LAUNCHING OUR UPDATED SUBMISSION FORM: ADDITIONAL CONTEXT

Slauson & Co. is rooted in economic inclusion and driven by intentional investing. That inclusion starts with being accessible to entrepreneurs from all backgrounds, all across the country. Our aim is for anyone seeking funding from Slauson & Co. to easily get in touch and quickly hear back from us. One way we facilitate this is through a form designed to enhance our understanding of your business. With more information, we can better assess strategic fit across various factors such as thesis alignment, round dynamics, and founder profile.

By filling out this form, you help us assess if there is a mutual fit for engaging in a conversation. Our ability to do so is enhanced with answers to these questions. Certain aspects of our strategy are straightforward, such as:

• We invest in pre-seed or seed-stage companies
• We only invest in companies that are incorporated in the US
• We prefer to lead and target 10–15% ownership

While other factors, such as industry background, competitive landscape, and company stage are more subjective.

This post, and our form, aim to convey our commitment to holding ourselves accountable to ensure that we are not beholden to warm introductions. We seek to be transparent about why we ask these questions and what we are looking for. We know there are founders out there who have historically been left out of the game. We want to hear from you.

The form should take an average of 5–10 minutes to complete. Once submitted, it will be thoroughly reviewed and discussed by our investment team. We aim to review all forms and respond with the next steps within a week or two (depending on volume). On a yearly basis, we review, on average, 2,000–3,000 companies, engage with 5–10%, and only invest in 10–12.

Below is a breakdown of our form, including why we ask certain questions and what we are looking for. For more information about our fund and our investment process, please review this deck before submitting. We look forward to hearing from you.

Slauson & Co. Inbound Form Overview

Company identifying questions

• Organization name
• Organization url
• First and last name
• Email
• Where is your company headquartered (city and state)?

This identifying information helps us accurately track your company in our internal database.

• Is your company based in the United States of America?

We only invest in US-incorporated companies.

Fundraising questions

• Are you currently fundraising?
• How much have you fundraised to date?
• How much are you currently raising?
• Do you have a lead investor secured?

We look for opportunities to invest at the pre-seed and seed stages and aim to lead the majority of deals we are involved in. Our average check size is $900k for pre-seed and $1.4m for seed, with target ownership of 10–15%. As we evaluate potential opportunities to engage in, we want to make sure there is an opportunity to lead or co-lead the round and hit our target ownership goals.

Company overview questions

• Brief description of your company

Our two primary investment areas are SMB Tech and culturally-aligned consumer. Within SMB Tech companies, we look for founders creating tools and businesses that support the next generation of small business owners.

We look for:

1. Product-led growth instead of an inside sales team
2. Short sales cycles through higher volume acquisition channels
3. Smaller contracts (if any contract at all) or low entry price
4. Self-serve onboarding
5. High retention / low churn
6. Happy customers who become evangelists

Within culturally-aligned consumer companies, we look for founders creating scalable products that authentically serve overlooked customers. The founders of these companies utilize their lived experiences to create brands that, in many cases, build community or solve a problem for a historically underserved population.

We look for:

1. Founders who possess a keen understanding of their customer’s problems, share their values and understand the importance of building a strong brand.
2. Catering to expanding customer segments and shifting demographics while not actively excluding other groups.
3. Offering innovative solutions that bridge the gap between the status quo and satisfy their audiences’ needs, often before consumers realize those needs exist.
4. Models that incorporate recurring revenue or connect customers with providers of scalable goods and services.
5. Active engagement and community, which leads to increased customer adoption and long-lasting relationships.

Read more about our investment philosophy here.

• What year was your company founded?
• What stage is your product or service at?
• What has been your revenue for the past three months?

Your answers help us better understand what stage your company is currently at.

• Please highlight any additional traction metrics you have achieved so far

Your answer helps us get an accurate understanding of the evolution of the company. The more detail, the better, including clarity on the type of revenue and engagement metrics such as users, customers, etc.

• Link to pitch deck

Shorter is better, but we suggest 10–15 slides that include problem/solution, market, competitive landscape, business model, team, product roadmap, go-to-market strategy, fundraise details, etc.

Founder & team questions

• At Slauson, one of our core beliefs is that your lived experience is your competitive advantage. Why do you believe you are uniquely positioned to build this company?

As investors in the early stages of a company’s trajectory, an important ingredient for success is the team. We are firm believers in people leveraging their backgrounds and perspectives. We hope to better understand how your background is influencing why and how you’re building your company.

• Which of the following groups do your founding team members identify as?

Slauson & Co. is a minority owned firm. Economic inclusion and democratizing access to entrepreneurship for underrepresented founders are key pillars of our investment thesis.

Your answers help us track our commitment to inclusion and will only be used for internal purposes.

• Beyond capital investment, is there anything else you hope investors can provide?

We always seek to understand what founders may be looking for beyond capital investment. This is to ensure that we are able to provide an outsized amount of value to companies based on what they are looking for.

Misc.

• How did you find out about Slauson & Co.?

We are trying to be intentional about where and how people learn about us.

If you’re interested in getting in touch with us, submit your info to us here.