DUSTIN POH


As part of a partnership with MetLife Foundation, Endeavor has launched a series of video conferences that provide a unique opportunity for Endeavor’s Entrepreneurs in the Financial Inclusion sector to connect with experienced mentors and tackle industry-specific challenges.

The first workshop, hosted by Endeavor mentor Miguel Herrera, took place in mid-March and focused on the capital raising process for Financial Inclusion entrepreneurs. Miguel, a Partner at Quona Capital and Fund Manager for the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, guided over 20 participants from offices in seven countries worldwide through various core elements of the process.

 

Miguel Herrera
Described as the “single best resource on capital raising I have ever seen” by a participating Endeavor Entrepreneur, this first workshop is the kick-off to several more. Next up, the second workshop in the series, taking place on April 7th, will focus on helping entrepreneurs understand their brand and customer experience by utilizing marketing and innovation tools.

 

Read highlights from Miguel’s talk on teasers, pitch decks, business plans and more below:
  • “A lot of teasers contain cumulative information, and that’s great but if it’s over the last five years it’s not so great, so I would encourage everyone to include time series data. I understand that you are afraid of looking early sometimes, but you are going to get that question anyway so put it out front early.”
  • “Venture capital isn’t the only way to finance your business and it’s not necessarily the correct way to finance your business, you have many choices, not all of them match with the venture capital methodology, but if you are, you better be aligned with an exit scenario in a five to seven year term and start thinking about it from day one because your strategy has to adapt itself along its way to the most likely buyer. If you don’t want to grow your business quickly and sell it, then you probably shouldn’t be looking for venture capital money.”
  • “There’s going to be a lot of conversations around KPIs as the deal advances to investment because we are going to send you a list of things we want to see at a weekly, or monthly, or quarterly basis. If this is an area that has been ignored in your business, you need to be spending a good deal of time now thinking about your data management systems and how you can leverage those to analyze the data that your business is generating.”
  • “There’s no harm in acknowledging and admitting some gaps, in fact we like that kind of openness, because folks who tell us that they’ve got it all figured out already create more questions than not.”
  • “Detailed financial projections should be bottom-up. It has to be very granular from the ground up and it’s always best if you can provide sensitivity tools for it.”

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