Hi there 👋 Welcome to Let’s Start Up a newsletter, curated by me, Janine Sickmeyer, a tech founder turned investor. Follow me as I share startup tips, industry news, founders you should know, and investors putting their money where their mouth is.
What's In This Issue 🗞
A brief look into what you'll be reading about
Why we changed the name back to Let’s Start Up!
News & articles you should read
Founders to watch
New funds announced!
What's On My Mind 💭
I’ve been thinking…
The No Longer Overlooked newsletter is going back to our roots.
Welcome to the Let’s Start Up Newsletter!
When I started this newsletter 2 years ago (wow!!), I named it “Let’s Start Up” with the purpose of using it as a platform to provide resources and information for founders.
In the last 2 years, I’ve certainly changed and grew into a new role within the startup journey as a VC. But one of the things that’s remained constant is this newsletter. Despite the name and cadence changes, this newsletter has remained a resource for founders and even investors.
So why am I changing the name back to Let’s Start Up?
I believe the name Let’s Start Up better represents what this newsletter is all about: helping founders and startup people. In the Let’s Start Up newsletter, I will continue to share my progress and news at Overlooked Ventures and Cobble, but my main focus is to provide valuable resources to help founders, investors, and startup people achieve their goals and get to the next stage. Oh, and also share hot trends and news in the industry that is relevant to both founders and investors.
Happy reading, and let’s start up!
What I’ve Been Working On 💁🏻♀️
Things I care about that I want to share
We’re officially a month post-Cobble launch!
We launched Cobble, a business building app for startups, in late April and it’s been an exciting month. But even after hundreds of signups later and landing our first paying customers, we’re not stopping there. I’d like to invite everyone to sign up for Cobble and let me know what you think. All new users receive a 7-day free trial of all paid features, however, features such as the Personal CRM, Founders Library, and Startup Starter are always free! Sign up for free here.
Happy 1-year anniversary to Overlooked Ventures
On May 18th, we celebrated the 1-year anniversary of Overlooked Ventures! The first year of leading a venture capital fund went by fast, but I’m so proud of what we accomplished! We’ve secured 25% of our $50M fund, made 8+ investments, received 2500 inbound applications, and closed our first institutional investor Bank of America. Read the Medium post for our updated diversity stats and a recap of the last year!
Mark your calendars for my summer speaking engagements
This Summer I’ll be all over the place speaking on venture capital and entrepreneurship. If you’ll be at any of these events and want to meet up, let me know!
TechCrunch City Spotlight x Columbus Ohio: June 1, 3:30 pm ET (virtual)
LP/GP Roundtable at VENTURE at Collision Conference: June 20 (Toronto, Canada)
Increasing diversity in VC panel at Collision Conference: June 22. 11:30 am ET (Toronto, Canada)
Insight Partners — Vision Capital Summer Social: July 12 (New York, NY)
I shared the stage with Vijen Patel and Kabe Roashan for the Hustle Fund Angel Squad Event moderated by Brian Nichols. It was incredible to speak with such a lively group of angels, LPs, and friends. If you missed this event and you’re an Angel Squad member you can watch the event recording.
Morning Brew Business Analytics Course
This week I appeared on the Morning Brew Analytics Course with a presentation about my path to venture capital and how to invest during market uncertainty. It was a great presentation with such thoughtful questions from the brewmates!
Business Advice Straight to Your Headphones: Ohio-Oriented Entrepreneurial Podcasts
Ohio is home to many great entrepreneurs and tech leaders. In this article, TechOhio shares several Ohio-based shows and podcasts that help entrepreneurs build their businesses. I was named in this article for guest appearing on many podcasts such as the Venturing in VC podcast and the More Equity Podcast.
5 pieces of advice to help early-stage founders navigate the months ahead
There’s been an abrupt change in tone in VC. Behind the sudden change is the “later-stage appetite for risky tech bets died off.” I was featured in this article by Leslie Feinzaig of FastCompany giving advice to founders about nurturing investor relationships and partnering with early-stage investors that you can trust.
Recently Hit the Stands 📰
Things in the news you should check out
StrongHer Ventures in Partnership With WeWork Labs Opens Applications for Its ARISE Accelerator
Ankita Vashistha, founder & managing partner at StrongHer Ventures, and Arvind Radhakrishnan, head of labs at WeWork, have joined forces to launch the Arise accelerator. This new accelerator will engage 1+ million women, 5,000 startups and create a valuation of over US$1B. Women founders of pre-seed startups may apply here. Members of the accelerator will receive funding, and other benefits like knowledge sessions, boot camps, engaged mentoring, curated networking events, access to follow-on capital, and highly subsidized WeWork spaces.
