How do you raise $20M with zero cold outreach?

my place where I Fall to when I when I face a catastrophe like svb is this is horrific but I'm going to focus on the things that I control and not worry about the things that I don't but ultimately I'll survive any any calamity welcome to fundraising demystify the podcast where we uncover The Untold Stories of successful Founders who have raised Venture Capital to bring their Visions to life join me Jason Kirby your host as we dive into the Hidden Truths of the fundraising game we'll explore different strategies tactics lessons learned from these entrepreneurs who have figured out how to win the fundraising game in their own way whether you're a budding entrepreneur just getting started or an established founder looking to scale your business this podcast equips you with the knowledge and inspiration to conquer the fundraising landscape welcome to episode 12 of fundraising demystified joining us today we have Isaiah zaidi Saeed the co-founder and CEO of men Labs a life science and digital Health company on a mission to improve societal health and Health Care delivery they've recently raised a 15 million dollar series a bringing their total Capital raise to just over 20 million we talk about what they're building at Min Labs their fundraising Journey key Milestones they track to get ready for their series a and much more let's go ahead and Dive Right In hi everyone welcome Jason here host of fundraising demystified welcoming Isaiah Syed to the show founder of mend uh welcome to the show thank you Jason thank you for having me excited about the conversation I'm excited to to share your journey and hear your story and the best thing we can do is just tell the audience a little bit about your background and how that ultimately led to you starting this company and we'll go from there yeah no I'm uh so first of all thank you for having me um and it's always important to share learnings with the ecosystem and the broader community of entrepreneurs we're the ones out there working hard to change the world so happy to share anything that might be useful I'm Canadian by origin but I've been living here in New York City I've been here for a couple decades now that time has flown by and spent my career really steeped in Innovation primarily as a passion to have studied academically Innovation have practiced it both at a corporate level as well as an entrepreneur having gone through the full cycle of germinating an idea on an Afghan and taking it all the way through commercialization so I I spent roughly two decades between Citibank and Deloitte in a variety of different strategies and Innovation roles everything from corporate strategy to product Innovation again looking at transformational ideas um new products you know sort of the Forefront of the things that are going to change society and really identifying white spaces that's what I love doing and recently fell in love with um some of the challenges of Health Care and my new companies really about addressing some of those challenges I appreciate that that background and you know giving your history Innovation and coming to what you're doing now like tell us about mend and you know what's the what's the problem that you identified and ultimately was the solution you brought to Market yeah I think there's really kind of two big problems and this came to light for me I'm going through a number of kind of experiences in family with Healthcare and encounters with acute care my mom was recently it's actually right now just went through uh breast cancer surgery it's her second the first one was about 15 years ago and she recently actually had a joint replacement as well she's she's 80 years old and I've seen her interaction with acute care and things that were really great and things that weren't so great my brother fell from a 80-foot waterfall not too long ago in Upstate New York and had to be airlifted out in a helicopter and get numerous surgeries into the hospital in and out for about three months and saw his experience and again some really great things about his experience and some things that were not so great one is an acute care overall is under significant stress so doctors are understaffed in their practices 30 of nurses have left the profession uh 10 50 Physicians are over the age of 65 when we'll retire in the next in the next 10 years and so there's a lot of pressures in that environment Medicare rates being cut et cetera but then if you superimpose on that the fact that patients are going into acute care with more and more challenges so they're older like my mom is 80 90 having surgeries they're under nourished they've got lots of complications and those two are not a good mix that the fact that you have acute care that is going to be understaffed under pressure in a more complicated patient you know how do you solve for that it's going to mean a reduction or reduced quality in terms of our our outcomes and that's going to cost billions of dollars in health care and so Mendez is taking that on it's addressing some of those gaps that I saw in acute care to help lift the outcomes but also position patients for long-term success so we have a technology platform a behavioral model along with is it Foods medicine core sort of philosophy and approach and how we position patients for good outcomes and the convergence of those two is really where we're operating we think we're quite unique in that regard so you know you kind of talk about serving the the patient Community but you know looking at your website I see you know physical supplements that I'm student people can purchase as well as app and Technology can you walk us through what the patient experience is how they discover you and what what they end up uh you know how do they utilize you yeah we really focus the business and this is you know a hard lift of getting into conventional Healthcare are