 Hello, I'm Faisal Sohail, managing director of Presidio Partners, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. I will be your moderator for today's global innovation through science and technology or just tech-connect conversation on knowing when to seek capital and when to bootstrap. I would like to welcome you, the viewers from around the world, who have joined us today to discuss one of the most important topics to any entrepreneur. How to finance your venture? The expert panel here today will discuss what you should consider when looking for the best option for your specific startup, and we look forward to answering your questions live. The just tech-connects are led by the US Department of State and implemented by the University of Texas at Austin's IC Squared Institute. Just empowers young innovators through networking, skill building, mentoring, and access to financing through its various programs. Today we are delighted to host a live web chat connecting you with the experts on financing startups. Since its inception, just tech-connects have reached tens of thousands of viewers from more than 79 countries around the globe and discuss topics important to science and technology entrepreneurs. You can learn more about our programs and partners at our website www.gistnetwork.org. Please use the hashtag just tech-connect when tweeting about the event today. We are also collecting your questions to ask our panelists. Please start sending us questions now and throughout the program by typing in the chat space beside the video or via Twitter. I would especially like to thank those of you hosting viewing groups and encourage you to submit your questions and live photos early for your chance to be featured during the program. Now let me introduce our panel of experts. First a warm welcome to Ingrid, Ingrid Vanderbilt, the founder and chairwoman of Empowering a Billion Women by 2020, Vanderbilt Global Investments, and Ingrid Vanderbilt LLC. Ingrid is an experienced angel investor and was the entrepreneur and resident for Dell Inc from 2011 to 2014 where she oversaw entrepreneurial initiatives worldwide and founded the Dell Innovators Credit Fund, Dell Founders Club, and Dell Center for Entrepreneurs. Welcome Ingrid. Thank you. Hello. Next I would like to welcome Dale Nervaney Pfeiffer, the founder of Good World. Dale's company is evolutionizing charity. Her hashtag, donate technology allows individuals to easily donate using social media. She bootstrapped her company from two and a half years before successfully securing capital from both venture funds and angel investor. She's from New Zealand, not living here in the United States. Thank you both of us, both of you for joining us for this great conversation on how to raise money for your fund. Thank you for having us. So while we wait for questions to come in from the audience, I'd like to kick start the discussion. Dale first asking you a question about there's many ways of raising money for your company from venture capital to seed funding to angel to bootstrapping. Could you describe to us what exactly bootstrapping your venture means in your experience? Absolutely. So to bootstrap your company means to found and build your company with either your own personal finances or money that you can create, the money that you can make of early operating revenue. So what that really means is you build and you define an idea to get as far along as you can before you seek for venture capital. And often what that means is having a part-time job or just cutting costs as much as possible. So in some ways you can consider it that you become your own investor. Great. Thank you so much for that answer. So in contrast to that Ingrid, you've been a very successful angel investor. So how would you contrast angel investing to bootstrapping? Well, thank you for the question and it's great to be here with everybody today. Great to see all of you out there. What I would say about angel investing and where it contrasts to bootstrapping is I often think about a comment that a famous angel investor and a venture investor here in the States, Guy Kawasaki, used to say and that is he talks about investors really want to see that what we say here in the United States is the dogs eat the dog food. So basically what an angel investor is looking for is the more that you can really prove out your idea, if you will, by bootstrapping it, by bringing in those early customers. Angel investors are more likely to get involved in your venture, certainly. But what it also gives you if you're able to bootstrap before going to angel investors as it allows you to control bigger ownership of your company. Because what an angel investor will do is angel investors tend to be wealthy individuals who most angel investors that I know in the tech sector have made their money in technology and they're now looking to pay it forward. So they will get involved with a new entrepreneur at any stage of the venture early on, pre-revenue certainly, but again if they can come in, if we can come in as angel investors as revenue is already starting to show, you're going to be able to negotiate a better rate on the investment for you. Great, thank you so much. So there's a big contrast between bootstrapping and angel investor. I think now we will start to get the questions from different embassies around the globe. So the first one is from Embassy from Avigia. How effective is crowdfunding in helping startups? So this is a question about another form of funding which is crowdfunding as opposed to either angel or bootstrapping. So Dale, perhaps you want to talk a bit about crowdfunding? Absolutely, and it's a fantastic question and one that's very ripe here in the United States is the job, the regulations and guidelines for the jobs act that just passed that allowed crowdfunding here in the US has just come into action. So you can actually crowdfund ventures now. And a lot of people, there's equity-based crowdfunding and ventures. There's a lot of different ways you can do it. A lot of people run Kickstarter campaigns. And I think that is a really, really great way to crowdfund a venture because quite often what you're doing is you're going out and doing a lot of the PR up front and getting a lot of expressions of interest in terms of people actually buying a product up front. So it's a really, really great way to test the concept and bring it to market quickly. And then there's other platforms which are now raising up crowdfunding as a popular one where you can actually go and you can put your offering up and equity, VCs and angels, proper equity-based people can come in and fund. And it's new and particularly this equity-based crowdfunding platform, but I think they're a really interesting place to start looking. That's great. People ask me, because in the U.S. it is becoming a very large sector of investment very quickly, several billion dollars over the last two years. And people always ask me, is that bad for venture capitalist? And my point is always, no, it's great because it proves that the products, if customers are buying the products or the crowds are buying the products, it's a great way to prove out the concept. Well, great. Thank you for that answer. Let's go next to a question from Yali Birngrup in Senegal. What are the risks