Tzakhi (00:01.688)
Hi, Kat.
Kat Weaver (00:04.081)
Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Tzakhi (00:06.363)
Thanks for coming. I've been following you on LinkedIn and You're doing great stuff and we're at meet that capital startup podcast, of course and I wanted to have you on because I've seen stuff that you're writing and Videos that you've put up and you have great insights for startups and you also do great work for startups Your CEO of power to pitch so you help
founders build their pitch and raise money. But the interesting thing for me is that it's not only from investors for equity, it's not only for founders that go to VCs or to angels, but also for founders that want non-dilutive funding from grants and otherwise. And it's a whole world that I don't know much about. And yeah, I know you've raised.
What is it, $18 million for?
Kat Weaver (01:06.198)
We've helped our founders raise over 18 million and counting. There's a few big soft commitments out there too. So essentially that number is growing on a weekly basis, but being only a year and a half technically in supporting founders in this area, it's gone really fast. And especially in the, the precedence seed side, that's where a lot of first time founders really struggle. So that's where we decided to kind of pick a niche in a way.
Tzakhi (01:30.955)
Yeah, so, and I also know you work with a ton of founders. You also have raised a lot of money yourself for your own company, for your previous company. So do you want to say a little bit more about your own background? Is there anything I left out?
Kat Weaver (01:46.838)
Sure, well, I never had a corporate job. I've always been living the crazy startup founder life. I started a company in college and didn't have a natural network or know-how, so I won a bunch of pitches to fund the company and was able to sell and exit after six years. And I only did that because I realized that at all these pitch and networking events, I met so many amazing founders who didn't know how to clearly describe who they were, what they needed, and where they were going, essentially. So...
They were awesome founders. They had great ideas, but small changes to the way they pitched and communicated and followed up made, make all the difference. So that's where I realized I had a lot of natural skillsets and those things were more so my superpower and my parents always used to joke that I should pitch for a living instead of actually running that company, I was in the CPG space. So I am much more in my power now. It's, we focus a lot on serving female and underrepresented founders as well, because less than 1.6% of those groups.
are end up raising venture capital. And there are a lot of non dilutive opportunities as well for founders. So it became our mission really to help them get funded faster. And I have an awesome business partner who spent 25 years in finance and is an active angel in over 19 companies. So you have both perspectives of a serial entrepreneur and storytelling expert, and then someone who's a due diligence and finance expert supporting our founders as well.
Tzakhi (03:09.615)
Amazing, yeah, and I know that once you take a client, you go a long distance with them and you go and make personal introductions for them and help them actively succeed in raising and probably that's part of the reason you're so successful with helping founders raise capital. So that's great. I'll tell you what I want us to talk about. Obviously you have a lot to say and you could probably...
teach founders a lot about pitching. That's the main, that's the name of your company. But I wanna take a step before that and look at the two types of capital that you help founders raise. One is capital that is for equity from angels and VCs, and the other is non-dilutive funding. And can we, can you just?
give me like a bit of clarity on how to think of those two types of investments and who should go for which.
Kat Weaver (04:20.81)
Absolutely. So on the grants and non-dilutive side, that means that if you're going for a grant, it's not a loan. It's not something you pay back. It is essentially and usually free money that most of the time you're not even checked up upon what you do with it. Of course, it should be going to the company and that's the whole purpose, but it essentially becomes a check in the mail at the end of the day. It could come in the form of a written application, a live pitch, a virtual pitch, or
There's also government grant funding as well. They're a bit more arduous of a process, but there's a ton of options on the non-dilutive side, and they're typically great for founders under a million in revenue or venture capital raised. Typically, it should be something proprietary of a company. You're going after something that's not easily copyable, it's not a franchise model, should not really be an agency, and it doesn't have to be something tangible, and you could be pre-revenue.
