Tzakhi (00:01.364)
Okay, then.
Katie Dunn (00:02.722)
Hi, how are you?
Tzakhi (00:04.552)
I'm great. Thanks so much for coming. I'm here with Katie Dunn. We're at the Meet .Capital startup podcast. Katie, you're an angel investor for many years, startup advisor. It's great to have you.
Katie Dunn (00:19.842)
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoy our interactions on LinkedIn and love your content. So it's really an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.
Tzakhi (00:29.15)
Thanks so much. Let's just start off if you can tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and what you're doing now.
Katie Dunn (00:37.166)
Sure. So I am a reformed commercial real estate lender. I did loans for buildings across the US for over 25 years, did everything from a billion dollars to $10 billion in all property types. And all the while I was looking for ways to invest the money I made from the banks and financial institutions I worked at. So I invested a little bit in real estate, a little bit in stocks and bonds.
a little bit, I even produced a movie at one point and then I got into startups and I was hooked. And so a few years ago, I took a package from the bank I was working at to take my startup world career full time. And I joined Catweaver in Power to Pitch to help founders get funded faster. So now my angel portfolio is over 25 companies. My thesis is to invest in underrepresented founders.
in CPG and tech. And then on the advisory side with Power to Pitch, we have a program that helps people find grants and win grants. And then we also help founders from pre -C to series A with their fundraising strategy, including their preparation of their pitch materials, as well as making intros to anybody in our network that they might need, including investors, fractional CFOs.
marketing people, salespeople, lawyers, all of that good stuff.
Tzakhi (02:04.892)
So you guys sort of hold hands for your clients, for startups, for as long as they're raising.
Katie Dunn (02:12.462)
That's exactly right. We're with the founders in our program for the shorter of 18 months or their full raise. So we're not the same as an accelerator model where you're with them just for a very short, intense amount of time and then it's over. You're cut off. You don't have access unless you've developed a great relationship with one of your mentors or something, you're out. So with us,
you can keep coming back and asking us questions because we know the first check you get to the last check you get are very different. it's the business is gonna change what people, how people view you, how they understand what you're talking about, all that stuff changes all the time. So we can help you figure that out. Our specialty is really getting clear and concise about what your business is and yourself and how to talk about it so that people just get it right away.
Tzakhi (03:12.084)
Okay, yeah. Yeah, I think maybe that's, I mean, that's something for us to talk about. I've had Kat here, I think it was a year ago. I don't know, time flies. And we had a very good conversation. She explained to me about grants, which is a world that I personally don't know much about. But we're both in the world of helping startups raise capital, especially early -stage startups. Where do you see startup founders having the most difficult?
Katie Dunn (03:43.66)
I really see founders struggling with how to talk about their company and themselves. Everybody wants to give a demo or show a deck or just look at this link or they're overly wordy about it and people get bored. Nobody has attention spans anymore. Our phones have ruined us, right, with our attention spans. So if you can say in one or two lines what your business is,
and why you're the person to be running it, it is a gold mine. It just gets people, you can get partners that way, you can get investors that way, you can get customers that way. it's like doing your own resume. It's really, really hard to do. It's really hard to talk about yourself because you're your own expert. So having somebody else to boil it down for you can be really effective.
Tzakhi (04:39.688)
Yeah, Kat, can you give us five tips for startups, especially for founders and early stage startups? Yeah, please.
Katie Dunn (04:52.234)
Okay, so the first one I would say is find, if you're looking for investors, focus on what the investor's thesis is. That is the first thing. One thing we see is a lot of founders just going out to anybody that has investor in their LinkedIn profile or venture capital in their website name. You're going to get a lot of no's that way. And it is tough on your mental health.
to get no after no after no. So in order to minimize the nos, focus on people where you fit your thesis. And that there's going to be enough out there. I actually had a founder once tell me she was building a healthcare startup. And she said, I'm actually going after investors that don't invest in healthcare because I think everybody should invest in healthcare. And I said, that is the absolute wrong thing to do. You want experts in your field and
just because you think everybody should be doing this doesn't mean everybody else thinks they should be doing that. So that was a really bad strategy. So go after where you can really fit and hone in. The other thing is to find strategic investors where you have gaps that they can fill. So for example, if you're a CPG company with a product and you're trying to get into Amazon,
go into, go look for an angel investor or a VC that has experience with companies that are selling really well on Amazon and can give you contacts and can give you pointers and can help you not make the mistakes that everybody else has. So I think that's, it's really about filling the gaps through investors and advisors that make sense for you.