involved in taking debt capital as opposed to taking equity capital? I think that's a great question. Ingrid, I'll pose it to you first, which is what are the risks and rewards of debt versus equity, especially with your experience of managing the debt capital fund at Dell? Thank you. So, yes. So I started a $100 million fund, a debt fund at Dell, which became a $250 million fund. I run another $100 million debt fund now. There are big differences between debt capital and equity capital. The biggest one that I would say is when you're raising debt for your venture, you're not necessarily giving away equity in your venture. I'm a huge fan of debt. So let's say for example, debt is essentially a loan. It's a loan into your venture. The type of debt funds that I have overseen are funds that tend to work with technology companies that are seeking to finance growth, finance equipment, that type of thing. And so instead of going out, for example, and raising a million dollars as an example, in equity financing where you have to give up a percentage of your company, if you worked with a structured debt fund, we'll actually potentially lend the money to you at rates that tend to be below what you would get at a bank, for example. So what that does for you again is it allows you to keep ownership of your company, get capital that you need for your growth. The risk of debt capital, the biggest risk that I would say between debt and equity is that debt capital, at some point, you've got to pay it back. And unlike equity investors, when somebody comes in and writes you a check and they become an owner of your company, for any entrepreneur, we're always going to face difficulties in our ventures. We're going to face challenges in our ventures. And when you're not performing to numbers, for example, your equity investors will tend to be in there with you. They're going to help you work through those challenging times. They're going to make connections with you, help you work through that. Debt investors, on the other hand, tend to focus very much on just the return on the capital. So what we're looking for is we've made a loan. We want to get paid back the loan. We don't have the same relationship with the company. So it can become more challenging when the company starts going through difficult times. So that would be what both of them are, opportunities and challenges with both. Great. Dale, can you expand upon the collateral or non-collateral parts of debt? Have you seen what the difference is between the two structures may look like? If it's secured debt or unsecured debt? Well, I think probably the two of you are a more better place to answer that question in terms of, you know, from what I've seen in terms of the eco, the entrepreneur ecosystem that I'm part of a co-working space where there's 170 different companies. And I think most people inside of that space go towards equity-based investments. And I think the reason that they do that is because quite often when you're taking capital from an outside investor, they don't just bring the money. They bring a huge wealth of expertise and financial acumen with them and also a set of expectations. So, you know, when you take that money, you need to get very clear on the expectations of growth and how that money will be spent with your investors. And so I think that's why it, and, you know, and I think, so I think that's one of the reasons why people inside of the co-working space and the incubator that my company is based in often prefer equity-based capital. Got it. Thank you, Sir. Next question. We have a viewing group in Lesotho. This is our friend Mr. Powers is there asking this question. If you have a business that has a potential to go global, how do we identify and make contact with the right investors to move forward? So I think this question is more about if you are based not in U.S., for example, where a lot of the capital is available, but your idea is one that is global. So it could benefit from being in different parts of the world. How would you go about securing capital, you know, for something like that? Ingrid, do you want to take that? Yeah, what I would actually like to do is give you an answer and then hand it over to you, Dale, on that front, because I was just overseas answering a very similar question. And it was coming from an entrepreneur who was talking about building a global business, but that basically said, I don't even have access to the investors who could potentially fund this business. So how would I actually gain access to them? And of course we can talk about all the different groups that are out there for you to become a member of, where you can network into the investment community. But there was somebody in that discussion who gave a really great answer that I've never forgotten and I will always say, and that is this, very, very simple. If you are somebody who, for example, starting out for the first time, you don't have access to these investors, it's the fastest way to gain access to the people that you'd like to do business with is find an organization. This might be out of the box thinking, but find an organization in your community that a lot of these investors or these wealthy individuals are part of. So in the United States, for example, down in Austin, Texas, to give you an example, maybe it's the opera community. And what this person said was go and volunteer for that organization so that the next time that organization has a fundraising event, show up, volunteer, and all of a sudden you're putting yourself at the same level that these investors and these wealthy individuals are at in the same organization, and that's going to be your opportunity to create those initial connections. So I love the out of the box thinking on that. I had never heard it before, but I think it's valuable. I think it's a really interesting idea. I think one of the big things to remember is that we're all people and we like to connect as people. So there is such a power and don't be scared to ask for help. I mean, you're an entrepreneur, you're out there, capital is, you know, we don't have a lot of money and you have to be, you know, use your ingenuity. And I think, you know, where I come from in New Zealand, you know, we don't hesitate to ask for help. That's one of the great things about being New Zealander, I think. And you know, literally, as I was bootstrapping my company, I would just send emails to anybody that I wanted to, you know, that I thought could help me, and I would simply ask for their advice. If you ask somebody for their advice, it is such a different thing for asking them for money, because essentially what you want to do is you want to develop a relationship with that person. It's not often that an investor will come in and hear your idea and just invest on the first meeting. You know, sometimes that happens and you can get really lucky, but generally it's a process of getting to know somebody and getting to know an idea and getting in that deeper understanding. So the first thing that I would say is don't be scared to ask for advice. And through asking for advice, you can create the deeper connection that might be necessary for somebody to invest. The second thing I would say is that there is amazing mechanisms out there that actually all of these people are