Description
Today’s guest is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist and she tells the story of how she raised her own VC fund. Also, you will discover what she looks for in her entrepreneurs and why she is focusing on diversity in entrepreneurship.
Mariah Lichtenstern is the Founding Partner / Managing Director at DiverseCity Ventures.
Show Notes
Raising VC Funding
Starting your own VC entails going down your own rabbit trail and doing your research for you to solve problems. It’s a hard career path to get into and it is kind of like a referral type of industry. Raising funds is all about networking so being visible will open up doors. When you reach out to people in LinkedIn, they are most likely to respond if they know you so put yourself and your thought leadership out there. Joining events, doing speaking engagements, putting articles out, traveling to meet people and seizing opportunities are some ways to do this. This will help align you with the right people whether they are individuals with high net worth or institutional investors.
What to Look for in Entrepreneurs
When entrepreneurs come in with a great idea but you have not validated the market, they look like hammers looking for nails. Even if you are sure that you have a scalable app, you still need to go out and talk to your demographic who will be using your app. Paper prototypes or wireframes will do as long as you can see how people interact with your app as this is how you can compile information and develop as strong product by getting insights from them. As VCs, they have a duty to their LPs so they want to see your revenue model, your market and how you are going to reach them. Seeing that you have done this work in addition to having a cool product is really attractive.