really really going to go to market through Physicians and doctors and hospitals and you can imagine a very skeptical community that is evidence-based and really wants to see published papers and science before they touch anything and then when you bring them to them some something that's not a pharmaceutical or they're not custom using it even heightened level of skepticism and scrutiny so we've had to work really hard to go through that channel but we we believe that in the long term that will serve us well because we really want to help support medicine and make sure that we're Cornerstone of medicine so the way that mend is primarily being used today is you go see your doctor let's just say you're having a total joint surgery we have a number of published papers and studies randomized placebo-controlled trials that show that if you take our product print post operatively you will actually enhance outcomes and that means better muscle better volume better return to function and a whole bunch of things that result in better Downstream outcomes really really fascinating studies that we've done both in the form of placebo control trials and MRI but also biopsy studies that have been validated across a number of sites in recent studies that have also been published you know biopsy studies that have shown that the problem we're trying to solve has actually been historically or underreported that the atrophy is actually quite significant and can lead to long-term risks for disability not addressed so um you know that's that's how we've gone to Market and now conventional medicine is increasingly utilizing events you go into Health Systems and some leading orthopedic surgeons in the country and hospitals are ensuring that mend is a part of your protocol as you go through your perioperative experience no it's a something I probably talk to my dad about my dad just had surgery yesterday had his uh fourth knee replacement wow well I guess the technically the real knee replacement was several months ago but they botched it and had to redo it and repair it so not fun but he's feeling great he's released today so it's a good news but uh and I guess walk me through the the technology aspect so it's one you have the proprietary uh you know supplements and solutions that you know people can consume but from a technology you know play where where are you guys at on that front so today and Jason I know you've recently had some work done on your shoulder and your and your dad did I presume when when he went in for surgery there was a sheet of paper that was given to him and said these are the things you should do and things you shouldn't do I think that's a relic um that we can provide much more Hands-On care in terms of best practices so our our Tech platform enables bi-directional conversation between our care providers and the patient coaching them through the entire period so your dad if he was on our platform Not only would he have received the nutritional medicine nutritional props in the mail and told how fast to take them but he would have had a nurse a dietitian perhaps a PT that would have navigated him through the entire episode of care so all the things you need to do pre-surgery to ensure that you have a good outcome and there's a whole bunch of things that that aren't typically given as much attention to like nutrition that your dad would have been optimized on and then post-surgery what are all the things that you should be doing ensure that you not only get really good outcomes during surgery but your position for long-term From Success so our behavioral model our technology is designed to support a patient through that entire episode of care in a much more advanced uh you know digitally native way that also then uses that acute opportunity as a way to position people for long-term success we think that's a missed opportunity a lot of times at a cute event is an Aha and an eye Awakening moment for folks where they're most receptive to change they're looking for ways to not end up in the hospital again you know how do I make lifestyle Jews and choices that'll result in better long-term health and so we we uh we do that we we use a behavioral model to position patients for long-term success okay no that's awesome and I just from a pair is this a health insurance payer situation that pay for the service or is this a patient opt-in yeah there are different criteria you know the patient has certain chronic conditions that we're trying to manage because those can lead to complications and risks than uh then there would be certain codes that we bring to bear the remote patient monitoring does have a certain set of codes that we can utilize in the nutrition realm there are some codes that our dietitians can utilize to to build to to Pairs and we also do have a cash-based model awesome okay no that's great to share so yeah now I feel like I have really good grasp of you know what you put together this company and the offering that is servicing you know the patients that are impacted in these situations but let's talk a little bit about your fundraise you know I start from you know kind of the beginning from conception to when you first went out to to go raise some Capital who you targeted all the way up to your recent series a of 15 million it's a pretty traditional kind of curve if you think about what you know what startups go through you know you're begging and borrowing from family and friends in the initial stages and that's literally what I did you know I spoke to everyone that I could about my my concept and my vision for it and you know the first check was five thousand dollars and five went to ten and ten went to 15 and so on so forth and literally a couple together as much Capital as I could and the Really critical thing at that stage is getting as many proof points in place as possible with you know obviously as little resources as you can it's