A New Series: Unlocking Venture without Capital

🤷🏽‍♂️ What?

Welcome to the start of a new series: Unlocking Venture without Capital. Every week, I’ll be exploring social impact startups highlighting their products, industry dynamics, and competition.

🤔 Why?

PMs are often called the CEO’s of their products, and it’s not hard to understand why. Both entrepreneurs and product managers have to collect information, prioritize, and make critical product decisions based on internal factors and external data. Gaining exposure to new companies in social impact may encourage creativity and finding parallels in our ideation and product development/roadmapping, learning from and being inspired by products and industries that we may have never known existed.

Bringing a product to market is just as important as creating the product in the first place. Innovation is only as important as it is adopted. Venture capitalists, angels, and funders are crucial to the innovation process, as they support risky solutions in getting to market. By taking a look at new solutions and innovations, we can become more informed in our product decision making, making us better operators and innovators.

🛠️ How?

The purpose is to highlight social impact startups and exactly half (50%) of the picture. This 50% comes from the Scorecard Method, a well-known framework used in angel investing that breaks down evaluating startups into 7 different categories. The categories of this method I will be focusing on are:

• Product/technology (15%)

• Size of the opportunity (25%)

• Competitive environment (10%)

25%+15%+10%=50% 🤯 — crazy, I know.

Product Overview (15%)

• High-level description on what the product is aimed to do

• Breakdown of product features

Market Opportunity & TAM (25%)

• TAM — many VCs generally say that a good market size is that of >$1B, mentioned here explicitely by Carta

• Industry CAGR — does it exceed the estimated average CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of EPS (earnings per share) of all US industries in the next 5 years compiled in NYU’s database?

• Market structure — is it a fragmented industry or is there lots of consolidation? Harvard Business Review published this great article on the Consolidation Curves of industries highlighting how new industries are easier to gain market share in, but more mature industries have higher levels of M&A activity. For the purposes of my analysis, I will place a higher preference for earlier, more fragmented industries in which it is easier to gain market share and compete with dominant players.

Competitive Landscape (10%)

• Shortlist of direct competitors — quick descriptions of three to five notable direct or indirect competitors

• Competitive advantage — a high-level description of the company’s overall either intended or established competitive advantage

My Personal Take

• 2-4 high level thoughts and opinions on the company, product, and opportunity

• Questions and phenomena I consider worth looking into

This 50% is intentional. By painting half the picture, I am hoping to leave you with a “glass half full” on each of these companies. For those you find inspiring and intriguing, you can then fill the rest of the glass.

And then, you can take a SIP. ☕️

Disclaimer: The content provided in this newsletter is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional investment advice. Any investment decisions made based on the information presented in this newsletter are at the sole discretion and responsibility of the reader. The author and publisher of this newsletter do not make any representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the information provided, and expressly disclaim any and all liability for any losses or damages arising out of or in connection with the use or reliance on any information contained herein. The views expressed in this newsletter are those of the author alone and do not represent the views of any employer with whom the author may be affiliated. It is recommended that readers seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.