signed up to. One of them is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an absolutely fabulous mechanism. You can go, you can message people, you can find out who are involved in these organizations. You can see the connection. So if you wanted to, you know, you can map your network and see who has connections and who might be able to make introductions. I mean, another one is Angel List. Angel List has a huge amount of people who are on there not just because they want to invest, but because they're looking for opportunities to mentor and advise early stage companies. So I would say really use these platforms that are at your disposal to make the connections and then make the connections in a way that's not going to be too alienating and work on building relationships. The both great answers. I would just add one aspect from my experience, you know, to pick up on your point of connecting with people and to pick up your point of finding things of interest to them is you can find out what those people are interested in. You could share knowledge. You could share information. One of the things I enjoy is, you know, people know what my hobbies are, which education is, you know, a big part of what I work for is sending me articles, sending me information, sending me things that I would enjoy that I may have missed that are interesting and innovative. That's another way of adding value back to the investors and then they connect with you because you're talking to them about things that they're of mutual interest. So find things that are common, find things that are of mutual interest and try to help each other. That's a great way to get to know somebody. Well, great. So a follow-up question to that, which is what do investors look for in these early stage startups? So you're looking for capital from investors. You've got a brilliant idea. What are investors looking for? Ingrid, do you want to tackle that? Sure. The number one thing is always the team. It's always the quality of the team. It's always the quality of the founder of the team. Even if you're a first-time entrepreneur, I, in fact, just last summer, I funded a group of four people who were from the age of, one was 17, I think two were 19 and one was 20. So these were relatively young people. But I had gotten to know the founder and felt like I could trust him, which brings up the second point because, number one, it's the quality of the team. Number two, I'm looking for can I trust them? And I trust them from the perspective of things are not always going to go as planned. Like I go into every venture I think all investors do expecting. It's never going to go the way that we planned. And that's fine. But what's not okay is if you're not kept in the loop as an investor when things aren't working out, because especially as an angel investor, when things aren't working out, part of back to what you were saying earlier, our value is we get that that's going to happen. But we want to help you through that process. We want your success just as much as you want your success. So that would be the second thing. The third thing, of course, is the opportunity itself. Always love looking for really big markets. I love solving really big problems. So I like when people come to me with innovative ideas that can solve a global issue using technology very intriguing. Number four, I look at the quality of the financials. So as an investor, angel investors, part of why we invest is our way to give back. But this is also part of our business. And so as part of our business, we are looking for that return. And so we are going to look at those financials. We're going to look at what the return is likely to be. And I would say the fifth thing, and this is really related to the second one I mentioned about trust, but I really look for people who will listen. This was something that my first investor, so well he was a first investor too, but my first mentor really taught me, Dr. George Kosmetzky, who founded IC Squared, which is one of the sponsors of the program, who has since passed away. But I asked him, he was a self-made multi-billionaire who grew up so poor he had holes in his shoes and managed to become the self-made billionaire who had plenty of things to do other than spend time with me. And I asked him once, I said, why is it that you choose to invest time in what it is that I'm trying to do here? When I know you've got a hundred other things that you could be doing. And he said, Ingrid, the reason that I do is because when you visit with me, you listen to what I say, and between the time that you and I visit today and we get together a month from now, I enjoy watching how you implement the ideas and what the progress is. And it's very collaborative. So I would say those are really, for me, the five things that I look for. And then I'll add one more, certainly anything related to empowering a billion women by 2020. Anything. I mean, yeah. Well, great. There is a list of six things there. Six things. So keep good notes. Well, great. Let's get to the next question. It's Claudia from Romania. What is the best stage to seek finance from angel investors? Is a well-documented idea enough? Or should my startup come with a demo or a satisfied user group? So I think she's asking about the stage at which to look for money from angel investors. Dale, any thoughts on that? Well, as you all know, I bootstrapped my company for a long time. And probably about six months in, I met with a couple of angel investors. And it was really just a pitch deck, a slide, a PowerPoint presentation, and a lot of enthusiasm. And basically, they weren't even close to wanting to invest in good world. But there was a lot of good that came out of that meeting. And essentially, what those two investors that I met with did is they really challenged the business concept. How is this really going to make money? They really challenged me to really think through the business model in a way that I hadn't before and go out and get that customer validation. So I would say, as long as they're not your big meetings that are going to make or break your business, definitely go and start having those conversations. But it's like I said before, it's a relationship that you need to build with these people. And it's exactly what Ingrid said. You go and you take what you learned and you fold it back into the business. Then you come back in a couple of months and go, well, six months and show them your progress. And that's when you can build the relationship of trust, which really, really makes all the difference in the best investor entrepreneur relationships. So you don't necessarily need a product to be ready to show. You can go with a concept. You can go with a PowerPoint deck. My experience is that less and less ideas are getting funded. However, it is still possible, so don't necessarily stop, but less and less ideas are getting funded. So if you have a product, that may be even better. Yes, exactly. Wonderful. Great. Well, let's move on to the next question. Hassan, a follow-up question with what would I need to get VC partner interested in my business? So basically asking about, okay, what do I need to do? I mean, I can take that a little bit being a venture capitalist since that's what I do for a living. I would say I'll pair down