But the whole point of a grant or nondilutive option is that it's giving you a little kickstart. And then the organization sponsoring the grant, they benefit by getting a tax write-off, and it's PR for them, and then it also becomes PR for you. So there are a ton of benefits for going the grant route. It's also great for networking, building the network and marketing. So a lot of factors outside of the actual monetary portion. And checks typically range on the corporate enterprise level anywhere between, you know,
as small as $1,000 upwards of $200,000 plus dollars, or even in-kind services. For example, crediting towards a law firm or marketing company, or it can be actual cash. And then for a founder who wants to go the VC route, there's a lot of, I think, misinformation and hype around being a VC backable company and raising money from investors and giving up equity and going on Shark Tank or what is it, Dragon's Den that's in Canon and a lot of these big shows where...
When you're giving up equity in a piece of your company, that is almost forever. That is like getting into a marriage with someone because it is so much more expensive and hard to get that equity back. So even debt is cheaper than equity. If you were to take on a loan or do revenue-based financing, that's also another great option for founders. But when you wanna go the VC route, the whole point is that an investor is going in, one, because they have a strategic contact and wanna support you, and two, they wanna make money. They want a certain level of return on their investment over a certain period of time.
Kat Weaver (06:44.042)
It typically should be around between the 3 to 10 year mark. There's no exact answer, but an investor wants you to 5, 10, 50, 100x their money. In the earlier stages, investors give you money because there's a huge risk involved with that too. You could fail, you could take the money and run. You could see tons of horror stories of even people who are on the cover of Forbes who did crazy horrible things with investors' money, but the goal is that they're expediting your route to an acquisition.
Investors typically make their money on the event of an illiquidity event. So that means that the company exits are acquired or you go bankrupt and then they could lose their money. But the whole point is that you want to grow it to sell it. An investor isn't going in for something that is more lifestyle or that you want to pass it on to your kids and create this huge legacy business in the way that it stays within your family. You have to go in with the mindset that you're finding strategic people to move super fast and
go on to your next thing at a certain point in time. And that's not the perfect answer. And there's a lot of other ways that I can unpack that, but a founder has to realize that giving up equity is not a simple part of an equation to making your business successful, which is why we say, you know, start and look at the non-dilutive route, bootstrap, you know, use your own grit or funds or family and friend money to be able to get the company up and only take on investor money when you're really, really needing strategic help.
Tzakhi (08:12.023)
Yeah, I think there's a lot of things we can touch upon here. But first, for the non-dilutive type of funding, I think a big question is how much time and effort you need to spend to get. Because for a small check, $1,000, I think, that you're not certain that you're going to get.
Most of the time it might not even be worth taking the time to fill in an application, but for a bigger check, definitely for $200,000, or maybe for a very good partner, or for a very good in-kind kind of offer, it's worth it. How do founders know that they have a good chance to succeed? How do they adjust for that?
Kat Weaver (08:58.626)
There's no crystal ball, but we always say that it is 100% worth the time to go after even the application and put in that for doing that is because, one, it helps you organize the business and filling out prompts about it. Two, you should be logging and saving your answers because the odds that you're going to need some written information or copy like that again is helpful. And three, you get to ask for feedback if you don't succeed. They won't 100% of the time give you feedback, but it can't hurt to ask.
But you have to think if you're putting in two hours of work for a five or $10,000 grant, your hourly rate is pretty good. That's great, right? For companies who are maybe doing half a million in revenue a year, going for a $1,000 grant probably isn't worth their time. But for a pre-revenue company to get a quick thousand bucks, why not? It depends what you want out of it, the organization sponsoring it. There's a few factors.
Tzakhi (09:35.583)
That's awesome. That's awesome for sure. Yeah.
Kat Weaver (09:54.89)
We created a whole grant non-dilutive program to give founders these insights and get educated about it because it was my world for so long. But a founder has to understand that it will take a few hours. You will fail, you will get nos. You will not have a perfect track record and that's totally okay. There is always a positive that comes out of applying for a grant even if you don't win it.
