuck it all on there, you know?
Tzakhi (13:28)
Yeah, I think people spend on a slide if they're just looking at it on their own, three seconds. I don't know, like, it's not, I don't have data. I'm just saying, I'm sure that like DocsCenter or something maybe has some kind of report on that, but I'd guess it's like three seconds that people look, they just slide one through. Sometimes they'll be watching it on their phone somewhere.
Jamie Harford (13:46)
Yeah.
Tzakhi (13:51)
Jamie Harford (13:52)
Yeah.
Well, it's funny because when I'm reading slides, like for the truth, you know, when people send me slides and send me a Docsend link, I'll have it open on the screen and I'll sort of click through it slowly to the end, you know, so at least it registers that I've read it at a normal pace. But in reality, I'm dipping in and out, you know, I've got other things going on. The actual Docsend data, by the way, is 150 seconds for a full pitch deck. So it works out at about 11 seconds a slide. Granted, that's weighted to stuff like team slides.
slide that sees like 70 % more read time than a solution slide. You know, these, the, this, when you're designing a good pitch deck, you put slides in there that can be skim red, you know, or like just passed by by the investor. We call it a relief slide or a pause for them where they can guilt free skip to the next one. And ultimately, well, that lets them do is it kind of compounds the focus into the next slide where you then drop the knowledge bomb. The investors then sort
Tzakhi (14:28)
Right.
Jamie Harford (14:50)
of.
tuned up and rested effectively to now take in that slide and take in the information. But yeah, you're totally right. They're skimming through the quickest deck read I've ever seen was by Tech, one of the like an accelerator and we got a no email after a 15 second deck read. So we were just like unbelievable.
Techstars, the accelerator, yeah, we got the email and we went back to check. It was 15 seconds they read it for, unbelievable.
Tzakhi (15:19)
my God. Well, I think there's a huge difference between a deck that is sent out for the investor to read ahead of a meeting and the deck that you take the investor by the hand and show the slides to in a meeting. And the biggest mistake I see is confounding those two. So a deck that you show in a meeting can have much more context and much more can be.
Jamie Harford (15:43)
Well, there should be three.
Tzakhi (15:48)
have more slides and it can be richer and can have the assumption that you're there to explain what's actually going
Jamie Harford (15:56)
Yeah, or the other way, you know, and treat a pitch deck like you would do a Ted talk. A lot of these pitch calls that are going on, entrepreneurs sort of, as you say, use their pitch deck to present over the top of, and you know, it's pretty heavy in terms of information. Whereas if you look back at where this all came from presenting over slides, the likes of Steve Jobs, you know, it one image.
Tzakhi (15:56)
on.
Jamie Harford (16:23)
on a screen and he would talk around that image. You know, if you go back to the old Ted talks, or even if you start watching science videos, physics lectures, it's normally a simple image that's quite descriptive. And then you talk over the top of it. An investor can't read the whole page that you've put on the screen plus listen to you plus take the context plus everything else. So I believe in that specific circumstance you're describing, there should be an outreach deck.
which is a teaser deck, which is sort of, you know, traction, brand story, sort of a bit of a compelling reason as to why you're doing this. Then on the pitch, I believe that it should be, you know, like a Ted Talk style slideshow. So really, you know, one image, key image, and maybe one fact, and you sort of go through it that way, talking. And then there's sort of that sort of like DD style pitch deck, which then covers, you know, practically,
Tzakhi (17:07)
you
Jamie Harford (17:19)
everything else in between.
Tzakhi (17:22)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie Harford (17:23)
So yeah, but again, you're never gonna get, and this is, I guess, is the ultimate challenge. You're never gonna get one cookie cutter style format that works for other people because some founders are amazing at sort of talking through that complexity and giving, for example, we both know mutual founder, we've both been to that pitch deck with her, the complexity she makes simple. So when she's talking through the complexity, you get assurance that,
Okay, she knows what she's talking about. So I don't need to really concentrate here. Whereas other founders, when they get to the complex areas can start to really stick up and it gives the investor a feeling of, okay, I'm going to need to make sure I know what I'm talking about here. So it's as well, it's a lot about the presentation manner, a lot about everything else, but yeah, lots of pitch decks. I'm now can, for a client, I can make up to five pitch decks, which is crazy. A mobile version.
a teaser, sort of an email version, the call version, the after call version, and then a sort of a semi version that we use to send to their network. So they always go, I'm going to introduce this guy. And I go, well, don't use the teaser deck, use this specific one, because that'll give them context without me sending the initial intro message, the call, you know, there's a lot that goes into it. So yeah.
