VC Minute Weekly Recap: Abby Mercado
Abby Mercado teaches how to fill a round with just angels—sixty of them! Upcoming VC Minute Guests. VC Minute chat on Substack.
Abby Mercado’s Episodes
Abby Mercado was our guest this past week. She is the Co-founder & CEO of Rescripted.
Here are the top three things that stuck with me from Abby’s advice:
You can raise a whole round with just angels.
Go to the depths of your network to find investors.
Ensure you have other founders on your cap table because they will add value.
Have you done this? How did you find angels? How many founders are on your cap table? Click the button to leave a comment.
Episode Summaries
Abby called me out—nicely—on LinkedIn about my “trick question.” Thanks to her, I’ve changed how I address this matter with founders.
There are more sneaky questions VCs always ask.
Personalized, forwardable emails that your connections can send along will unlock doors to new investors.
Do you want industry expertise or operational experience from investors? Write out what you want before you start fundraising.
Valuation Matters To Your Team
Your team is also watching your company valuation.
One of the best pieces of advice Abby got: seriously evaluate if your business actually needs venture capital.
Getting Sixty Angels To Invest
Rescripted has over 60 Angels on its cap table. How did they do it? Networking "like a crazy person."
Founders Add Value - Have Them On Your Cap
Founders are always going to add value no matter how big or small the check size is.
Episode Duration & Upcoming Guests
For the next few weeks, I’m testing out a maximum of 5 episodes per guest, which will mean longer episodes but less clutter in your podcast player. This week, Peter’s episodes average ~4 minutes, covering 9 topics across 5 episodes.
I go back and forth on these things all the time. More 2-3 minute episodes? Fewer but 4-5 minutes? What do you think?
Amazing Guests!
Week of 9/18 - Peter Walker, Head of Insights @ Carta and on SubstackInsightfull
Week of 9/25 - Matt Blumberg, Co-Founder & CEO @ Bolster, Author of three startup books: Startup Boards, Startup CEO, Startup CXO. Host of The Daily Bolster podcast. Definitely go sub to that pod—I’m be a guest on Season 2!
In the hopper in alphabetical order: AJ Bruno, Alex Ryden, Chris Oltyan, Curt Nichols, Eric Marcoullier, Liz Giorgi, Marco Benitez, Thomas McGrath
Click the link for your preferred podcast player: Apple | Spotify | Google | all others.
Chat, Comments & Feedback
As much as I love producing the VC Minute, podcasts are very seriously lacking a feedback loop. Sometimes—often times—it feels like shouting into the void. Or more appropriately, talking into a mic, alone, at night. Which basically describes my recording environment.
The VC Minute is for you. I want to know your reactions, insights and counter-points to the episodes.
Substack offers a lot of those options—maybe too many. We’re going to utilize two ways for you to engage and react to the content.
Comments
Easy! Drop a comment below. How many angels are on your cap table?
Chat
New(ish) Substack feature that is only available in the app. Here’s more on that:
This is a conversation space in the Substack app that we set up exclusively for my subscribers — kind of like a group chat or live hangout. We’ll post short prompts, thoughts, and updates that come our way, and you can jump into the discussion.
To join our chat, you’ll need to download the Substack app, now available for both iOS and Android. Chats are sent via the app, not email, so turn on push notifications so you don’t miss conversation as it happens. Here’s the link to get the app: