2181 - Essential Insights on Funding and Growth for SaaS Founders with SaaS Launch's Denise Edwards

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1:05With us right now, it's Denise Edwards. Denise, you are the founder and CEO of SaaS Launch, found on the web at saslaunch.io. Denise, it's great to have you. Likewise, Josh. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. Congratulations on six and a half years. Before we start talking about your superpowers and what you do with SaaS Launch, tell us, what are you into lately in terms of fun, movies, shows, TVs, entertainment, gaming, hobbies? What do you do when you're not working? Yeah, so that's a nice question, actually. I haven't had that one in a long time. I love dancing, actually. So anything Latin, so salsa, merengue, bachata, kizomba, I love dancing.

1:49So that's my thing. And I'm also into a lot of exercising. So I actually went hiking a few days ago. So that's something that I love doing. But anything that moves my body, it's nice. And I love music. Well, you live in a gorgeous location. So you're in the Amsterdam area. Do you mind me to share a little bit about where you are located and where you go hiking? Yeah. So we're located in Amsterdam. The office is located in Amsterdam. I live in Amsterdam as well. I'm actually originally from a very small island in the Caribbean called Curacao. And I'm visiting actually my parents. A beautiful location, by the way, for the people that have not been here.

2:28And so I went hiking a few days ago here. They call it Cerubiento. We have a local language called Papiamento, which is a little bit mixed between Spanish and Portuguese. And Cerubiento literally means mountain of the wind. And so we went hiking there for two hours and it was just amazing. You see like the whole island from that point. Well, I'm looking, I've got it on all trails right now where, you know, hiking near Amsterdam. Looks like you have some just beautiful options for you. Well, very, very cool. Okay, well, I've developed a little bit of wanderlust. Denise, let's talk about SaaS Launch.

3:04What is SaaS Launch? The website, SaaSlaunch.io. Again, of course, we're talking SaaSlaunch.io. But yeah, give us an overview. Yeah. So at SaaS Launch, what we actually do is we help early stage tech founders, specifically SaaS, with capital raising. So when you're, you could be in your pre-seed stage where you're, you know, you have an idea or you have a little bit of an MVP and you want to get to that next level and need investment outside investment, that's where we actually help these founders with that. So we actually help them depending, again, on which stage of their, let's say, solution they're at.

3:39We help them with the structuring of their value proposition, pitch deck, all of the good stuff, all of those deliverables. And then we help them connect to investors. And that's basically what we do. The reason why we find it so important is because founders are, I feel founders are the, they're important in this life because they have technology that can actually help the world, whether it's, let's say, health technology that actually, you know, provides a solution for people that, you know, have certain healthcare problems and they can actually, and doctors can detect that even before. That's an amazing thing, right?

4:11If you want to live longer. So we actually help them to raise money, but actually to, you know, fulfill their purpose of making the world a bit of a better place, if that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, so, Denise, I'd really love to have a conversation with you about, well, let's cover two things. Let's talk about being ready, being either investor ready or, like, how do you know when it's time to capitalize your business rather than, listen, you've built an MVP, you built this, you built that. How does one know that they are ready to even begin this conversation? Yeah. So it really depends on which stage you're at.

4:54So where we focus on is any stage between the pre-seed up until series A, of which pre-seed and seed is kind of like 80 % of our clientele. And so if you're in the pre-seed stage, which means, okay, you might have an idea and you need outside funding, it really depends. So I would always suggest first bootstrapping as much as possible in the beginning stages because investors are, and depending again on which type of investors you're going to go for. So in the very early stages, you can look at angel investors, you can look at high net worth individuals, you can look at family offices, you also have VC firms, but take into account VC firms have their own prerequisites of things that they need from a startup if they want to invest in that.

5:40And so depending on which type of, let's say, investor you'd like to focus on, if you're in the pre-seed stage, if you need investment for, let's say, developing the product itself without you having the funds, and you obviously have a good business plan, because I always say you have to have a good business plan to showcase this to investors, then that's a potential reason where you can actually start looking at outside funding, right? Because again, if you are going to get outside funding, you have to obviously give a certain percentage away to these investors. And in the early stages, that, depending on where you're at, could be a little bit tricky.