doing all the validation and I went to spoke to as many doctors as I could dietitians Etc you know build proof of Concepts did validation and Market studies and consumer studies so you got to stretch the dollars every I mean it doesn't end you got to stress the dollars every step of the way so ultimately that led to enough group points where we started to go after institutional Capital but we did that in the form of you know what's commonly used convertible notes with with more sophisticated investors through seed grounds sometimes the seed rounds were kept open for a while you know we took some Capital that allowed us to move but we kept it open so that additional you know seed investors could come into the round and then uh you know to today where we you know recently completed a series a round in a very difficult Market environment where it got you know very sophisticated investors on our cap table and traditional series a that's a priced round and we went through a whole evaluation exercise and uh you know that's where we're at today that's awesome and you know from kind of going back to you know kind of that post family you know friends and family round uh you know maybe those six figures I imagine is kind of where you guys ended up uh on that round is that correct yeah yeah and then from there like from that point to like you know I guess call it a precede or was it more of like a rolling seed the entire time with like no we closed a couple of seed rounds um so we took a seed round you know hit a bunch of Mile we closed it we had hit a bunch of milestones and we decided we weren't quite ready for a series a yet wanted to you know put some more things out in our business model and then you know when we got to evaluation and a place where we felt the really sophisticated VC Institutional Investor and it would have you know would like our pitch and story that's when we went after the series a yeah it was that more of like a revenue Milestone a growth Milestone like what were the Milestones or kpis that you guys were monitoring to kind of get you as you say like series a ready yeah it's it really is I mean they're gonna look for Market traction uh beyond beyond anything else if you're not a you know a heavy IP driven company it really is about Market traction Revenue demonstrable demand and so we had we had and have Hospital contracts in place and so it's very clear when you look at our company that we're executing now we're not in the product Market fit stage we're not in the validation stage we're now about okay there's a demonstrable demand for these guys Solutions and if they execute and execute well this should be a success story so that's very much where we are now we've lifted Hospital accounts into our platform uh we're generating that data and we're seeing results and so if that goes well we continue to execute with Excellence we've got four or five other accounts that are closed uh and and it'll be just being you know a big story in 2024 so you have to have all those pieces in place for the professional BC Community to really take notice of your your opportunity and when it came to you know those kind of seed rounds the sequential seed rounds how are you getting in front of ECS what was your strategy what was your approach to to kind of inevitably end up in front of the right people and close checks yeah and you have to be a little bit deliberate about kind of who you take into your angel rounds and how you're doing you know your early stage and about you know your early stage raise we've got a lot of family money into the into the company we've got some investors that are you know welded and have large networks you know one of my investors is it sits on as if she's a LP in a fund so uh once you're there it really is about shaking the trees and getting in front of as many communities as you can of investors and having folks open the doors it's it's a Relentless job we just closed our series a and some people are shocked that I'm already thinking about series B but I can't afford not to because the the Gap closes the the time comes up on you so quickly and if you're not laying the foundation for it you're just going to miss about so it's a never-ending part of the job when you're a CEO and a startup I wish it wasn't because I'd love to dedicate 100 of my energy towards execution but it's a necessary evil and you just have to constantly be working on it and when you were you know from you know C to series a you know was it a lot of more relationship building or was it a lot more like here's my startup here's my deck I'm pitching you you know we were very fortunate in that uh we didn't have to do a lot of Show pitching until you really get to the Capitol we needed to get to you know it's obviously it's you get yourself a strong lead investor and and uh if you've done enough enough socialization uh the round will fall into place so that's really the folks is you know let's just say you're doing a 10 million dollar round can you find that really strong lead to take half of it a lead that will influence others and it's a highly reputed investor where others will follow into the round so we were you know very fortunate to um to get introduced to sdg Ventures which is uh you know the Walmart family funds and um they they led the round and of course there's such reputed investors that that really helps you raise and close out with the others now we did have a bunch of money lined up prior to that lead investment um and it is about just being persistent about you know getting in front of credible investors that are mission aligned with you that was really important to us is is really purpose and Mission alignment because we are uh you know we are in a space that doesn't move fast right Healthcare human health Etc but um there is such an enormous opportunity to make an impact that we felt like if we had the right investors that were patient Capital