Investor Connect 825: Understanding Fiduciary Duties and Legal Risks for Board Members with Christopher Ezold of Wisler Pearlstine
Release Date: 05/02/2025
Startup Funding Espresso – First Meeting With an Investor
Investor Connect Podcast
First Meeting With an Investor Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. After a number of calls with a prospective investor, there comes the first meeting in person. Here are some key steps in running that meeting: Introduce yourself and your team. Show the market you are pursuing. Present your solution. Show your sales process and how it works. Explain your go-to-market strategy. List the milestones you plan to achieve with the funds raised. Define the fundraising status, including the amount, terms, and how much has...
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Investor Connect 827: Family Office Roundtable Part 04
Investor Connect Podcast
In this episode of Investor Connect, we welcome Alan Foreman, the CEO of Be Secure, who discusses the transformative journey of his company in the realm of heart health. Alan shares that he founded Be Secure nine years ago after a lengthy career in Accenture's Life Sciences division. Currently, the company is on a $12 million growth raise to commercialize its breakthrough heart health technology, which received FDA clearance recently. Be Secure focuses on making preventive rather than reactive heart health solutions, leveraging their powerful, device-agnostic software that offers high accuracy...
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Startup Funding Espresso – Early Stage Traction
Investor Connect Podcast
Early Stage Traction Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In the very early stage of the life of a company, traction can be more than just revenue growth Here are some key traction points to look for. The founder has an idea. The founder has an idea and a pitch deck. The founder has an idea, a pitch deck, and an MVP or minimum viable product The founder has an idea, a pitch deck, an MVP, and a customer. The founder has an idea, a pitch deck, an MVP, and a customer with revenue. The founder has an idea, a pitch...
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Startup Funding Espresso – Why Now?
Investor Connect Podcast
Why Now? Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In raising funding, it’s important to instill a sense of urgency in the fundraiser. One of the key elements is describing why now is the right time for this fundraiser. Follow these steps to show how everything is aligned for success: The team is experienced and in place. The product is ready and has been validated. The market is ripe for disruption. The window of opportunity has been opened by a recent event. An inflection point now gives the startup an advantage...
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Startup Funding Espresso – Build Your Presence With a VC Fund
Investor Connect Podcast
Build Your Presence With a VC Fund Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In raising funding from a VC fund, it’s important to understand the partner team. Each VC fund has a number of senior partners, junior partners, and others such as analysts and scouts. One of the partners will bring the founder to a weekly group meeting of the team to hear pitches from the founders. The partner bringing in the founder is the advocate. The founder pitches to the team. The team discusses and decides to pursue or pass. This...
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Startup Funding Espresso – How To Say No to a Startup
Investor Connect Podcast
How To Say No to a Startup Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Investors receive pitches from startups almost every day. Many of these startups simply don’t match the investment thesis of the investor. Here’s how to say no to a startup. Respond with the same level of effort that the founder put into the outreach. For an automated email, simply don’t respond. For a personalized email outreach, respond with a message “thank you for your outreach, this doesn’t fit our investment thesis. We look for”...
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Startup Funding Espresso – Don’t Play the Scenario Game in the Pitch
Investor Connect Podcast
Don’t Play the Scenario Game in the Pitch Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Founders are confronted with many options for their fundraising. If they raise more, they can achieve more milestones. If they raise less, they can achieve fewer milestones. Some founders play out these scenarios in the pitch to investors. This is a mistake. Multiple scenarios of varying amounts of funding with differing outcomes only confuse the investor. Investors often try to figure out what the startup is doing. Adding complexity...
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Investor Connect 826: Family Office Roundtable Part 03
Investor Connect Podcast
In this episode of Investor Connect, Hall T. Martin talks with Mike Sloan, CEO and founder of Simple Labs, about their groundbreaking product, Cogni. Mike shares insights from his background in both bourbon and wine country, emphasizing the industry's challenges such as significant losses from evaporation and spoilage. Cogni offers a comprehensive barrel monitoring solution, leveraging real-time data to optimize quality, efficiency, and profitability. The discussion spans their impressive ROI, their expansion plans across various spirit and wine markets, and their substantial growth potential,...
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Startup Funding Espresso – Raising a Series B Round
Investor Connect Podcast
Raising a Series B Round Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In raising a seed or Series A round, the story carries the fundraising pitch. Investors in those rounds are looking at a seven to ten-year trek to the exit. In Series B, the time to exit is much shorter. The fundraising pitch here focuses on the numbers. The Series B deck shows the repeatable, predictable process that generates money. Investors expect all the systems to be up and running and the bugs to be worked out. This means putting a process on...
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Startup Funding Espresso – European Waterfall Model
Investor Connect Podcast
European Waterfall Model Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Venture capital funds use different payback structures. Each varies the structure for how the Limited Partners receive their returns. The European waterfall model does not pay back the carried interest to the general partners until the limited partners have received all their capital and return. The American waterfall model pays the general partners on a deal-by-deal basis. This spreads the risk over several deals and throughout the life of the fund. The...
info_outlineIn this episode of Investor Connect, Hall Martin chats with Christopher Ezold, a partner at the Pennsylvania-based law firm Wisler Pearlstine, which specializes in business, employment, and corporate law. Christopher dives deep into the fiduciary duties of board members, emphasizing the duty of care, loyalty, obedience, and confidentiality.
He explains that these duties are crucial at every stage of a company’s lifecycle and discusses the complexities that arise when board members have conflicting interests, particularly in startups seeking venture capital investments. Christopher highlights the importance of having a diverse board, the significance of transparent documentation, and the hazards of self-interested decisions by board members.
Additionally, he touches on the repercussions of failing to meet these duties, ranging from shareholder lawsuits to regulatory sanctions and loss of trust among stakeholders. Hall also brings up a personal anecdote about dealing with a CEO who manipulated the board for self-benefit, with Christopher offering actionable advice on handling such situations.
For more information or to contact Christopher, visit www.wislerpearlstine.com or email him at [email protected].
Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.
Let’s go startup something today.
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