Tzakhi (10:16.643)
Okay, now for the second part, which is equity. How do founders even know that they are eligible or that they should go that route? So what are criteria to decide whether I as a founder should even try to raise capital and give away my equity? And do I have the opportunity chance to grow fast enough to justify the whole?
the whole exercise of raising money for equity.
Kat Weaver (10:49.354)
We could be here for hours. So long story short, I would say is if a founder can bootstrap and get gritty and use some of their own funds and even barter with potential employees for equity and time versus having to give them huge, large, flashy salaries and things, do that. Bootstrap for as long as you possibly can to validate the company idea product, get product market fit.
Tzakhi (10:50.799)
Okay.
Kat Weaver (11:15.938)
figure out the actual business model because the odds that you're going to have to pivot down the line and make some changes are extremely high and almost nearly impossible to avoid. That's totally okay. For founders who aren't ready and they just want to raise money to move really fast because they think they have a great idea, they're typically not going to have the odds in their favor for an investor wanting more control of the company, more equity because they're taking more risk or they're going to get booted out of the company because they don't actually know what they're doing at some point.
So a founder should really only go after investor money if they can't build or grow any further and they're willing to exit the company at some future point in time on top of what strategic elements does this investor bring to the table? You will never have silent money. That's not a thing. An investor isn't gonna cut you a check and say, good luck, can't wait to talk to you in 10 years and hope that my investment returns. They should have some sort of strategic contacts.
partnerships, level of experience to be able to support you, even if it's on a quarterly or monthly basis, or for calls and investor updates or board meetings, or you give them an advisory seat or whatever it might be. You really have to understand that is something that you're going to have to deal with and manage, and it almost becomes a full-time job when you're fundraising. It's not that simple, and you want to think of it only from strategic aspects, not just the money portion and keeping the company alive.
You don't want to raise money when you're too, too far down the hole, so you do want to think about it, but it should be for strategic growth purposes.
Tzakhi (12:52.695)
Well, I think also some startups are just built in a way that they have to raise money if they're, if they're, if they have a lot of R and D ahead of them or a lot of, um, research that, well, that's what I just said, but typically R and D companies that need to figure out and have to spend a lot on the research before they can sell anything. Um,
Often they have to raise capital to get through that part.
Kat Weaver (13:27.466)
Yeah, and we had, you know, there's some big health companies who needed to go after FDA approval. It's a really expensive process. They don't have customers, but they got letters of intent. They got some validation and they're going after investors who can help them with that process to move a bit faster, gain market advantage by going, you know, and having more resources and financial support than maybe some other similar companies in the market.
Tzakhi (13:53.071)
Okay, so let's say the founder still wants to raise capital and they believe that they have something that can move fast or that they're looking at a market opportunity that won't be there for a long time. Maybe they think they have a year's timeframe to enter the market aggressively and they want to raise capital. How do they know if they're ready to raise capital? What is the checklist that they should be?
looking at.
Kat Weaver (14:25.174)
So a few pieces that we essentially require before we'll even work with a founder in our fundraising program is some sort of validated MVP minimum viable product. It cannot be a back of the napkin idea. You had to have gone out and done a certain number of customer surveys, whether that be a few hundred or a thousand plus, actually getting out there and talking to the customer and learning what they want versus what you feel. Or if it's something a more enterprise or corporate level.
Did you get letters of intent? Letters of intent aren't paid or future invoices. It's a matter of it's an intent to use the products. So you've gotten someone's interest and then that excites investors of like, okay, I get you understand who you're going after. You've got people interested. Now you just need the money to fund it because you've done the hard validating work. Okay, that's great. So a few LOIs are really important or an email list of potential customers.
And that's not a paying for a list is not what they mean. It's a matter of you talking to the customers or putting up, doing some sort of marketing and market research to get that email list of who your low hanging fruit is per se of a target consumer. And if someone is in the revenue stages, it has to be something where we understand the business model and it is something scalable and high growth.