Tzakhi (18:43)
What's the difference between the teaser deck and the deck that you use to
get an intro from?
Jamie Harford (18:48)
So the teaser deck ultimately has to tell a lot of context and it mainly needs to get the person who is on the other side of it excited enough to take a call. Now when that person is passing a pitch deck to one of their buddies or their friends or their acquaintances, that person doesn't need to feel excitement. They need to feel the opportunity. They need to feel that because it's already coming from a trusted source. So it's already of a...
of a level, so we don't need to spend all that time trying to get the reader to that level, it's already there. So now what we need to do is layer on context, we need to layer on the opportunity, how we make money and how we've delivered so far, you know, and if that person then goes, oh, Jim has sent me a deck, I've looked at it, seems like it makes money, you know, I'll go off the back of Jim's referral. So it's, again, it's like slightly different framings for the audience and how you've entered it ultimately.
Tzakhi (19:42)
But as a structure, is it smaller, bigger, less slides, more slides?
Jamie Harford (19:46)
Smaller smaller so we're taking out all of the fluff so it doesn't need all of that sort of brand building piece It's really more like a deal note. It's more just like this is the sector that you know, it's I would say it's closer to just like a You know like a funding ask like a good use of funds good sort of Maybe not even problem solution But you know just really capturing the traction and what you're gonna send them spend the money on because that person who gives it to them I'll give them a bit of context, you know,
they'll
And we're trying to keep it light. So yeah, this is light. Three, four pages, you know, it's more like a deal note. Hey, this is what I'm investing in. Do you want to take a look? Is this something you'd be interested in as well? And you just give them those high level points.
Tzakhi (20:30)
Yeah. And by the way, people, that's really something that helps a lot. It's very useful. Like you want to make an intro for someone. That's something that really helps make the intro happen. And, uh, if you want to get introductions, then you need to have that kind of, it's a kind of tool to have and make it easy for the person that, uh, you want to make the introduction for, uh, that, that you want to introduce you to investors, make it easy for them, uh, prepare like the, the memo, the note, the email and like this.
small slide deck that you just described. Yeah, I think there are lots of like one of the best founders that I've ever worked with. He would remake the pitch slide for every different investor that I introduced him to. And he was brilliant. It worked. He raised the money he needed and he actually built the company and sold it later to one of the biggest gaming monsters in the world.
Jamie Harford (21:03)
Yeah, well, I...
It works. Yeah.
Tzakhi (21:29)
Like,
I think was three years later. He was brilliant guy. And that was one thing that he did.
Jamie Harford (21:32)
Yeah, well if I said to you, in unlimited time, unlimited resource, unlimited budget, you can do whatever you want, here's an investor outreach program, what is the best way to get people over the line? It would be with, okay, we're gonna target this person and we're gonna make this specifically for them, and it feels like it's for them. And I once got a brochure for, I used to keep it on my desk because it was so good, for watches, I worked with a watch company.
And we did watches for footballers, Messi's engagement rings, some pretty crazy stuff. And they sent me a brochure and on the inside it had my name printed on it. And it was like, you know, it felt so personal to me that it becomes more than just a brand brochure, you know? So when you can do stuff like that and make people feel welcome, it makes sense. But circling back one step.
I have a strong investor network, very strong, not in an early stage. I work in the early stage investment scene because that's where I can add the most value. My personal investor network aren't interested in anything less than 2 million in value. And they specifically tell me not to send them a deck. You know, when I'm making introductions, they just don't want a deck. So I...
Tzakhi (22:33)
you
Jamie Harford (22:43)
thought I can't not send them a deck because that's just ridiculous I'm losing an opportunity so what can I sort of create in the interim that gives that sort of quality feel so it's kind of like an executive summary deal note branded still got a bit of design to it and you can make them go oh this looks good you know so I think you're totally right make sure that you understand the investment process and you
Tzakhi (22:56)
Yeah.
Jamie Harford (23:04)
anticipate that
If you get someone excited enough that they want to put their money in, they're likely going to want to bring other people with them. And in that scenario, are you prepared to sort of, you know, get those wheels moving, control the content that they're putting out, make sure they're telling the right story? Because again,
I meet a lot of investors, I go for hikes with them and we have lots of chats. And when they try to explain to you the business models, like for example, one of my investors invested in the sushi business and he's going to me, oh, well, they make these sushi rolls and it's amazing. And I'm thinking, well, that's not amazing, you know, like that's not going to incentivize anyone to invest, but that's just what he kind of was there at the edge of his brain. So again, we're trying to make documents that support those conversations, make it easy for other people and so forth.
Tzakhi (23:29)
you
Yeah.