Ingrid's list of six things to three things. I would say number one and probably the most important thing that I look for is it is the team because team really makes a difference. Number two I look for is large growing underserved markets. So the way I think about it is if these are large markets and they're growing and they're underserved, you can really, really build large businesses with great margins. And then the third thing is critical is speed of execution. So if I can see those three things in an idea that intrigues, I think most venture capitalist intrigues them to dig deeper, to see if it's a world-class team working on a big underserved growing market and has the ability to execute quickly, that would be my answer. But please feel free to add to those three things. No, I think from a venture perspective, so I'm involved in a fund called Bell Capital. We specifically look for women run, women-led ventures. And we're looking for the same thing. And I think it's interesting because before we actually started filming today, we were talking about the idea of speed to execution because we were talking about how soon, at what point, do you want to raise how much money? And there's a lot to be said around how fast are you going to be able to execute in the market because again, from a venture perspective, we absolutely are looking at time to the exit. We're looking at all the competitors out there and we want to make sure we beat them when we get our maximum value. Wonderful. The only thing I would perhaps add just very quickly is you have to make sure you get your narrative right. So this is probably not something you see as an investor, but we spend so much time figuring out exactly what our story is and practicing that pitch so we're pitch perfect when we go in. Very important, yeah. I know VCs want to see a very concise description of what you're going to do and how is that going to make a big impact very quickly. We have a very short time, a very short attention span, unfortunately. Okay, great. Let's move on to the next question. What do angels and VCs take in return for investment from the venture? It's a great question because sometimes we just automatically assume. So let's dive into that a little bit. What is the entrepreneur giving up in return for that money? Yeah, so from the angel perspective, I mean, again, it really does come down to the negotiation of what you think your value is worth and what we think the value of your company is worth. Two deals that I just did, one company we went in and so these were small investments from a U.S. investor perspective. But I put $20,000 into each one of these. So again, these were small by U.S. standards. One of them, I took 25% of the company. The other one, I had less than 1% of the company. And the biggest difference was the one where I had the higher equity in the company, they needed a lot of help from a management perspective, from a relationship perspective. It was going to take a lot of my time to help them get to the next stage. This other venture was my money went in, closed my eyes, went the other way. And basically, if they called me and needed help, I helped them, but they basically had it. So that would be the difference. God, so time, your time involvement in that case made the difference between you getting a lot more equity or a lot less equity depending upon how much effort you were going to put in. Dale, your perspective on what entrepreneurs give up when they take money? Take and return for investment. So they take equity. I mean, they also take a part of your time because you have reporting responsibility. So the other part of that is you want to make sure you have very good relationships. So your investors can help you when you call. But the biggest thing that they obviously take is the equity in your company. Sure. And in Silicon Valley, one thing that we see very common these days is when we invest in the companies as a seed round or angel round that typically goes in as debt. So basically at that time, we're just only have it as debt and it gets converted to equity when there's a larger round raised. And then we convert that money that we've invested into equity. But you're right, at the end of the day, we end up owning equity. That is our business model. We want to own equity. Then we want to help build that equity into much higher value. So that's how we then make profit from that. Great. Let's move on to the next question. Is there a difference between financing for an IT startup versus another type of startup such as a one in energy or health? It's a great question. So you have multiple different types of companies from healthcare to technology to energy to social media. As investors, do you look for different characteristics depending upon if it's an IT company or not? Well, so we invest in IT related companies. But one thing I will say is that if we get a company that comes in that might not necessarily be IT by definition, we're certainly looking at how are they using technology in innovative ways to solve a health issue, whatever that might be. What I would say is the return on the investment is certainly different based on the industry that you're in. But what I would definitely say here is really do your homework upfront. If you're really serious about going and raising a successful, certainly a venture round, do your homework and go talk to the venture investor who actually funds in your space. I can't tell you how many people will bring ideas in that really are not related to where our focus is. And that's one of the fastest ways to get really frankly a quick no because you're looking for what fits within what your expertise is. So do your homework, go find those investors and the returns tend to be different. Are things like patents or intellectual property are things like that? Are they important if it's a tech investment like I think the person asking the question about IT investments? So are those a must have if you're going to invest in a technology company or a good to have? So what I would say is I really want to see that, but I'm seeing a lot more deal flow now that actually don't have protection or a lot of protection around their technology. And what I find interesting and it's interesting because I was just with the US Patent Office last week because they're trying to encourage more people to go through that patent process. When a lot of entrepreneurs are now saying the technology is frankly changing so fast and going back to what you said earlier about the speed to execution by the time that they are where they want to be in the market where we want to see them be they're already on to their next gen or whatever. So I don't ever look at it as if you don't have it would we not look at it? It's certainly something that we look for as soon as we're involved in a company like that we want to get whatever protections around it we can. But it has changed is very different from funding of 10 years ago as you've probably experienced yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Great. Let's move to our next question. It's a question coming on Twitter in a startup offering a free version model. How many users do VCs want to see before investing? That's that's a great question. I think so question is about traction. You're you're in the