fresh.fund’s Added Value Playbook
Every VC wants to be considered smart money.
But what is considered smart money and what does smart money mean to fresh.fund?
Smart money is about creating value for your portfolio companies beyond just financial value. Smart money is when a VC invests its blood, sweat, and tears along with its money. Instead of handing over a check and wishing companies good luck, smart money involves continuously providing value and support for its portfolio companies even after the checks have cleared.
Pretend for a moment we are talking about the Superbowl. “Dumb money” is like a fan in the stands who is betting on the team. “Smart money” doesn’t mean running onto the field to play the game, you can look at the VCs as similar to the coach. They’ve played this game before and while every company and game is unique coaches share their experience with their star players — the portfolio companies.
Founders run their own company, and let’s be honest they do the hard work. We’re just here to help whenever we can, but lips service won’t win you any super bowl rings. You can’t talk your way into becoming a unicorn and at fresh.fund we don’t want to just talk the talk, we walk the walk.
We believe that our founders are some of the smartest and most ambitious people on the planet. Why wouldn’t we want to hang out with the smartest people we know? Each company is solving a problem that we believe needs to be solved. They are making a better future, and it’s our privilege to invest our time and efforts into making that a reality. We aspire to be smart money because we believe the smartest thing we could do is help grow the portfolio companies.
So how do we support our portfolio companies so they can reach their full potential? First by listening to their needs. We don’t force “solutions” on anyone and no two companies have the same needs. There isn’t one path to the endzone or one winning playbook. We offer our portfolio companies help whenever they want it.
Here are some examples of how we offer to support our portfolio companies.
Offering Continuous Support:
Support isn’t something you offer once and you’re done. We show our unwavering support through by offering regular meetings with founders looking for hands-on support. There we:
- Focus on company priorities and how fresh.fund can help
- Together with the founders, we set KPIs to increase the company’s valuation before next raise
- Check in during meetings on progress towards achieving these goals and how to assist in accomplishing each goal
- We calculate monthly burn rates, set budgets, and determine next raise size, ballpark valuation, and set raise size goals
- Define clear goals and value creation KPIs to achieve company priorities
Goals are crucial, people who make them happen are revolutionaries. That’s why our goal is to always work with our founders, not against them.
- Help founders manage their workload and scale tasks
- Support and ease relations between founders
- Creating one-on-one meetings between founders and leaders in different fields to help guide them as they grow.
For a company to grow it has to never lose sight of its identity. Let’s define what that is
- Writing a positioning statement, what makes you unique and what is your company’s focus
- SWOT analysis, identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
Helping our companies grow, from stage to stage
How we Support our companies at the Problem/Solution Fit Stage
We start with the most important elements of creating a successful company — solving the most critical problem.
- Identifying the greatest problem worth solving
- Analyzing what current solutions lack
- Introducing the solution to users and finding early adopters
- Analyzing early adopters’ experiences
- HR and first hires support
- Team management guidance
We Work With You On Product/Market Fit Stage
Houston, we’ve identified our problem, now let’s make the solution
- Assessing and prioritizing markets
- Identifying how much the market is willing to spend on your solution
- Recognizing what is currently working and what isn’t
- Spotting the competition and how to beat it
- Assistance running initial pilots and finding customers
- Creating in-depth competitive analysis to help the company differentiate itself from the competition
- Identifying market trends and your place in them
Constant Honest and Open Support
We are there to help through the good, bad, and ugly.
- Through thick and thin
- Always, no questions asked.