Again, if it's a lifestyle business, it's no judgment, but we want to make sure that the founder is more equipped to go the investment route and go really fast. And I would say that there, we look for core qualities too. So it's not just these physical aspects of a founder, but if they're going to go raise money, they have to be coachable. Cause if they're going to be compatible with investors or think that they're the end all be all and their idea is perfect and there's nothing wrong with it, they're going to struggle and it'll also make us look bad.
So coachability is one piece, two is grit, because if a founder, the investors are betting essentially on the horse, the early stages. So if a founder is not willing to be gritty and do most right by the money, they're gonna have a hard time securing that money. Then it's transparency, are they gonna be open with the investors about strengths and weaknesses and what they actually need to succeed and be willing to...
Kat Weaver (16:44.79)
showcase certain aspects in order to get the investor to even help them too. And then, so grit, coachability, oh passion is the fourth thing. So if someone's not excited about what they're doing, how can we be excited? How can an investor be excited? Just throwing money at something that they think they want to fix isn't motivating to us. If someone wants to go do that and raise money and figure it out themselves, that's fine. But we really like to work with founders who are passionate about what they're doing because it makes all the difference in the
their materials and the energy towards investors too.
Tzakhi (17:18.419)
But beyond those qualities, founders can basically come to you and start over with building everything, meaning building their pitch, building their deck, building their business plan.
Kat Weaver (17:33.53)
We don't need them to have those materials done because most likely we're going to change them anyways. We're worried about them validating the product, the idea, the business model, and then we help them pitch and curate the language and the needs around it through two pitch formats, the deck, a one-pager we go through, due diligence, techless, even potential Q&A, how to answer it, how to manage a relationship, a follow-up, we'll do mock investor calls. We're really, really
hands-on with the founders that we work with so they don't need to come to us with their foundational materials made. A lot of them have them but we haven't met a single deck or pitch that we couldn't make better.
Tzakhi (18:12.847)
Okay, so what is it about the product or service that a founder is building that would take them to the VC route or the equity route versus the non-dilutive route?
Kat Weaver (18:32.266)
I would say in terms of product is very similar. The biggest thing is having under a million in capital raised or actual revenue. That's more suited for starting the grant route if that smaller amount of funds, checks will work for the founder. If they're going the VC route in terms of product, it's something that's not easily repeatable or easy to be copied. There is a high barrier to entry or the founder has gone after a patent, some sort of intellectual property.
It's not typically a franchise model or an agency model, either is like the same as we talk about for not going for grants. They're pretty similar in terms of process and pitch. It's just a matter of the level of traction in the real need of the founder, because some founders will come to us and say, oh, I want to raise $100,000 from investors. And then we'll deep dive into what they actually need out of it and we say, well, you can actually secure that amount of money from grants, and you don't have to give up your equity, and you're going to learn more about your business and your customer.
Go secure money doing that if you're not that desperate. And then we'll talk about raising from investors and if that makes sense. If there's something strategic that you want out of it versus just a check. But the big piece is that you have something that is unique and it's not something also the investor has to use or like every day. They just has to see that it's really, really filling a need in the market and it can be high growth.
Tzakhi (19:57.075)
First of all, just to comment for sure, if you can get non-dilutive funding, and it's not even for debt, it's just a grant, there's no question that's much better. The only thing is, how long does it take?
Kat Weaver (20:13.134)
to secure investor money or grant money.
Tzakhi (20:15.279)
Grant money.
Kat Weaver (20:17.626)
it depends. When you're going the smaller check route, let's say the thousand, a hundred thousand, two hundred, whatever it might be, it can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months on average. I would say that when I was securing grant money, they came in less than a month. Some organizations paid me over two quarters, so I would get half the... It was a bigger... It was about maybe $30,000 that I had won, so I got 15 in Q1 and 15 in Q2, which was fine by me.