social giving space and what type of numbers are interesting before a business or an idea seems to be getting traction. So, you know, a lot of companies now are raising capital just on this idea of having a lot of users and not necessarily so much on, you know, creating revenue. And I think that that is still very ripe. And I'll be actually really interested in your comments on this. However, I have a feeling that, you know, while that is still very valid, you know, offering free versions and getting a lot of people signed up and everything doesn't necessarily mean to say that they're going to use use it down the track. So at some point you really have to convert them into paying users. But I should be really interested in your comment. Yeah, I think, you know, we're seeing both business models. Conversion seems to be less and less so because a lot of people once they get used to a free service don't convert. That's the fact of fact of reality. So a lot of the companies that we're looking at nowadays, they really are, you know, monetizing through advertising revenue. So really it is about if you can get a very strong, large following, which is very consistently using your product. And then you can start to monetize it via advertising, which, you know, tends to be a very good business model as opposed to trying to get them to convert to pay, which in from what I'm seeing, it is more and more difficult in the age of Internet where most people have an expectation that products will just be free. And and it's very hard for them to put their credit card information in to actually pay for it. Matt, one more thing to that because one one company I just did over a year ago. So these entrepreneurs. Built a solution that they so they looked at the market. They identified a very specific need. They knew they were going to get acquired. They knew who the potential acquirer was. They developed the company. They had 60 paid users. That was it. So 60 paid users over a about a four month time period. They got bought out. So it was one of those things where I was like, OK, note to sell. Very valuable 60. Actually, the funny thing is because if you looked at the average average revenue per user, it's actually not that high. So the interesting thing was they were so smart about going into building this venture of saying, we know if we get this right and we show the dogs eat the dog food, but we get this right. This is the solution this company absolutely needs. And they they got pretty good valuation on the buyout in less than a year. So great. So no, no, your end markets and no, your end acquisition targets. So which is great. Great. Let's keep moving. You have a similar question coming from Iraq and Nigeria. Let's let's look at this question. How do you run a startup and secure investment in countries facing challenging conditions? Excellent question where you have security is an issue on the ground where you have potential disruptions to services and so on. So forth. How do you operate in that type of environment one? And how do you secure your capital? If you will, how do you secure your investment? I mean, it's a difficult question. If there are any ideas you want to share about maybe how to secure some of those things, Dale, any thoughts on this? Yeah, I can I can never have a God answering this question. And, you know, it's I think when you're when you're building a business is all sorts of things that you can do that don't, you know, really involve being online when I use the lean startup methodology for creating good world. And if people don't know what lean startup is, if you go and look at my lean startup.com, it has this whole approach to creating a business. But what what it basically means is as you're building your business, you're really out there with your customers doing a lot of interviews. You're not necessarily, you know, on the computer coding and doing things that really, you know, you need this type of infrastructure for. You can be out there, you know, drawing up wireframes with the pen and paper and going and showing that to people and getting input and kind of really creating the, you know, really creating the product without without necessarily having to be online encoding and doing those things which might be challenging in some countries to have that all the time. And, you know, the other thing is that that I would say is, you know, once again, I would, you know, really tell these these net online networks like angels list like LinkedIn to go and find people and create those relationships that that can help you offshore. Yeah. And I think one of the one of the answers that I would give is you, you know, in that concept of LinkedIn and finding people that have affinity to what you're working on because, you know, I can tell you sitting in San Francisco investing globally. It can be a challenge because it's hard to get to those places. It's hard to know about the political situation, the security, the, you know, the different issues on the ground. But if you have people that are familiar with those geographies, those areas, those challenges, they tend to be a lot better investor because they tend to have confidence in terms of, you know, what the issues are and how to get their arms around the issue, how to actually deal with the issues. So I've seen successfully people invest in those areas that they are comfortable with. And so I was first thing I would look for is investors that are comfortable with the region, comfortable with the territory, the geography, not just the sectors and types of companies. And that's probably your best bet. Well, great. Let's move on to a group in Embassy at Dakar. They're asking in what special sectors are you making investments in Africa? Great question. So Africa, big continent, all kinds of different opportunities. Are you looking at Africa at all in terms of you are? Okay, so what sectors excite you in Africa? Yeah, well, in fact, I was just in a meeting last night about it and there's so much happening in Africa. I actually look at Africa to give me insight on where I think all the global trending is happening, frankly. So what I'm really interested in in Africa is the telcos. I mean, that's huge. There's huge opportunity there and mobile money. I mean, those, you know, they're huge. What about energy? Are you looking at off-grid energy, both production and storage in Africa? So I used to and now I don't and it's simply just a time issue on my side and focusing on EBW 2020. We're not involved in those sectors, but I know there's a lot going on down there. So I'd love your take on that too. So sounds like mobile, telecom, fintech, you know, types of things are interesting and energy perhaps in the past, but not today. Dale, any thoughts on opportunities in Africa for what you see? Well, I know that some of the, you know, the co-working space that I'm a part of, there's a lot of fintech companies that are operating in Africa, as you said, and then electrification and how do you bring electricity to cities and things like that. There's a couple of companies that are focusing on that in Africa. Yeah, I've seen some really interesting ideas, I guess lecture at Stanford GSB and recently I saw a car company coming out of Africa, a car that is really designed for the local markets. So you're seeing, I'm