Jamie Harford (23:50)
What's your, because I've got to ask the question, so in your processes when you run them, where does the pitch deck come into it? Where would you ideally like to introduce a pitch deck in your outreach
process?
Tzakhi (24:02)
Yeah. So first of all, you know, there's the ideal world where you could, like you said, craft a pitch deck for every scenario and for every investor and make it personal. And there's the real world where ton of work. Most founders are like drowned under a bunch of tasks, hate dealing with the pitch decks already have, you know, 27 versions of the pitch deck that they're trying, that they're always confused between and like,
Jamie Harford (24:18)
500 investors a month.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Tzakhi (24:33)
try to, you know, sometimes I send the wrong one, the previous one, and it's a mess. So I just try to simplify it into two. So there's a teaser deck and there's the actual deck. In reality, you can go, you can, you can go be more granular than that, but just at least those two. So something that you send ahead of a call and something that you send either on the call or even better after the call. Like I think the first call maybe is.
Jamie Harford (24:36)
Yeah.
Tzakhi (25:00)
If you're, if you're able to do that without presenting slides at all, just talking, I think that's the best way to do it. But after the call, there's already enough context for a full pitch deck or that comes on the side. It varies and it really depends on how, how it's handled by, by the founder during the meeting, but at least those two, those are so, and I don't, but very important is never just send a deck, not even the teaser deck before the.
person on the other side has expressed at least a little bit of interest. So the teaser deck.
Jamie Harford (25:35)
What's your theory behind that? What's the theory behind that?
Tzakhi (25:39)
First of all, I think, even though I'm Israeli, I think it's a bit too pushy to just shove the pitch deck into someone that might not even want it. Like you said, some investors hate seeing pitch decks. They see tons of pitch decks. They're bored by it. I think a proper way of dealing is first you say, hello, this is what we are. This is what we do. Is this of interest? And then if you have at least an indication that the person is interested, then you send.
At first the teaser deck and then like I said, the actual deck comes in a meeting. Part of it is also that I think from the beginning there's an exchange, there's a transaction that's happening. Before anything happened, the investor has funds, the founder has an opportunity and there's...
kind of like a dance and you can't, if the founder discloses too much about what they're doing, about what the opportunity is, then the magic is gone. The investor loses their curiosity and the chances of that dance coming to a meeting is lower. So I think before you give out too much information, you give enough information to keep the other side interested and then they have to give their intention to get more information.
Jamie Harford (27:04)
Yeah, I mean when I look back at, so say if I go into a business and they've already got a flow going, you know, and you have a look at the CRM, it's normally, you know, contacted replies, pitched accent, and then you get that huge drop off after pitched accent. And I guess that's the indicator that it's gone too early in the conversation. You've gave them all of the information and it's just essentially give them too many doors to walk out of. There's just too many no's. Oh, I don't like this. I don't like that. It's not for me. So ultimately you need to get someone.
on slightly more committed before you give them that massive amount of information, unless they're a proper professional investor and they're trying to benchmark you. But I would say for angel investors who make ad hoc tickets, as you say, when I go into businesses, a bit different from you, you sort of, you know, you take what's there and you give them a bit of consulting and you sort of get them out in the market.
I guess I'm kind of the step after that where it hasn't necessarily worked or sometimes a step before that where they're building it from scratch. And again, I look for the no's and I close those doors and I get all of the doors and I understand all of the doors and I close them all and shut them and make sure that an investor can't get out. But as you say, if you introduce that pitch deck at the wrong time, the whole thing's an open door for them to walk through. So yeah, I think we're agreed on that level.
Tzakhi (28:00)
you
Jamie Harford (28:25)
Um, but yeah, as you say, every entrepreneur is different and some send the deck and it works and some don't send the deck and it works. So I guess it's just a balance ultimately.
Tzakhi (28:35)
Yeah, it depends on so much. There's a huge difference between a very exciting startup in a hot market and what most startups are, which is not that great. And it's harder and you need to do much more convincing. And then you have to be much more thoughtful about every step that you take to get to the next one.
Jamie Harford (28:59)
Have you tried investor outreach on other platforms or like if you tried it on Twitter or X have you ever tried it on Instagram? Have you ever tried on Facebook or meta like or you just linked
in?
Tzakhi (29:11)
Oh, we just do LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is amazing. But I don't know how it works on other platforms. If I'd guess another platform that the whole system could work on, it's probably Twitter.
Jamie Harford (29:13)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, it's... it...