that understood the complexity of what we're trying to build that that would be the right alignment so we're very fortunate that they're on our cap table and in the last round we have three Pure Play food as medicine human health focused investors and then others that are kind of tangentially they're they're interested in space it's not core part of their thesis um but they really love what we're trying to build so um to answer your your question um you know it is um it is something that you have to stay very persistent with and speak to as many people as you can speak to where most of these uh people you're getting in front of was it mostly just warm intro after War Metro or were you identifying you know kind of like these would be our ideal investors and you reach out to them gold or you try to like pass I didn't do a single cold Outreach not not a single um our entire raise was done off of warm introduction so I don't know how much of an anomaly that is I suspect people do do a lot of cold Outreach um but I find sending you know a cold deck to someone who doesn't know you uh into their inbox to be uh you're limited in in you know what you can achieve out of that so I haven't focused on that I've focused on leveraging my network to get in front of folks that they have relationships with and that served us uh served us well and and I would say most seamless fundraises that's the reality it's it's leveraging existing warm introductions because you just skip so much of kind of the necessary relationship building when you come in cold and kind of this trust establishment if you have something you trust referring someone you trust to someone that you know it's like it's a much quicker you know validation but were you more or less saying hey Network or hey friends family like I want investors throw them away or you're like hey I need to get in front of these 30 investors and you know trying to map out who knows who or like kind of what was the process of kind of requesting those we did a little bit of both so we we had our Target list you know we mapped out the the community of investors that were thematically aligned with what we were looking for that were we were at the right maturity stage for their thesis right so you know these guys invest in companies like us in terms of what we're bringing to the table they invest in check sizes like us so these are our targets and then you take your targets to of our you know existing investors that were on our we were a little bit unique in that we had some institutional investors already on our cap table that came into our seed round and of course you know they can make a bunch of introductions so it was a little bit of both it was targeted approach to who do we want to get in front of as well as just kind of opportunistic hey I know this guy might be interested in your particular story would you speak to them we've one of our larger investors that came into this past around was purely opportunistic we didn't know about them they weren't on our Target list it happened to be a new relationship of one of our VCS and said hey why don't you speak to these guys and then through the course of the conversation we learned that we had actually a lot of alignment in in our businesses and that they could bring strategic value and we could bring value back to them and they ended up writing us a pretty decent sized check so again that was an opportunistic play no it's awesome but the opportunistic but also you know you did a lot of homework you guys have built the business to be attractive to to these investors it was not just you know a handshaking a check kind of thing it was you know a lot of hard work leading up to it that um yeah I always like to make very clear to Founders like you're building a company that is fundable it's not just about you know going out and trying to pitch investors on like an idea at this point especially at this stage um so that kind of brings me to um you know one point I'd just like to you know for the audience sake the the point that you mentioned of like you did the homework first in terms of identifying who your prospects are like who's actually in your Market that is willing and impossible to write checks and that that's something I try to work on Founders extensively on and you know there's too many that focus on spray and pray or just whoever has money you know and that's usually uh turns out to be a giant waste of time for for so many people involved um so it sounds like you guys went about it the right way and you know looks like the the results uh you know are in the proof of the what you guys pulled off so going to your series a at this point um you you've raced you've built some relationships you're building a company building traction I believe you guys raise about five million or so and change before you got to your 15 million dollar series a right um and from the moment that you kind of Meet the and and talk about the a to these investors the moment that you know the the cash is in your bank and you're you know firing in all cylinders what was that timeline like and what were some of kind of the frustrating points along that Journey yeah we were again we were pretty fortunate and you you'll you'll appreciate uh more than most given your expertise that we're in an incredibly difficult funding environment where very few deals are actually getting done but we I think we got from the time we met our lead to you know closing of everything probably about four months uh to get all that work done maybe it was five months at that at the longest I think perhaps and there were a number of things that that were that actually delayed it so there was Christmas holidays then there was svb and there's a bunch of things that we probably would have closed a lot sooner had had some of those things not happened um I think one of the things is is because we had a number of investors uh you