seeing a lot of energy, pay as you go, energy production and energy usage. We're seeing an incredible amount of fintech financial technology, which is could be mobile money, mobile payments, other types of financial transactions on mobile platforms. So we actually look at some of those countries to see how they're leapfrogging because in U.S. you really don't, you know, we're barely starting to use Apple Pay and Africa has been so far ahead of us with mobile pay. So we look at Africa to see some of those trends which are leapfrogging the technologies in U.S. and those are predominantly in pay as you go, energy and water as well as in financial technologies. Those are probably some of the big areas. Great. Do global entrepreneurs have to find angel investors from the U.S. or are there angels in every country? So I don't know about angel investors, but let's say they're angels in every country. My experience is that they are, you're going to find them everywhere. So they're certainly easier to find in some places as opposed to others, but there are wealthy, there are, and when I say there are wealthy people everywhere, you don't even have to be that wealthy of an individual to become an angel investor. So there are people who have done well in your home countries that they really consider one of their ways to pay it forward is in fact to make those angel investments. And so they are everywhere. They are everywhere. How about yourself? Do you see angels everywhere? Absolutely. I mean, I don't know about every country, but I think there's angels in many countries. The thing that I would say is that what an angel group expects in one country may be pretty different than what they expect in another country and the terms that you may get from an angel investor in your home country may be very different to what you get in the U.S. And it depends often on the sophistication of the kind of the angel ecosystem and how many people are doing it and whether they're organized and all of that sort of stuff. So I would definitely compare the terms that you're likely to get from the various countries that you're looking in. Yeah, I think I would tend to agree with both of you. We see angel investors, you know, they just come in different forms. I think in U.S., you have a very organized angel investor community, you have groups and they meet on Thursday nights and Wednesday nights and so on and so forth. You may not have that level of organized activity, but I agree with both of you. You can find people that are passionate about what you're doing and trust in you and you can find those angels anywhere. And we talk about, you know, quite often here in the U.S., you talk about angels and then you talk about friends and family money, which is, you know, they're similar but different. You know, quite often you can go and, you know, within your friends and family network, there might be a few people who can give you, invest a small amount of money, which is, you know, in some ways, you know, better because, you know, quite often at that early stage the people are actually investing in you as much as they're investing in the idea. So quite often that can be an easier way to access capital through your friends and family network before going out to the more formal angel groups. Okay. A similar question from Azerbaijan. A gentleman or lady mentioned that there's lack of angel investors and venture capitalists. This can certainly be a problem for other countries as well. What advice could you provide to help launch or encourage the development of investment ecosystem? Great question. I mean, I think I've had, I've been, unfortunately, I've seen the investment ecosystem develop, we were early investors in China before there really any VC funds there. We saw a similar ecosystem develop in India. We were one of the first VCs in India and so on, so forth now investing in the Middle East and looking at Africa. You know, from my perspective, and I'd love to kind of get your thoughts, is you need a critical mass. And a critical mass doesn't have to be very large. You need a few, and my experience says you need about three to five like-minded, whether they're large angels or small funds or entities. They could be pseudo government. They could be wealthy individuals. You have to create a small like-minded people who are willing to take that risk and willing to kind of co-invest in these companies. And once you start that process, it seems to gain a lot of momentum. At least that's my experience. I'd love to hear your thoughts. That is my experience as well. We were just talking a little bit earlier about Sri Lanka. It's a very interesting place right now and that's exactly what's happening there. So you've got a couple of proven entrepreneurs down there who want to build out that ecosystem. They have banded together. They have put some of their money to work. But then they went and they traveled over here to the United States to talk with a number of us to talk about the opportunities in Sri Lanka and would we take a chance over there? And back to your earlier point about if investors can see an opportunity and we can create a trusted connection with somebody who is localized in the market who knows the environment over there who we know we can trust. There's a good chance that you'll start to attract money from outside to come into that critical mass. And that's where I've seen it begin to snowball. Yeah, that's good. So I think to the person from Azerbaijan, I think one of the best things you can do is convince one of the successful people from your region to come back and to bring that credibility back into the region and investors will follow. I can talk about how it happened in New Zealand. Yeah, I would love to hear that. In New Zealand, what happened was there was very, very few angel investors in New Zealand. And essentially what happened was that there was this first kind of co-worker incubator space that was created at Auckland University in the business school there. And all of a sudden these top mentors started to come to give that to help these companies. And what ended up happening through a conversation with these top business people in New Zealand and they were pretty high-profile people, they formed a group which was actually called the Ice Angels. And so they started gathering regular, once a quarter. All of a sudden the press caught on that these famous New Zealand businessmen were getting together to help fund these companies and all of a sudden that group grew. And they really learned together, the companies learned from them and that was the... So I think universities can also be really important places where these types of thought leadership is really born. Wonderful, great idea. I mean, I think you've got some like-minded people together. And I think to the person again from Azerbaijan and other places, there are a lot of successful CEOs in Silicon Valley that I know of one, literally yesterday we had a very big exit and the CEOs from that part of the world. And so I'm sure he may be a good angel investor back in Azerbaijan. Better watch out, you've got emails now from all over the place. Who is it? Okay, great. Next question comes to us from Twitter. How can we attract U.S. VCs to invest overseas as opposed to relocating our startups to the U.S.? Good