Brett Sharenow
Trusted Counselor & Advisor
Strategy, Start-up, Raising Capital, Growth, & High-Value Exit
Why hire us? Simple: No bullshit. We tell you the truth, give you grounded assessments and broad counsel. We're responsive, agile, and understand the complexities of founders, teams, investors, and boards of directors.
Strategy
We've helped countless start-ups and ongoing businesses develop the 3Cs℠—Their Compelling Case for Customers℠. The 3Cs drive pricing, sales, marketing, and go-to-market strategies, and ultimately company value. Updating or pivoting around the 3Cs and strategy are sometimes the only way for a business to survive when external forces impact the business.
Investor Presentations
More than 95% of company slide decks lack the key elements that create excitement for investors and convert into a successful raise. In addition, many CEOs focus on the product and don't know how to present the company and opportunity well. Without knowing it, they may actually stop the raise process before the first pitch meeting is done.
Capital Raise
Most CEOs and founders are not prepared for the time and effort that it takes to raise capital from Venture Capital (VC) and Private Equity (PE) investors; many don't have the skills or experience. This puts them at a disadvantage, not understanding the raise process, including investor screens, ROI, timing, round to round valuation step-up requirements, and investor cohort strategy.
Financial Modeling
Solid and diligence-proven financial models are required for CEOs and founders to raise capital, generate new strategy, and operate their businesses. They are the core component that helps determine cash needs, operating parameters, raise timing, and optimize strategy and valuation. Well-built models allow you to adjust strategy and tactics to meet changing conditions.
Strategy Your 3Cs—Compelling Case for Customers—and Strategy are the fundamental underpinnings of your business, especially for start-ups and high-growth companies. You need the 3Cs to raise capital, scale, and to be successful in the marketplace. Without a solid 3Cs and strategy, most companies don't survive.
When there are significant economic and competitive pressures, we frequently get questions related to executing a strategic pivot. We've done strategic pivots for dozens of our clients, as most every start-up and high-growth company needs to transform itself many times in order to land a strategy that is exciting, gains traction, and will raise capital successfully, scale, and drive a high-value exit.
We advise clients on developing, implementing, and using the 3Cs to maximize their competitive advantage, scale, and thrive. We tie the 3Cs in to strategy and concrete implementation. Get in touch to learn how we can help you.
Capital Raise Can you answer all these questions, instantly:
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How much money do you need now and in your next two rounds?
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What valuation are you expecting for the current round? Does the valuation meet typical investor standards based on company type, round series, and current public market conditions?
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Can you justify the current round based on milestones and required step-up in valuation for your follow-on round?
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How many months will the current round last?
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What's your VC cohort raise strategy?
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Will your strategy and financial model withstand investor due diligence?
Raising capital can take from four to more than 12 months. Many founders think that they have it under control and can do it in less time—it rarely happens. The ninety day rule of thumb is a myth.
There are many pieces to a raise, including developing strategy, business plan, financial planning model, and investor presentation deck, then generating a long-term raise forecast, optimal raise vehicle for this round, best investors and firm partners, getting warm introductions, and skillfully preparing for investor meetings.
We can help with each of these, giving you time to focus on your business, rather than spending your time trying to raise capital. Read what our past clients say about us, then contact us or set up a one hour introductory video call.
VC and PE Presentations Most investor meetings fail. Why? The CEO hasn't chosen the right investor, is boring, doesn't tell an engaging story, is completely focussed on the details, and doesn't excite the investors. We've worked with hundreds of CEOs and founders to create, assess, recreate, and polish investor decks. We then take the CEO and senior team through a rigorous coaching process where they present the deck over a period of several weeks, practicing the pitch in between coaching sessions. We act as investors, playing the role of good and bad, interested and disinterested, and nice and mean groups that you'll encounter. We ask the questions that they'll ask, help you and try to throw you off track so that you're polished, professional, and at ease when in front of the real VC or PE partner.
Over the last decades we've worked on a wide variety of products and services, including hardware, software, medical, aircraft, SaaS applications, across a wide range of industries. We're confident that we can help you, no matter what amazing new product you've developed.
Financial Modeling Building financial models is part science and part art. The best model builders can do all of these things:
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Translate your business concept, strategy, and story into numbers—elegantly. When a founder sees their business reflected in a well-designed financial model, they light up, knowing that we've captured the essence of their business structure and what they need to succeed and thrive.
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Build a model that will answer future questions from the senior team, investors, and the board, well before the questions become obvious.
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Translate the complexities of your business into an easy-to-operate tool, with standard outputs consisting of an income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, valuation module, and company-focused metrics that drive the founder to get the most from the business, taking into account strategy and key internal and external factors.
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Construct a model that will pass investor due diligence easily, decreasing stress and capital raise time.
We've built and consulted on hundreds of financial models over the past three decades for virtually every type of business. We can certainly help with yours. Reach out to learn more.