know come into the round repeating the diligence process over and over and over again right so I want to speak to your customers so you're providing references to a set of customers that they want to speak to and you've already sent some of your most important clients a reference and are you going to send a hospital you know chairman another client to do another reference check so so some of those things we were asked because of the heightened scrutiny in the environment we're asked to do extra levels of diligence and we were fine with that right we you know we knew that we had we had a solid story and we had to do that but some of the delay that some of the delays that caused in terms of when we thought we'd probably close and have cash in the bank so we could start running and have a really strong year some of that was delayed a little bit uh and had to we had to wait to get a little bit creative about kind of bridging and all that kind of stuff until the round was fully closed but overall we were very fortunate to have a relatively smooth close and get the capital that we wanted and needed at evaluation that we everybody felt was a civil unfair and that's that's the other thing is you know we could have dug our bills in and perhaps fought for something something higher in terms of valuation but that wouldn't have served anybody well um and so the most important thing was to get a lien on the cap table that was a really strong that felt comfortable with what they were investing in both from a value perspective as well as you know the underlying asset and the asset and then making sure that the collective you know Syndicate of investors was really strong because that'll serve as well in future rounds service well in the Market opening doors and all those types of things so we feel good about where we landed no and that's great and it sounds like you know looking back from you know in hindsight it sounds like things ended up going pretty well but do what it's called out you closed around like in the midst of the SBB you know Silicon Valley Bank collapse like when you saw that news and you saw everyone freaking out moving money around and you know like what were you feeling in that particular moment and did you feel like your round was potentially threatened I did at points you know we were literally in close as you've uh you've just observed and for me it was a triple whammy so I had men's money in Silicon Valley my personal uh money was in First Republic um and then I had my 401K with Vanguard which was one of sbb's you know largest largest investors so you know I Jason as you have as an entrepreneur I've developed the muscle on anticipating crisis after crisis or challenge after challenge being an entrepreneur and I literally just Shrugged that I was like what am I going to do I practice stoicism at this point I I control what I control and I react to what I can control and I don't to what what I can't control so I managed it pretty well as far as personal stress goes but I know a lot of people were really really freaked out about it it definitely delayed our funding significantly at points it was just like oh my God does this mean that um we're not going to get funded like what does this all really mean but fortunately you know the government stepped in and did what they did otherwise we might have been in some very significant trouble yeah no that was a pretty intense moment I saw all term sheets fall off I saw you know funds just go completely dark as everyone's trying to scramble and figure out that particular scenario and I could definitely sense your calmness you know talking about this particular topic because yeah having spoken to many people that were impacted by this uh they were not so calm uh it was definitely a pretty intense uh you know moment for the entire Adventure Community now you know I always reflect on a lesson that my uncle shared with me and I'll share that you know with your listeners as entrepreneurs and people that are going to go through that roller coaster ride is you know ultimately if your your reductionist this is philosophical but if your reduction is down to what is your kind of the biggest risk you have the biggest risk you have is that your your your company's gonna be it's gonna fail right but that is horrific that's catastrophic means people are going to get laid off it means people are going to lose money it's not a good thing but are you going to survive all that and and you will and you'll uh you'll be able to feed yourself you'll have a home you'll get your next job or you'll do your next thing so at the end of the day your survival is never at risk and so I use that as just kind of my you know my my place where I Fall to when I when I face a catastrophe like svb is this is horrific but I'm going to focus on the things that I control and not worry about the things that I don't but ultimately I'll survive and any calamity I think that's valuable advice for for a lot of Founders you know having you know especially I would say first-time Founders I feel they have to control everything or you know be able to be on top of everything or worry about what competitors are doing and things of that sort when you know reality you only have control over what you have control of and absolutely that's a it's a good way to kind of ground yourself and you know collect your thoughts and think about what moves you have at your disposal that will lead to the best outcomes and you know execute on what you can uh yeah we did what everybody else was what everyone is saying should do we were very careful about our expenses during that time we stayed focused on the business and executing on the business plan and and the world turned out okay so that's that's all you can do we're all live we're all doing well and Market seems to be ripping back you know right that's uh yeah it's funny how human nature Works um but uh you'll win it