Another big thing I think that is helpful for people is how to reach out to strategic investors, strategic partners, customers? I mean, I'm sure you get a lot of LinkedIn DMs like I do, and it's painful when you see the paragraph after paragraph after paragraph. I know you want to tell everybody everything about how great you are, but if you keep it short with a very direct ask,
Katie Dunn (07:13.068)
you will get a much better result. The other tip I have is maybe offering them something. So maybe you have a person that you think they should meet that they could benefit from, or there's an event that you know about that they're not signed up for that you could offer an invite to. Something small that you can offer to show that you're not just after them for them to do something for you that...
you're actually willing to give as well. It's about developing a relationship and developing trust because that the first ask is not going to be the last ask and you want to be able to have it be a give and take relationship.
How many is that? Is that three? Okay.
Tzakhi (08:00.884)
I that's four. But I just want to say that I wrote a piece a while back exactly about that, about the mindset of giving when you're raising capital. So everyone, or most people kind of enter that into mindset of, I'm asking for something. Yes, you're asking, but you're also giving them an opportunity, assuming that it's a good opportunity to invest. And you really believe that you're giving them an opportunity to invest in something that will be.
meaningful and great, you're giving them access to your expertise as a founder and you're giving them, if you can, access to your network. So it shouldn't be just an ask, should be there ready to give and of course listen for what they need.
Katie Dunn (08:49.046)
I totally agree. I love that. You have something to offer that could make them a lot of money or give them access to things that they want or don't have. So showing off that value in a way that is not saying I'm just taking, taking, is so important. I love that. I love that. And I've invested in certain things because of that. For example,
the alcohol industry, I've invested in two businesses in that perspective and it's been really fun. I think it's a really fun industry. And so being an investor in those companies, I get access to other alcohol companies and what they're doing and seeing the creative marketing. always, you know, I just think that the marketing techniques are super interesting and then the regulatory can be really difficult but fascinating to see how people can work around that. yeah, it's.
I like learning. So that's a really fun way to think about it. You can teach somebody something.
Tzakhi (09:55.988)
Absolutely.
Katie Dunn (09:58.296)
So I have one more, you ready for the next one? So the other thing, and I just wrote about this actually earlier this week is instead of thinking about I need money for X, and Z, I need money to build my app, I need money to pay for digital ads, I need money to go to this conference.
Tzakhi (09:59.517)
Yes.
Katie Dunn (10:25.974)
Instead, think about the people you need. Because if you think about the people you need, you need a digital marketing strategist, or you need an app developer, or you need someone to help you with this conference, you can figure out how to get the money with another person. Because money doesn't solve all the problems, people solve the problems. So I think switching to your point about the mindset switch,
Instead of putting everything as money is going to be the only answer here, think about it in terms of the people that can help you solve the problem. You never know where the, because they might, first of all, those people might have money. They might be willing to do a deal with you to maybe you give up a tiny bit of equity to get them to help you with something. I don't always recommend that, it depends, but they might have.
Access to investors they might have you know, never know what the people will have so thinking about it instead of It's all about the money think about it in terms of the people. I think that can go take you really far
Tzakhi (11:35.24)
Yeah, those are excellent takes and I think super valuable for our audience. Katie, who should reach out to you and where should they find you?
Katie Dunn (11:48.14)
So people can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm Katie Dunn and I can give you the link to share. And people that are looking for investment that are struggling with how to talk about their company. That's what our really sweet spot is. And it's really pre -seed to series A. We've helped people a little bit further along if they're just working on their next iteration and need another set of eyes on their pitch materials.
It's people that are prepared to put in the work to figure out how to talk about their business. I don't want people that just want access to my network. I want people that are willing to learn and put in the work to get access to my network.
Tzakhi (12:32.21)
Yeah, I understand.
Katie Dunn (12:33.582)
And you can also, of course, check out Power to Pitch and powertopitch .com. We have our grant program there, which is open to everyone. And we have our investor prep program, which is application only. We look for founders that have some form of traction or MVP there, but grants we love. as you should, everybody should go back and listen to Kat's podcast on that, because it talks about how she won 22 of 23 pitch competitions.
that she entered and that's the capital that she used to scale her first business. But it's really, there's a lot of free money out there, so don't be afraid to go after it. That can really propel you far and it gives you lot of visibility and credibility as a founder as well.
Tzakhi (13:18.329)
I'll share both links, most of your LinkedIn account, people that want to reach out to you directly and to power to pitch. Katie, thanks so much.
Katie Dunn (13:28.194)
Thank you so much for having me, it was great. We'll see you later.
Tzakhi (13:30.44)
Yes, thanks a lot. you soon.