Tzakhi (29:27)
X. Have you?
Jamie Harford (29:30)
The problem is, is the way that the inbox function works. So obviously with it, with LinkedIn is you get to send a connection message, you know, so you sort of get a profile view and a connection message. And ultimately when that gets accepted, as you know, it then creates a conversation, which you can have with someone. If I reach out to Barack Obama on LinkedIn, I can see, he can read my connection message and a little snippet and see, is that relevant for me? The problem with LinkedIn is you go into this, I mean, with Twitter is it's sort of hitting
So if I follow someone or try to connect with someone they never see that it's completely hidden and the next thing is if you send a DM It's not categorized in the same way. It can go into like unread folders and archived folders and Instagrams the same You know, it goes into a message request folder, which is just amongst a load of spam So you're never gonna cap, you know, there's a good chance you could capture Lewis Hamilton's attention on LinkedIn
Tzakhi (30:15)
you
Yeah.
Jamie Harford (30:26)
on Instagram, you just don't stand a chance, you know? So yeah, I'm kind of with you on that one. I haven't found, I quite like email still, but email is really shooting long shots. So yeah, I think you and I both enjoy LinkedIn for our each purposes.
Tzakhi (30:30)
you
Yeah, email is also constantly coming to new technical difficulties, limitations. That's just the sense that I get. We don't use email at all. It also has all kinds of regulatory issues involved. So email can work. I I know people do very well with email, but yeah, we're sticking to LinkedIn. I thought you were mostly doing email. I'm glad to hear that you're also using
LinkedIn.
for your clients.
Jamie Harford (31:12)
Yeah, I mean, again, I'm in inverse funding is mainly is my business with Ivan and I think Ivan's been on this pod. So if you can go back and watch, but what Ivan and I built a link at inverse, we kind of realized that.
Tzakhi (31:22)
Yes.
Jamie Harford (31:28)
trying to sell to the single startups is quite difficult. So we're actually now building a suite of tools specifically for fundraising advisors to sort of, you know, help them manage their clients better, which is the pain point that we've had. And then I do some one -on -one consulting, but again,
I'm...
If I nail the pitch process and building those pitches properly, people can fundraise. If I don't nail the pitch process, people don't fundraise and then I sort of get stuck where I'm in this limbo. So I now really want to either meet people before they've built their documents or they've sort of done half and gave up. Or likewise, they've been through a funding process, feel underwhelmed, haven't got the results they want, or they've worked with someone like yourself and you've said, hey, everything needs to be lifted up here in order to get good results.
And then that's where I sort of can come in and sort of get everything to that next level. Normally I meet people say they've done 150 K of 300 or 500 of a million. So they've got a bit of resource in the bank now to sort of level up. They've got a bit of confidence and that's really where I come in and take stuff to that next level and get it over the line. But yeah, no, no tricks or magic, just, you know, good branding, good design, good content writing, good strategy and focus. Um, yeah, nothing, nothing crazy.
Tzakhi (32:45)
Okay, where should people reach out to you? Is LinkedIn the best place or
Jamie Harford (32:48)
Yeah. Yeah, just LinkedIn. I mean, I'm involved in so many different businesses and so many different companies that my LinkedIn is a bit of a higgle piggle and whatever website I'm showing on that particular day may, may change. For example, at the moment I'm working with a really ambitious cannabis farm. We're raising funding to build cannabis production facilities across the globe. And, um,
Tzakhi (32:48)
your website?
Jamie Harford (33:10)
Yeah. So my LinkedIn is going to be branded a little bit towards that over the next couple of months, because that's a project I'm a shareholder on. So it's something I'm excited about. So yeah, I'm still sort of, um, active as a founder as well as, you know, a consultant. Um, but yeah, LinkedIn is great for me.
Tzakhi (33:25)
Okay, well, we'll keep that link in the notes so that people can find you. Jamie, this is really great. Just before we sign off, I'll just tell everyone, come to Meet Capital, subscribe to the newsletter, then you get takeaways from our weekly podcasts, and we give a lot of free stuff to our subscribers and weekly notes, so join us there. Jamie, thanks so much. This was really great.
and a lot of useful stuff and we'll talk soon.
Jamie Harford (33:56)
Well, I'll add one thing on the end. Well, I'll add one thing on the end because I'll be sharing this with my network as well, which is quite big. I've got personal references from Meet Capital. I know clients of theirs who've actually gone through the funding process and raised. This is a process I do highly recommend. I recommend you get in touch with Meet Capital and work with the team there. You'll definitely get you on your way in terms of LinkedIn fundraising. So, appreciate your time. It's been great to chat. Thanks.
Tzakhi (34:24)
Oh Jamie, thanks so much for saying that. Thank you and we'll talk soon. Cheers.
Jamie Harford (34:28)
Cheers.