6:20But the first thing is, can you bootstrap it as much as possible? If not, then it could be a potential check to get outside investment. And what about, you know, kind of the decision between getting other traditional business financing, SBA loans, you know, just, you know, that sort of thing versus actually working with an investor partner? What are the pros and cons of each? Exactly. So when it comes to, let's say, other types of investment and some and we also partner with non-dilutive partnerships or companies, right? Non-dilutive means adept investment, for example. And so where that actually where the difference is, is when you.

7:09Can you actually ask me that again, Josh? Well, yeah, it's just, again, there's options for financing or getting access to money in a good chunk of the world, I should say anyway. And so in the United States, obviously, we have the SBA. If you qualify, obviously, you need to also have good credit and that sort of thing. But I guess pros and cons of traditional financing or funding options versus, no, I'm going to go the investor route. Yeah. So when it comes to going investor route, you have to take into account, do you want to have access to, for example, new clients, partnerships, because the investor itself has access to this, right?

7:54So it's an individual that also brings financial capital, which is great, but you can also get that from other sources, like you mentioned. But the investor also brings knowledge, brings their network, brings potential partnerships. And so if you think of this as a bigger, let's say, whole, then an investor could be a potential match for you. Now, if you are, for example, we have companies that are in their seed stage. They have already developed a solution. They just want to scale that because it's already pretty much developed. And they just want to scale that and want to have investment. Then you can go to a non-dilutive company and ask for investment because it's purely for marketing and sales.

8:39And so they might not need to have an equity investor invest in them because it's purely to scale up sales and marketing. But if you want to have that knowledge, you want to have the partnerships, you want to have other doors opened, then you can think of, okay, an investor might be an interesting match here. And they could also be on the advisory board to advise you actually how to proceed. So those are kind of like the aspects to take into account. Yeah. Okay. So, Denise, how do you help in a way where someone is not able to get access to investors right now? Right. Is it really that difficult to find investors?

9:19You know, I guess maybe a better way to answer this question would be, here's the old way. Here's what, you know, startup founders have had to do previously. And here's how we improve the system. How's that for teeing you up? Exactly. So when it comes to that, it's usually when, let's say, pre-seed, seed stage, founder seeds usually already have maybe one or two or a few investors on the cat board. But let's go with a pre-seed stage. Super new founder, just have an idea, right? How do they get investment or how do they go finding investors? Well, you can obviously go into kind of like your network of other founders.

9:59That's usually what happens. So founders go to other founders that have gotten investment and then check into their network to find, OK, who are the investors that could be a potential match for them as well. But that's going to be a very small pool. And at the beginning stages, you need to actually accelerate the opportunities that you have. So you need to talk to as many investors as possible. And so if you don't have that network, then the best thing that you can do or the best thing that we do is help you find those investors, Whether it's through our own network, whether it's through a few of the partnerships that we have, whether it's through the databases that we've actually over the years expanded on, we basically make the right match of the investors.

10:43And then we basically help you match with those investors. So through outreach, through our own network. And so you have to think about it in this way. you again you have to broaden the amount of opportunities you have with investors too because it's kind of like a sales funnel right you want to have as many opportunities as possible so that you can actually decide with which investors you can actually connect with or which which investors you'd like to you know have a relationship with and so to broaden that sales funnel you need to speak to as many investors as possible you probably as a founder have a little of a network, but again, you need to expand that network.

11:22And that's where we come in to expand those opportunities. Does that make sense, Josh? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And so who is like, and again, we kind of talked about some ideals for getting ready, but Denise, who is like your just like your dream ideal SaaS founder? Like what do they have locked down already? You know, because you know, you don't want folks coming in and hopes and wishes and dreams, and they're not even close to being ready. Like who is like, man, oh my gosh, they check all of your boxes. Yeah. So usually the founders that we do amazing work with are actually founders. They could be in the pre-seed stage.

12:06Usually they're a little bit more in the seed stage. So they have already a developed product. They have a team and this team could be, you know, a team of three, three or four people a CFO, a CEO, a CTO. And then that team has a great background. So it could be that they've worked for, you know, Fortune 500 companies, or they've developed things, or they've exited, let's say, previous startups. So they have experience in that field that they have their solution in. And so they're very well spoken. So a lot of the founders that we see great success with are very well spoken. They know what they're talking about.

