Tictail secured seed investor introductions by pitching peer founders for feedback
Carl Waldekranz · FF 010: Becoming Europe's Hottest Startup with Carl Waldekranz, Co-Founder and CEO @ Tictail · Aug 28, 2015 · at 16:28
Carl Waldekranz, co-founder and CEO of e-commerce platform Tictail, explains how the company connected with investors like Balderton Capital and Klaus Hommels during their seed round.
0:00 / 0:35exact quote · 35.3s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“What we did when we started pitching, and we were supposed to go out and raise our seed round, we started by pitching other startups. And we would just contact other startups and their founders and say, like, hey, we're a startup as well, we have this pitch, ah, would you please find, like 30 minutes or 40 minutes from your busy schedule and give us some feedback on our pitch? And then once we pitched them, and they were giving some feedback, if they seemed excited about our opportunity, we would also ask them to introduce us to their investors.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Carl Waldekranz
Startup ideation should be a scheduled process, not a eureka moment
“There's this belief amongst people that, like, building a startup or building a company, you're supposed to have this eureka moment, this idea that no one has ever thought of, that just came to you, and that's when you can start a business. And I actually thin…”
Stockholm's talent pool outweighs the benefits of proximity to Silicon Valley VCs
“The advantages of being in Silicon Valley close to all of these investors were outweighed by the advantages of being in a city where we have an amazing network, and we have access to this incredible pool of Really talented engineers and designers.”
E-commerce design directly correlates aesthetic choices to revenue and traffic
“As a designer, it's one of those few areas where kind of like your input and an impact correlate. As a designer, you create logotypes and branding and things like that, and it all looks beautiful, and you feel good about it, but it's really hard to see how it …”
Brainstorming sessions work best when spread across multiple days
“I think brainstorms work best when they're spread out over, over a time period. I just find it really valuable that, like, as you come up with different ideas or different directions, to let those digest for a day or two, and then come back and continue the br…”
Reverse bad ideas during timed post-it brainstorming exercises
“Create a structured form of brainstorming, and this is something you learn when you work at an agency for a few years. I love the concept of just working a lot with post-it notes, and just sort of, like, having different themes, like, let's output as many idea…”
Pitch decks should provoke questions, not answer everything about the business
“Because as it turns out, the purpose of a deck is not to answer all questions about a business. It's to create ground for, like, interesting discussions to come. Like, VCs, in general, are interested people, and they want to be curious at the end of a presenta…”