The first thing you're likely to read when you come to our website is the following "experienced founders solving real problems for real customers". That phrase did not come about by accident but rather from our own customer discovery. As much as we might struggle to do so at times, we do eat our own dog food here. After 100's of conversations with founders over the years we recognized there was a growing community of founders who don't fit the stereotypical Silicon Valley startup mold. These are founders that are poorly served by most early-stage investment models and frankly look at most accelerators and say "I'm too old for that shit".
When we launched StartFast in 2012 we saw how the Internet didn't just open up new markets for companies but also opened up the ability for investors and founders to work together across geographies. You can now both invest in and launch companies from anywhere. We also recognized from our own experience that with the growth in new tech company formation, founders required more than just capital to really get their companies off the ground. They also need to be plugged into a network that can help them build their team, advise, and guide them to develop a repeatable scalable growth model.
All of these things still hold true today nearly 8 years after we started. What's new and where we've pivoted in the past few years is that rather than focusing on chasing the same group of founders as everyone else, we are actually best suited to support the growing community of experienced founders solving real problems for real customers. We completely understand that there continues to be a huge amount of young startup founders flocking to the top tier startup hubs with new social media apps. We also recognize that 80% of VC money still goes into 5 major metros (44% between San Francisco & San Jose, 16% in New York City, 12% in Boston, and 8% in LA) The thing is though there are a lot of experienced founders outside those cities who have recognized real problems, where there are real customers willing to pay big bucks to solves those problems. The challenge for those founders is if you live outside the major hubs and even you have 5, 10, or even 20 years of industry experience it can still be difficult to build a successful, investor backed tech company.
To support those founders we've built StartFast as a value-add pre-seed venture firm that can bring more to the table than just cash. We like to come in once you've gotten your idea an inch off the ground; you have a committed and well-rounded team, you've built a minimal viable product, and you've started generating some revenue ($5K/month recurring tells us you are on to something). Despite any business plan you may have written beforehand though, it feels like you can't quite figure out where the gas pedal is. How do you go from this small trickle of revenue growing slow and steady to getting on the proverbial hockey stick trajectory everyone talks about?
Well if that sounds all too familiar to you, we're looking for new investments. Click the application button below to tell us more about what you're working on. If it makes sense we'll reach out and have a conversation.