12:46And they have a good product that actually solves a problem. Because again, investors look at how big is the market? What problem are you solving? Who is the team? Especially in the beginning stages. And what's the vision that you're actually portraying? So what's the vision as well of you and your team? And so those are four factors that we look at, specifically when we actually want to work with a founder, if that makes sense. Yeah. Tell me about your company.

13:17Who's part of SaaS launch? Where do your clients typically come from? Do you already have all the investors that you need? Or at this point, are you also looking for investors? Or what is growth for you, I guess? Yeah. Yeah. So we have around five people in the team. We have a few consultants in the team that help us with the fundraising on behalf of the clients. And then we have our social media and our operations people. And so what growth looks like for us, I would say in the next couple of years, I want to be the biggest SaaS funding company, if I can call it like that, where we actually also have partnerships with other, let's say, companies that, for example, do sales and marketing, but specifically for SaaS or specifically for technology companies, right, that we also turn into an education platform.

14:12Because what we're also seeing is that there's a lot of founders that are lacking the education when it comes to fundraising. Yes, you can go into an accelerator program or an incubator program. But again, how does that process actually work? And what do you have to take into account? And how can you actually speed up that process? There's so many factors when it comes to fundraising because there's so many moving parts. And so education around that is something that I believe is something that we're going to move into. We're already doing that with our founders, but we want to do it on a bigger level so that we can actually create more impact for these founders, if that makes any sense.

14:48And I know you actually asked another question about, I think, the... Well, where do your clients come from typically? Yeah. So our clients, like region-wise, we would say Namur, so North America and then Europe, Middle East and Africa. That's kind of like the biggest chunk of our clientele. And how did, I guess the other, geographically, I understand, but how did they find you? Yeah. So we have outreach that we do. I come on podcasts, of course. So that's where clients find us. On LinkedIn as well. I write some content on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on social media as well. And so that's kind of like the different forms and referrals as well.

15:29So it's a little bit of a mixed bag, if that makes any sense. And that's how clients find me. Well, Denise, listen, in the last couple of minutes, I kind of teased this before you and I started the interview. But I don't know if, like, would we be, and then maybe this is just a longer conversation. It's unfair for me to ask you this. But, you know, it's like if we have been an established consultancy for five and a half years, we're getting ready to launch a SaaS tool like we have good cash flow, like we're doing all right. I mean, we could probably, you know, we can we can cover our development costs, no problem.

16:05So it's interesting. I don't it's like if we were to get an investor, I guess we would probably just dump it into growth a lot faster, probably bring things to market a little bit faster. rather than just kind of relying on our month-to-month profit to reinvest or whatever. It would definitely speed things up. How do I decide it makes sense? What goes into that decision-making? Yeah, I think in your case, I would really think about, do you need to expand partnerships? Do you need to expand having more clients on board? again, because an investor can open more doors than let's say you potentially have currently, right?

16:50So think about it in that way. But also, if you're going to have that investor, they're also obviously going to have a chunk of your company, right? So or the added value of, do you want to expand and get that knowledge that that investor has maybe with a similar background, right? Or is this something that you can do on your own and you want to bootstrap? So that's kind of like the thought process behind that. No, I appreciate that's a really good insight. And that kind of answers some questions for me, kind of given just our assets, our network that we've built up. So Denise, I want to share, because I know you've got some great resources, you're a great follow on LinkedIn.

17:27And so your website is saslaunch.io. And do you mind, you know, for a friend that's listening, either someone that might be just like, hey, listen, they really should have a conversation with you or someone on your team, or maybe, you know, at this stage, they should probably just dip into some resources. What are those next steps for a friend that's listening to our conversation? Yeah, so some resources that we have are on LinkedIn and just free resources. You can, you know, definitely go through that. And I do also content on YouTube. So if you go to my YouTube channel, it's deniseadwards.co, super simple.

18:03Everything on socials is deniseadwards.co. You'll find great content there as well around capital raising. and any type of content around that. So I love it. Denise Edwards, founder of SaaS Launch, found on the web at saslaunch.io. Denise, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Josh, for having me.

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