And then, you know, the government grant or SBIR route can take a bit longer. So, for example, I knew, I know a founder who secured five million dollars in government funding. Free money that he doesn't have to pay back. But the process, it wasn't a check in the mail from the government. It was a matter of you have to have qualifying expenses that you send to them, and if they approve, then they'll send you a check to cover those expenses months later.
and he had to hire one or two people to just manage that process full time. He said it's not even worth it because it's so painful to hear back from them, remit everything, go through the process correctly in a way. There's pros to getting that money and it sounds exciting, but it definitely takes a lot more time and effort and energy to go for some of those bigger checks too.
Tzakhi (21:41.679)
Okay, now.
It's, it also sounds to me like if you're really early stage, you sh and you want to raise money from angels and VCs because you want to grow fast. You should also spend some of your time if it's viable to get money from grants, if you, if you can get them, if you're, if, if you're at that stage, you can do both basically.
Kat Weaver (22:07.246)
100% the pitch process is very similar. It's in terms of, okay, you're talking about your story, your need, problem, market, all those things, financials, and what you're going to do with the money. So if you're raising, getting money from a grant, this is what the grant money is going to do for me. If you're raising money from an investor, this is what the investor money is going to do for me. So it's actually pretty similar. Of course, different life cycle and process in between, but in terms of the pitch application and cadence of things, it's quite similar.
Tzakhi (22:35.988)
Isn't it different in terms of the vision that you're selling? I mean, for an investor, the vision, no matter who the investor is, and even if they're telling you that all they care about is impact, the vision has to be about their financial returns. That's what I think. But for a grant, maybe the financial returns are not even an issue. Isn't there a difference in the vision that you're selling?
Kat Weaver (22:59.902)
Yes and no. I would say on the grant side, they will ask about financials in the future and what the impact of the money will bring. Sure, it's not as much as what an investor is expecting, but the person or organization who's putting on a grant wants to give the money to the company that it's going to do the most right by it, give the most impact. So if let's say it's a $15,000 or $10,000 grant and you talk about the amount of inventory marketing, whatever it's going to be, and it's actually going to equate to an estimated $60,000 for you that comes back,
versus a company who just says it's gonna be used for marketing and they don't talk about the impact, they're gonna choose someone who actually talks about the impact of it. And that has a sound business model. They go through the business and validate a lot of those pieces because it makes them look bad if they pick a company or someone who doesn't have their ducks in a row. And of course, the investors, they're not gonna go in if it doesn't make financial sense down the line for them. They are taking a big risk, but they're literally doing it to make money. It is not a donation. It is not a charity.
the investors are doing it to make money too.
Tzakhi (24:03.279)
Okay, when you're raising money from VCs or angels, I think it's always very personal, meaning even if it's institutional money, in the end, there is someone that's leading within the venture capital fund, and one of the general partners usually is the one that's going with you, choosing you to...
take you into the fund and convince the other partners to invest, depending on the decision-making process in that fund. Is it the same in grants, meaning is it in the end winning over a certain person that makes a decision in those grants? Okay.
Kat Weaver (24:45.694)
Yes. There is. So for example, in the FedEx grant, it's a big US grant. They want a company who has well-spoken, who ships because it's a shipping company and checks a certain level of boxes and is going to make them look good at the end of the day because they're going to put you in PR and marketing and say that they support a small business by giving the money. That's absolutely important to them. So it's going to be a...
collective decision from the team who's let's say elected to review grant applications that they're excited to give this person the money and then hype highlight them throughout, you know, all the materials and announce of all the big things that they're doing for them.
Tzakhi (25:30.187)
Okay, so also the way you're presenting it and the way you're pitching it is also the same. I mean, you're trying to engage someone. So I imagined a lot of it is how you tell your story or storytelling.
Kat Weaver (25:41.622)
Absolutely.
