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Q: What has been the most useful investor for you, and how have they had the biggest impact?

12/14/2016

Rich Chetwynd
CEO & Founder
ThisData.

A: Early investors were really key; they helped me better understand the investment landscape, how to navigate it, and how to raise capital. More recently we’ve added a few investors who our smallest investors, but they have really high impact. They’ve been really helpful for their network and introductions. They’re literally our smallest investors but probably the most useful for making progress in the US. These three investors are all based in the US and they’ve all helped with introductions, guidance, or various different things that I wanted to achieve. When they asked to put a bit of money in the business we didn’t really need it. But we agreed to allow them to join on the condition that they can help with x. It’s so important that you’re not just getting money; that there is an cherry on top.

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Q: What has your approach been to raising money? And how is it different being a first time founder?

12/14/2016

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Rich Chetwynd
CEO & Founder
ThisData

A: For me I had never raised money before. I’d built and sold a company and that was great, but I’d never raised money before. It was the classic case of ‘ask for advice and you’ll get money, ask for money and you’ll get advice.’ There wasn’t any funny business going on there, I just really wanted the help. So I found the single person I knew who had a lot of experience raising money, and I went and asked that person if they’d be interested helping me put it together. Then ultimately they ended up putting in money as well. That person was really key; I didn’t need their money but I really needed their help. And they helped me work out what that initial valuation might be, how much we should raise, who we should raise from, as well as opening a few doors and making a few connections. That’s is how I started off on that raising journey.

There are so many questions when you go out to raise money. You’re all obsessed about what you want to do and how you’re going to change the world; and you need x dollars to do so. But then there is are sorts of other things that come into play. How do we value this opportunity? What sort of investors do we want? What are the timelines we’re looking at? How do we put together good terms?

One of the things that also came up for me was to stop thinking about the first round. To start thinking about what the subsequent rounds actually looked like. You can get hung up thinking it’s all about that first round of money, but once you’re on the capital raising buzz it’s hard to get off it. You have to spend the money, but then if you haven’t hit the targets you’re still spending the money. So you’ve eventually got to trim your costs, raise more money, or more likely both.

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Q: What has been the most useful investor for you, and how have they had the biggest impact?

Q: What has your approach been to raising money? And how is it different being a first time founder?

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