Early-stage B2B marketplace founders need deep industry experience and must teach investors how their marketplace works. Target investors who have backed similar companies. The ability to clearly explain your industry, like how Rebus handles steel coils, signals you understand the problem you're solving.
So you have some pretty incredible experience when it comes to B2B marketplaces. And then, you know, not only that, but also, you know, your operational kind of experience in the past and now investing. So do you have any kind of tips that might be helpful for early-stage B2B marketplace founders that are fundraising right now?
Well, I mean, one of the best tips is doing your homework and finding folks who have spent time in B2B marketplaces. I think you're far more likely to not spin your wheels or waste your time talking to folks who are still getting up to speed.
But it's not to say that people aren't becoming more open-minded to it, and just because they haven't done it before doesn't mean they won't do it now.
But I think if you're just trying to optimize, you know, for, for a successful outcome, making sure you are talking to some of these people is very important. I think particularly in marketplaces, I kind of touched on this before, but like The founder should be an absolute expert in the industry and have had a ton of previous experience where they sat through how this market transacted before, you know, before they decided to build a marketplace, understand every unique element of the industry. I think especially when it comes to an industry-specific marketplace, like I personally care a lot about the founder having spent the bulk of their career there.
But I think messaging and how you articulate your depth of understanding is kind of like a make or break conversation for you. And then I will add to that, and I think a lot of investors will say something similar to this. When you are articulating how the industry works, your ability to kind of flex up and flex down based on how much the investor you're speaking to knows about your industry is like a great signal of, are you able to articulate to an audience that doesn't understand it? Can you kind of teach your industry to somebody in 30 minutes? It's really hard. But like, that was one of the first checkboxes for me when I met the Rebus guys and I knew little to nothing about steel coils. And I flew down to Atlanta and I sat in a room with John and he gets up on the whiteboard and just draws out the entire flow of how it works today and the entire flow of what this marketplace would do and why it's relevant. And to me, if you can lay out that framework for an investor, they don't need to know anything about your industry. Then they'll go and validate it and they should, But if you can articulate it in a way that anyone can understand, it just, to me, it's just like says so much about who you are as a founder, your ability to, it even like, for some reason, for me, it even like gives me a good insight into your ability to hire people, especially if they're people who aren't in your industry and getting them up to speed. And just your ability to like lead a team. I think it all gives some signaling based on how you're able to teach an industry that people don't know.