so at this point you guys got the money um you have the 15 million from the race you know and really what's what's kind of the acceleration plan from here you're already thinking about the series B you know like what type of Milestones or what things are you measuring or you know kind of pursuing to make sure you guys are set up for the next subsequential round yeah so as I mentioned we we have a number of contracts in place the very first contract we lifted in January and so a lot of eyes were on that to demonstrate hey that we could deliver a great client experience a patient experience we could we could build we could see revenue and all those types of things and I was elated that sort of in March that the the client indicated that they're seeing real clinical outcomes already so you're only two months into a deployment and your most important Medical Practice client is saying hey this is working and it's delivering real patient results but then you know we uncovered a lot of challenges we uncovered challenges with some of the operational side of things not the clinical side of things clinical is working really well but the operational side of things so we had to put the brakes on a little bit to ensure that we got the operational that means billing and how we do billing on the codes and all that kind of stuff to get that right so now where I am is I've got clients waiting to be onboarded just ordered two more two more accounts um and we're in parallel fixing some of the operational things so we get all that going and humming you know we're ready for a very big second part of the year uh and that means I'm enrolling and onboarding a number of Provider accounts but you know the the one of the challenges we always have is as an entrepreneur CEO is your investors are not there for all the Nuance of the story right they'll you'll send them your quarterly report and they'll see the numbers and if you're behind that raises for them risk and concern so you've got to do an extra amount of work on managing investor relations so I just had a quarterly call but what I've said in my quarterly call was I would really encourage I'm saying this to some of my professional investors really encourage you to find one one time with me because you're going to miss some of the new one even though I'm super busy you're going to miss some of the Nuance of the story and where we truly are because if I just send you the numbers the 3 000 things that we're doing are not going to be in that spreadsheet and so please find time with me and so that's really important you got to really manage your time to be able to allocate to that energy and effort to that whole side of things because these are the people that are going to evangelize you in the next round and socialize you and if they have confidence that they've invested in someone that's a good Steward of capital uh you know half your job is done in terms of getting to the next round so highly encourage folks to invest the appropriate amount of time and investor relations I can't preach that enough I feel you kind of hit it on the nail there and when it comes to your you know the one-on-one and having those conversations but how frequently are you sending out investor updates how how often are you keeping them apprised to what's going on with the business because of the really critical period we're in and if we hit a home run and these you know next couple of months um we're having a board meeting every single uh every second Friday so bi-weekly and it's just a very quick board meeting so 30 minutes to teleport here's what we did here's a set of activities to optimize I said we had some operational challenges optimize those operational challenges so that they're fully prized they can give me feedback and we can we can take that feedback and implement it but um more broadly to the broader investor community and it is a quarterly you know update to them a call we give our quarterly updates and then I try to have one-on-ones with some of the more sophisticated investors that need more detail but the board right now is meeting every every couple weeks and then we have our regular you know quarterly board Cadence let's see you know I talked to some Founders and they would be intimidated by that potential like oh having to be with the board to present but what you're describing is more of a collaborative uh environment where you're kind of hashing out issues discussing things and hopefully they're bringing ideas to the table as well um and so that kind of cadence isn't unusual especially in like a hyper growth uh you know mode or experience that you guys are going through but it does sound like traditionally it's more on a quarterly side it's just there's a particular moment where things are in crunch time and you need to keep everyone apprised of what's going on to make sure you have the most successful outcome that's exactly right you know I'd rather write down this critical time to share more rather than the last I think that's generally My Philosophy but I can't go wrong by sharing at my board knows and they have an opportunity to Pine and there's a blind spot that I have that I'm not seeing right now in this very critical time we're running daily Sprints we're running weekly Sprints everyone knows what the person is doing the board knows and if we all do that and we're all on the same page we have a chance of success but if I'm arrogant and I'm not sharing and I'm operating in some sort of black box then a shame on me if things fail because I had an opportunity to get my blind spots exposed and so that's that's kind of my bias yeah and in this market today especially for Founders trying to get funding you know there's there's a stat going around that for every one dollar of Deployable Capital there's three and a half dollars you know out there trying to or trying to try to raise three and a half dollars uh and there's just