question. So, you know, would you invest in a company that's overseas or would you force them to move to Austin, for example? Say you want them to be next to you? I think it really depends. If I was going to be totally honest about it, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, but investors do like to have access to their investments. And so one of the things that I do see happening globally is if you've started your company regardless of where you are in the world and you're interested in pulling in money from the United States, I think, again, if I was going to be totally honest with you, there is some level of expectation that maybe you're not moving the whole office over to the United States, but you're moving some critical decision makers to the U.S. so that there can be that collaboration. And frankly, from an investor perspective, so that we can tap you into our network of resources and people to help you grow. I would compliment that, though, by saying there is not an expectation, though, that you have to pick up the entire company and move it to the U.S. So there are ways to work around that. I would say from a bootstrapping perspective, I think, obviously, there's a point where you need money to grow your company, but at the very beginning, your most valuable resource is actually time, not necessarily the money, because until you know that you've got the idea spot on, then it's not going to grow. Once you get traction in the idea, just starts to pick up and takes a life of its own, all of a sudden you've created something with a lot of magnetism that people want to know about. So, and quite often then, that's when people will start approaching you because the media will pick up on it. All of a sudden, there'll be a lot of buzz about your company. And that's how, what I did with Good World, I built Good World to literally the point where VCs and angels were coming to us and actively seeking us out to invest. So I would say don't give up hope. Just keep going and create an absolutely irresistible investment proposition. And then you hold many more of the cards yourself rather than having to fulfill other people's expectations. You hold the power closer to you. Yeah, and I think that's a great point. Just be the magnet and then people just come to you instead of pulling you. And also I think I would say look for investors that are happy to get on a plane and come and have a board meeting where your company is because there are a bunch of investors in Silicon Valley that just simply will never get on a plane and they don't have to because there's a lot of opportunity right in Silicon Valley. So it's important to I think approach and select investors that are open to travel and open to being in a different area to look at investments and not everybody is. All right, wonderful. Next question is Russia from Baku asks I need to get patent protection for my invention but I cannot afford it. Is there a type of investment that could help? I think that's very much in the bootstrap. I can talk about the way that we did it. Basically, if you're seeking patent protection here in the US you can file a provisional patent for a year which is you know simply kind of almost like you know you have to have enough description in there so it you know covers off the claims and things like that but it's not a really detailed kind of patent application. A lot of that you can almost do yourself and I actually wrote a provisional patent mostly with myself with the help of a legal student and then we just you know pay the lawyer to do like a one-time review before we submitted it. So it's not the ideal situation but you know I would just always advocate for doing as much as you can yourself and not waiting like don't wait because you don't have the money just get online, find out research about it and find out what you can do yourself because at the end of the day even though you need a lawyer to really kind of do the full patent and make it absolutely bulletproof there's a lot you can do yourself and there's very little that you can't do you know with the internet is such an incredible resource of how to build a business so don't wait. And there's one more thing I would add to that is right now at least here in the United States it is a great time for those entrepreneurs who are seeking some level of patent protection because the U.S. Patent Office led by Michelle Lee they are actively going out and setting up regional offices they just helped open the Texas one last week where they recognize that a lot of entrepreneurs out there don't have the money to actually go get the protection that they so critically need. So if you go to their site and just dig around a little bit they actually have pro bono programs at the Patent Office that can help you do exactly what you were just saying the process that you went through but provide you with access to some help and resources to help enable you to get through that process. So go check that out. It is a great time for those entrepreneurs who don't necessarily have the funding but really want to go see that patent protection the Patent Office wants to help you. So what's that website ingredient is at pto.us. Well US PTO and I don't know that word probably but it is the United States Patent Office led by Michelle Lee. So just Google it and you'll find it there and it is loaded with resources for you. Wonderful. Great. Both both answers were very helpful. Yeah. Next question Veronica from Columbia asked there are special financing. Are there special financing sources for female owned businesses? Well I think you're going to put a billion women in business. All right. Let's start with first one in Columbia. Here's the thing though that when we launched our hundred million dollar debt fund back in May the first two months it was open it is set up to fund women entrepreneurs. We did not have a single woman applied to that. It was all men. So and I think part of that goes back to there's there's a core issue there that a lot of women for the first time in their communities are elevating as leaders as CEOs and they're trying to figure this out and so confidence tends to be a big issue they're working to overcome. So with that in mind there are places you can go and I was writing some of them down. So springboard enterprises where I sit on the board there and they do training for for women entrepreneurs. They get you ready for funding. I mentioned Bell Capital earlier. It's one of the top VCs in the U.S. for women run women led ventures. There's Golden Seeds is another one. Yes. There are a number of funds out there and again the Ivy Fund is set up for women run ventures. So yes. OK. So I think you just heard four names right there of venture funds are particularly set up to help female businesses. So please go and check them out on the website and see what information may be able to get. And just one characteristic that I've really noticed and was actually really pointed out to me early on about female entrepreneurs. We often won't ask for money until we have like serious traction or we might go out and I have one or two conversations and somebody will say no to us so we'll stop. You know like quite often men when they get a no they'll just be like oh well and they'll just keep going and they'll have lots lots