Tzakhi (25:44.703)
Yeah, and that's so when you prepare founders for that, you're basically preparing them for their whole fundraising journey in terms of how to tell their story.
Kat Weaver (25:55.666)
Yes, because the whole pitch is a story. Yes, their story is really important a part of it, and we say they should be leading with that, but your numbers also tell a story. There's a lot of elements that people don't think are a story portion or a positioning portion that make a huge difference, and it's little tweaks. We had several founders, I'll call out one for example, who was trying to fundraise for a whole year and had a single check, joined our program, we poked holes.
reorganized, formatted some of the language and story and cut some of the fluff and portions that didn't matter and made sure she talked about her numbers in a way that told a story and made sense to investors paired with why she's qualified to run the business. And she secured her first $50,000 within two weeks and then went on to secure a half a million dollar round months later. So these little changes in positioning the story and treating the whole pitch as a story
Focusing on quality versus quantity of information is part of the story too.
Tzakhi (27:02.891)
Okay, Kat, this was really, really insightful. I mean, I learned a lot of this is a whole kind of way of raising money that I wasn't fully aware of and didn't really know exactly how it works. And it's interesting how close the skills are. So basically the founders that are putting, going through the huge effort of raising capital and they're already building their pitch.
honing their skills of pitching and they're also building their story, they're learning how to present themselves, probably should use some of that energy if they're early on also to raise money from grants if those are available for them.
Kat Weaver (27:46.838)
Absolutely. There's so many resources for founders. It can feel like a really lonely journey, but it's all based on our experiences. There's always a way and there's grants non-diluted, whether you're pre-revenue or you're starting to generate revenue and then you're looking for someone strategic, there's tons of investors out there despite seemingly tough market conditions. There's money out there. So a founder, as long as they take a step back and get those foundational pieces.
down and are willing to make the time to work out their language and what they want to say and how they want to say it, it really leads to a successful outcome in whatever route a founder is choosing.
Tzakhi (28:26.148)
Where do people find those grants? How do they know how to apply or where to apply?
Kat Weaver (28:33.826)
So we curated a program specifically just for that reason. We had a lot of founders asking how and where and why, and I'm not, I applied for 20, I didn't win a single one and I don't know where to find them anymore. So we specifically created a program that founders can find at power2pitch.com. We have local, US and global opportunities. Not only do we have a list of over a hundred plus that we update every single month for founders to access as part of the program, we have a course that teaches founders how to win them, how to source even more.
how to go for multiple at a time, when it makes sense to start going for other options, what even some accelerators look like and if it's right for them. So it's a ton of value outside of just a list that we wanted to be able to support more founders for if they're not investor ready.
Tzakhi (29:19.743)
Awesome. Okay. So, uh, power to pitch. Um, the website is where people should find you linked into, I guess.
Kat Weaver (29:27.882)
Yes, power2pitch.com. I'm very active on LinkedIn. I love sharing founder stories, advice, and experiences. It's K-A-T Weaver. W-E-A-V-E-R-N-MAR. Company info is on my page as well.
Tzakhi (29:42.479)
Okay, and who should reach out to you? You want to?
Kat Weaver (29:47.35)
Yeah, any early stage founders who are raising, if a founder's ready to raise between half a million and $3 million and they're based in the US, that's their perfect fit for a core fundraising program and the application is at power2pitch.com. Or if they're looking to go the non-dilutive route and we support global companies with this as well, you can see the grant power program at power2pitch.com and there's no application needed for that either.
Tzakhi (30:11.415)
Beautiful. Okay, wonderful. Kat, thanks so much. This was very insightful, very useful, and it was great talking to you.
Kat Weaver (30:21.082)
I appreciate you having me and hopefully a couple of founders were able to gain some new insights from this too.
Tzakhi (30:27.939)
Thanks a lot, Kat.
Kat Weaver (30:29.954)
Thanks.
