148. Questions to Ask VCs feat. Abby Mercado @ Rescripted
Do you want industry expertise or operational experience from investors? Write out what you want before you start fundraising.
About Rescripted
Reaching 9M people monthly, Rescripted is the #1 global media platform for women's health and fertility, providing content, tools, and resources for wherever you are in your reproductive lifecycle. Learn more at rescripted.com, and follow along at @hellorescripted on Instagram and TikTok.
About SpringTime Ventures
SpringTime Ventures seeds high-growth startups in healthcare, fintech, logistics, and marketplace businesses. We look for founders with domain expertise, forging a path with a truly transformative technology. We only invest in software-based businesses in the USA. We bring a people-focused approach, work quickly, and reach conviction independently. Our initial check size is $600k. You can learn more about us and our approach.
About Rich Maloy
Rich’s mission is to rebuild the American dream through entrepreneurship. He believes technology gives all people the opportunity to grow, learn and earn. He is a Managing Partner at SpringTime Ventures and the host of the VC Minute podcast. With prior careers in finance and sales, he's been focused on the startup ecosystem for over a dozen years. He's a father of two young children and loves sci-fi, skiing, and video games.
Questions that I would ask VC investors would really hone in on the areas in which they can add value. That's what they're always saying, so let them prove it to you. What I would look for here it's industry knowledge. How can you help me get smarter on the industry? You want an investor who is just as excited about the industry that you play in as you are. You want investors who are going to make introductions to different strategic players in this space. We have an investor who was able to make introductions for us to various employee benefits partners, and that was something that was really valuable to us. Make sure you put together a list and not in your head, literally write it out, of what you are looking for an investor. As an example, we are a women's health company and we wanted to have more people on our cap table who literally had ovaries. That was something that was really important to us. As players in the media space, we also wanted subject matter experts who really knew the media space and could help us see around corners. And by the way, I hate myself as saying that cause VCs say that all the time. But yeah, they could help us see around corners. And that was super critical for us to be partnering with investors who had already been there, done that, and could see us about to make mistakes that they had already made. We play a little bit in pharmacy, so I really wanted somebody who knew the pharmacy space as well. And we ended up getting folks in the pharmacy space. Same within the media space. And then lastly, we wanted a set of founder angels who had exited their businesses. So make sure you have criteria as to what you're looking for in an investor. And as you're asking investors these questions, make sure that their answers are aligning with what you're looking for. Because again, this is so based on cultural fit. Your life, it can either be really fun or really not fun. It's already hard enough, you want an investor that that's really on your team.
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