One Simple Rule For Finding The Best Private Deals
Hey everyone!
Sean here.
Welcome back.
So let’s talk about how I find all of these unusual,
exciting, early-stage companies doing crowdfunding, oftentimes before their
deals even go live.
It all comes down to relationships.
I've spent the past 15 years digging into, learning about
and getting to know earlier-stage companies.
I started out shmoozing executives at small privately held
firms who were competing against the bigger guys that trade on the stock
market.
Gathering industry intel for my hedge fund investor clients.
I spent another half dozen years as a writer and analyst
covering energy markets during the frack boom.
Plenty of small companies in that space as well.
And when I started covering other sectors, I met lots of
management teams of natural resource, healthcare and tech companies, again
focusing on the smaller guys who were looking to disrupt their industries.
Now I'm about five years deep into crowdfunding.
In this relatively new industry, that practically makes me a
dinosaur.
I have run deals myself, and dealt with every major
crowdfunding portal, broker-dealer, law firm, marketing firm, and most of the
other "deal guys"...
I maintain good relationships with all of these folks today.
And a lot of them refer issuers to me, because they know I
know how to get eyeballs on a deal, because I also have strong relationships
with just about every other newsletter who writes about crowdfunding.
But there's one other, very simple yet critical thing
I do, that not a lot of other folks who track this industry bother to do…
I GO WHERE THE DEALS ARE.
That’s right.
No rocket science here.
I just do the freaking work.
Everybody in this industry hears about conferences,
networking receptions, expos - all kinds of events where you can just SMELL the
startups lining up, looking to mingle, tell their stories, and raise money.
But amazingly, most people are either too shy,
self-important, or maybe just too plain lazy to put down their lattes and
laptops, get off their couches, and GO.
Well, I go.
This is from a few weeks ago at an amazing, exclusive event
in Salt Lake City:
I’m having a ton of great conversations following this one, and from another, invitation-only event earlier that same week.
You might be surprised to learn that some of these founders are a lot like many of you, in that they may not know much if anything about crowdfunding either.
It can be a pretty great tool in their fundraising toolkit.
But if they don’t know about it, they can’t use it.
And if they first hear about crowdfunding from yours truly, the Crowdfunding Missionary, there’s a good chance they will come back to me for more info, and that I will have a great idea of what’s coming down the pike, well before many of these companies make it official.
See?
Simple, right?
As a Disruptors Network subscriber, it’s like you’ll be right there in the room with me.
‘Til next time.
Sean Levine
Managing Editor
Disruptor Nation