not enough Capital uh being deployed in this market and it's founders with the mindset like you that uh understand the the value of transparency not the burden of transparency and it is frightening it is a little scary and you've got some people sitting on your board that have written you big checks and they they're they're going to be demanding but I can guarantee you they're going to appreciate your transparency I guarantee you they're going to appreciate you asking for help because they want success for you just as much as you do so I wouldn't be intimidated by that overshare if anything yeah and uh you know some of the Investments I've made when some Founders super prompt on investor updates uh but sometimes too too bubbly too positive I'm like what's what's really going on behind the curtain you know and then uh it usually takes those one-on-one calls to kind of really unpack things uh or worse when founders go completely dark you know you know nothing's good when that happens and right you know it sounds like you're you know kind of ahead of that and being open and honest with your with your uh I hope so I mean I'm always asking my investors like what more do you want you know tell me are these calls structured the way that you want it is there something else you want to know you tell me and you tell me what would be useful for you so ask your ask your investors that what do you want to hear uh what would you like to be seen discussed in this call what format and they'll give you the answer yeah take away the guessing game you know like don't don't sit there and try to reinvent the wheel when they already know exactly what they want use at the shop and it might be a lot less than you know it might be imagine I remember one company I was running uh board wanted like a full deck every month on and it was different every time and it was it was excessive and it was tough um but when we had just an opening candy conversation about like how much this distracts Us and how it's taking away from execution of the company they're like oh oh yeah no problem no they would just like ask for it and you know I didn't think it was actually that big of a deal no no we could keep it pretty brief and I'm like oh God like we did this for months it's exactly right yeah Um well hey uh yeah really appreciate the the input and advice you know before we uh you know part ways uh on this podcast like any advice out there to to Founders that maybe you haven't shared uh to this point that you think might be insightful to the founders that are thinking about raising money or in the current process or fundraising yeah I mean I I don't think I'm going to share anything your Founders don't know but it you know it requires an incredible amount of resilience and toughness and uh one of the things I try to remember is sometimes there is uh Opera you've worked so hard that you just can't see that there's an opportunity just around the next uh next Corner that you turn and invariably it seems like a rite of passage where you have to that point where you're hanging from a thread before that opportunity reveals itself I don't know why that happens that way but it seems to happen more often than not we feel oh my God the cliff is right there and you're inching close to it and all of a sudden a new opportunity arises so as long as you stay true to your mission and your purpose and you're working really hard on doing all the right sets of things I really believe that that is in the Alchemy for for those opportunities to arise be resilient be strong and and just have you know faith in yourself because that's what this whole game of Entrepreneurship is all about and being a CEO is all about is having unwavering faith in yourself and being will your hard work hard enough for it so those would be my parting words and I know that they're not anything new but it really is Gospel and it's important it's always it's important for everyone to hear that multiple times because sometimes we forget um now I have a fun question that I like to ask most of the podcast is you know just how many investors do you think you've pitched in total since day one and how many ended up investing I've probably had conversations with at least 100 investors I'd say in in total um there are I'm talking about institutional investors or family institutional slash family and they're probably 15 to 20 on our cap table solid conversion rate yeah well yeah more informal hey we just want to get to know you versus an active sort of pitch like I had a number of private Equity reach out to me hey let's get on each other's radar uh but that I would say I'm a guessing but I would say maybe you know those are the numbers no no appreciate you sharing that and where can people go to Define to learn more about Bend uh our URL is really short and simple it's men Demi ND dot me and then my email address is azaya men.me I'd love to hear from you if you want to talk about anything I love talking to people that are out there that can uh share learnings with me and I can share learnings back no I appreciate that and uh I found out recently that actually a lot of the uh guests have been reached out to by some of our listeners which has turned into some pretty fruitful relationships so um we definitely encourage it don't be you know for the listeners listening don't be scared to reach out he made it open to you um just be respectful that's all I could say uh well as I really appreciate you being on the podcast I feel you shared some really valuable insights into what you've been doing and then how you went about your fundraise and I hope some Founders are able to walk away with some really valuable input thanks Lisa thanks for doing what you do we're all part of a community trying to change the world so I think this is really important stuff to be a part of the conversation so thank you for having me um a pleasure is all mine thank you