Our most valuable asset to date has been having a diverse team that is open to discussion and determined to help our company grow.
Name: FundingSage
Website: www.startupetsu.com
Offering: FundingSage provides valuable information, tools and resources to entrepreneurs seeking to start, grow and fund a business.
- Dave Clark, Co-founder & COO
- Matthew Cleek, C0-founder & CTO
- Ken Frohlich, Co-founder & Board Member
- Tony Lettich, Co-founder & CEO
This article is part of our Business Startup Spotlight Series featuring entrepreneurs and their companies. We hope these founders’ interviews will inspire and motivate you as you undertake your own entrepreneurial journey.
What need or needs does your company seek to fill for its customers?
Entrepreneurs seeking funding for their startups find the process onerous and time consuming. The process requires significant resources and time commitment from business startup executives. Startup information and tools are available from various sources; however, the marketplace providing this information and these tools is severely fragmented. The objective of FundingSage is to simplify the process for the entrepreneur by becoming the authoritative source of information and tools for entrepreneurs seeking funding.
What is the one thing that sets your company apart from its competitors?
While providing the right information and resources is very beneficial to entrepreneurs, many fail to understand the details of what will be required of them during the due diligence process of potential investors. Our answer to this problem is TurboFunder.
FundingSage is in the process of finalizing the TurboFunder MVP which will go into Beta testing in early 2016. We expect to roll out the commercialized version in the spring of 2016. This tool will simplify the funding process for entrepreneurs by synchronizing the funding process with the process of starting the company and creating its infrastructure foundation.
What was the biggest challenge you faced while starting your company, and how was it overcome?
Our largest challenge has been the scarcity of time and the need to focus efforts on those activities that will best support the development and growth of the company. The world is full of “shiny objects” and it is extremely easy to become distracted by activities that consume this important and scarce resource. Our experience here has further validated the need for the entrepreneurial tools FundingSage is creating.
What steps have you taken to secure funding for your company and what, if anything, would you do differently if you had to start over?
“Our company’s principals consist of a group of serial entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds and experiences including the establishment and building of two INC 500 High Growth Companies, and investing in various startups including two companies with IPO exits. To date, the company has been funded by these founders without outside investment. We are currently considering our needs and the expected timing related to outside investment.”
What are some particularly difficult questions you have had to address as an entrepreneur of a fledgling startup?
Our team possesses a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences and we are extremely well networked in the various constituent communities. However, even our personal startup experiences are limited. We continue to work with entrepreneurs to understand their issues and needs in order to build valuable solutions to those needs into our product offering.
What challenges have you struggled with?
“One major challenge is that of reducing the friction we as entrepreneurs are experiencing as we endeavor to develop our service offering and bring it to the market for validation through revenue generation. The good news is that this same friction provides our company an opportunity to understand the process better through our personal experience and bring marketplace solutions to other entrepreneurs.”
What is the most helpful tip or “hack” you’ve ever learned, stumbled across, or been given?
Our most significant learning to date has been the value of having a diverse team that is open to discussion without pre-conceived solutions upon which they have become inflexible. We are convinced this diversity of ideas has led us to build a stronger company to date and we are currently working hard to expand that level of diversity and build a diverse culture throughout our company.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your company?
FundingSage’s mission is to “provide valuable information, tools and resources to entrepreneurs seeking to start, grow and fund a business, in order to reduce the time and resources required to obtain funding.” If you as an entrepreneur are struggling with an issue you believe other entrepreneurs in the startup community also experience, please share it with us. Only through considering the needs of the entrepreneurial community will we be able to successfully address those needs.
This interview is with Tony Lettich, Co-founder and CEO of FundingSage who is joined at the company by Co-founders, Dave Clark, COO; Matthew Cleek, CTO and Ken Frohlich, Board of Directors Member. Each of the management team members brings different entrepreneurial backgrounds and experiences to the table with one goal at FundingSage; to simplify the funding process for entrepreneurs. You can learn more about the team here.
