How does a bootstrapped founder find funding without giving up a significant chunk of equity? Through founder-friendly non-dilutive debt capital!

Our guest, Charlie Feng, is a seasoned founder, an operator angel investor and Co-Founder of Clearco, a fintech startup that provides founders and entrepreneurs with a suite of performance financing products and services tailor-made for founders in all stages of their journey.

A pay-as-you-grow pioneer and the world’s largest ecommerce investor, Clearco’s mission is to remove the barriers between brilliant ideas, and brilliant businesses.

Clearco has invested $2+ billion into 5,000+ companies using data science to identify high-growth funding. This data-driven approach takes the bias out of decision making and helps Clearco fund 8x more female founders than traditional VCs across 6 countries.

Before Clearco, Charlie founded two other companies, and has scaled pre-Seed to Series C and beyond. Charlie also angel invests in ecommerce, fintech, saas, AI/ML, and a number of other spaces, especially tools that empower founders.

You will LOVE meeting Charlie, hearing his fascinating startup stories, and learning how he's serving founders today through Angel Investing and mentoring.

Learn more about Charlie here: https://www.charliefeng.com/#about

Connect with Charlie on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliecf/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/charliecfeng

Check out Clearco here: https://clear.co/

00:00 - meet Charlie Feng!
06:40 - how Charlie landed in entrepreneurville
12:30 - the mistakes and fails that Charlie's first business taught him
14:20 - figure out an MVP that allows you to charge money
15:50 - how 5 talented and diverse folks came together to found Clearco
20:35 - why biases can creep into decision making and how Clearco was able to dissolve the bias barrier
27:40 - a lot of experimentations and iterations will lead you to a startup's sweet spot for profitability and sustainability
33:25 - matching capital to the business model. Founders: you need to figure out what you want to do and then figure out what funding sources best fit your needs (you don't want to give up equity for Google/FB ads!).
39:30 - focus on those customers who are in the most pain - you want to be giving penicillin, not vitamins.
41:40 - why Charlie became an Operator Angel Investor
43:54 - my favorite founder procrastination story - thank you Lauren at https://www.keepwol.com!
48:17 - best fundraising tips for finding aligned investors
55:16 - how founders can best prepare for that coveted startup pitch presentation moment
1:00:50 - everyone is fighting some battle - you are not alone in facing tough problems with your startup.

Ande ♥

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