lots lots more conversations and sometimes as a woman we won't do that. So I would say just get out there if you want the money and ask and apply it to these things. Right. Excellent question. Embassy in Rabat question when it comes to social businesses what unique elements should be considered when deciding how to finance their startups? So this is I think they'll maybe right in your in your sweet spot. So social businesses what are the what are the elements to be considered there? So of course you know a lot of social businesses is a double bottom line business. So you know you have a social benefit and you have and you have the financial benefit of the business and there is an incredible amount right now of social funds that are popping up right from you know the very traditional type financiers like Bain and BlackRock through to you know there's also a lot of foundations that fund social impact opportunities. The being and being an impact being branded as an impact opportunity can actually help you with getting access into all of these funds and really making your mark there. And but also can kind of harm you because a lot of traditional finances won't look at you because they see you as an impact opportunity and they don't think that quite often people will just kind of you know make a cognitive lead that you're going to not going to provide market rate returns. So my my and there is a lot of you know and I think a lot of social entrepreneurs they're more focused on the social impact of their businesses rather than the the market you know the financial impact. So I would say just holding those two goals equal and not being soft on either of them and really pushing yourself to find a business model that works with it with a social opportunity is really where the secret source is. Okay. Got it. Great. Well the hour is flown by so we've got the last question because we're running out of time here. So final question for for both you Dale and Ingrid in one minute what is the one take home message you want our audience to know that hasn't been mentioned so far that we haven't had a chance to talk about is there any magic bullet you can you can you know share with these people from all over the world that are listening my my biggest thing is that you are most precious resource is your time. You know quite often you if you get money too early you won't have created the art you won't have done all that customer validation you won't have refined your idea in a way that you will that you can actually deliver it to market and if you're going out seeking capital that's a part-time job. You know you you should not underestimate how much time that is going to take you when maybe you could have another part-time job that is bringing that is actually bringing an income that could like support your operations to get to this point where you have the traction and you have the publicity and everything that's going to make you a much more magnetic opportunity for investors. So my number one point is time is your key asset not necessarily money in an early-stage venture. All right so time is your key asset Ingrid. Yeah I would say there are three takeaways and these are the game-changers that truly took me from being a young entrepreneur with not a lot of experience being furled now with a lot. But the three things that really made the huge difference for me in my career and now the CEOs that I work with are number one get yourself a mentor. That is the number one thing if you do not do anything else go and get yourself a mentor. Number two would be surround yourself with like-minded thinkers. So I'm a huge fan of the Mohammed Eunice model from Grameen Bank. So especially for women entrepreneurs out there there's a magic in putting together four other people in addition to yourself. So you have a group of five where you can confidentially meet on a regular basis. You can support one another in the venture that you're building and you can help one another elevate through and work through those challenges. And the third thing that I would say and this is back to what you were saying earlier which is really know if you know if you're building a great company you've got to also know the numbers. And you've got to know the finances. You've got to be financially literate. I'm not saying you've got to be a rocket science financially literate person but you really do need to understand the blocking and tackling of the numbers behind your business. So all those things this will be a plug but it's all free so it's kind of not a plug but EBW 2020 we do offer those things for free to help you solve those three things. So I'd love for for you to come and join. Well great thank you so much both of you so I think we're we're out of time now so we'll hopefully lot of the information you've given here people will go and look up on the websites and and learn more about that. So so special thanks to you in groups today in embassies and Abuja Baghdad Baguada the car Guatemala Guinea Lee Longway Lome Masseroo Mexico City Rabat and we'd like to give a shout out to the entrepreneurial organizations around the world that participated with us youth tech and girls in tech in Colombia in just Egypt Zain Iraq Iraqi Network for social media and Fikra Space Impact Hub Bucharest C.T.I.C. incubator in Senegal Guido Cha in South Africa and finally a spree incubator in Tunis please join us for our next Tech Connect live chat on February 9th 2016 before we go I would like to add that just is more than just Tech Connects just also run startup boot camps which empower young science and technology innovators and entrepreneurs in advancing their skill set through on the ground training delivered by top U.S. mentors and in country partners our next boot camp is scheduled for Tunis Tunisia on January 11th through the 13th 2016 in partnership with a spree incubator applications for Tunisia boot camp are open until November 27th and I encourage all interested Tunisian science and technology entrepreneurs age 18 to 40 to apply I'm also pleased to announce that just will be expanding its online programming with a brand new guru series web chat monthly interactive web chat will be another opportunity for viewers to have an intimate conversation with an expert on a variety of entrepreneurial topics you can learn more about these and other just programs at the just network again at www.just network .org you hope to see you there for future discussions on topics of importance to entrepreneurs like you finally I would like to highlight that the annual tech I competition will be its window it'll be open its window for the submission of applications of your startups on December 1st application forms will be available on the just network website so stay tuned we'll now end our session with a video from one of our just tech I alums I wish you all the best of luck with your startups one year after I started my company I was pitching my startup at the global entrepreneurship summit in front of investors business leaders and innovators from all around the world just tech I got me there I want the 2011 just tech I pitch competition and received seed money for my business mentorship and training I continue to be part of the just family and it has forever changed the trajectory of my business in my life thank you just