Black people are underrepresented in the technology space. Meta, Slack, Salesforce, Twitter, and Microsoft have extremely low rates of Black employees in their workforce at 5-6%. Black employees are leaving big tech to start their own companies and aren’t relying on venture capital dollars to excel.
Despite Post-Floyd Era Promises, Limited Gains In Racial Equity
After the tragic death of George Floyd, politicians, VCs, and businesspeople called for racial equity in America. It’s been about 2 years since those promises were made and not much has changed for Black lives and livelihoods. To this day, Black families have 13 cents to the dollar compared to white families and the National Urban League’s equality index is at 73.9%. Read this article to reflect on the progress made since George Floyd’s death and what we need to do as individuals, society, and a country to advance racial equity.
The Young Venture Capital Partner Blazing A Trail For Women In VC
There aren’t enough women in venture capital leadership positions. Annalise Dragic of Sapphire Ventures was named partner at the age of 29, known as one of the youngest women VC partners in Europe. Annalise Dragic has been working to get more women in VC during the entirety of her career. Read an interview of Annalise in this Forbes article to learn more about Annalise and her venture capital career.
Lalo launches an app to memorialize loved ones
Founded by Juan Medina, Lalo launched on May 25th as an app that acts as a digital scrapbook for preserving memories and memorializing loved ones. Lalo is now available on the App Store and Google Play store after a 600-user closed beta. Anyone can download Lalo and use the app, which is private, secure, and ad-free, to share their memories and remember loved ones by posting audio, video, image, or text memories or by answering prompts. Download it now for free!
How To Make VC More Accessible And Equitable
It’s no secret that venture capital has made it difficult for overlooked founders to raise funding. However, Crunchbase data shows that there are trends forming to accelerate the accessibility and equity of VC. The traditional VC model is being disrupted by rolling funds, SPVs, and even DAOs while other VCs are scouting dealflow from diverse entrepreneurs.
The Making Of A Women-Led VC Firm Is Often Atypical And Impressive
White men are responsible for managing 93% of venture capital dollars. Many VCs say there are not enough Black, Latino/a, women, and diverse entrepreneurs, however, we know there is no pipeline problem. In this Forbes article, Lolita Taub of Ganas Ventures is highlighted for her work as a venture capitalist in community-driven Web2 and Web3 companies in Latin America and the United States.
BAM, a communications agency, published its third 101 Black Tech Titans list, a list of Black innovators changing VC and Tech for the better. Featured on the list are names such as Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital, Charles Hudson of Precursor VC, Sydney Sykes of BLCK VC, and dozens of other Black leaders.
200 investments in, Backstage Capital is pivoting to fund only existing portfolio companies
Founded by Arlan Hamilton in 2015, Backstage Capital hit an incredible milestone: investing in 200 startups led by overlooked founders. Going forward, Backstage Capital will not invest in any new companies and reserve the rest of its fund for follow-on investments in its current portfolio companies. Backstage is currently raising its $30M Opportunity Fund and plans to invest $250,000 to $1 million across 30 companies that are already a part of their portfolio.
5 Ways to Lower the Gap in Funding for Women and BIPOC Entrepreneurs
There is still a large funding gap for women and BIPOC-founded startups. It’s important that we fund diverse founders to bring about more positive change in the world. Entrepreneur presents 5 actionable ways we can lower the funding gap for women and BIPOC entrepreneurs.
A Little Birdie Told Me 🐦
Tweet of the moment
Hot Take of the Week 🔥
Somebody had to say it
Founders You Should Follow 👀
Keep an eye on these founders making moves
Chelsea Elliott, MSW | Sōmōcom Lab
Chelsea Elliot is the Founder of Sōmōcom Lab, a mental health and wellness company for kids based in Columbus, Ohio. A social worker and mother of two, Chelsea is dedicated to addressing the social-emotional and mental health of children in schools and at home. One way Chelsea and her company Sōmōcom Lab are doing just that is with their card game EQ Kids Crew, which teaches kids about their most prevalent emotions and gives them fun and healthy ways to manage them. Chelsea Elliot is an incredible founder! Visit Sōmōcom Lab’s website to learn more about the company’s mission and pick up your set of EQ Kids Crew!
Sneha Saigal | Gexpr
Founder & CEO of Gexpr, Sneha Saigal created a platform for prospective students to connect on live 1:1 audio/video calls with recent grads and alumni for need-based advice. Sneha Saigal believes that everyone should have access to advice, no matter where they're from or whom they know. She created Gexpr to help students decide which school to go to with advice from alumni instead of just fancy websites and glossy brochures. Learn more about Gexpr by visiting the website. If you’re alumni of a graduate program, you can become a PRO to give advice to prospective students! And if you’re looking into a school, check out Gexpr to learn from people who actually went there.
Deadline to Apply 📆
Opportunities you don’t want to miss
Apply to Pitch at 2022 TechCrunch Events
TechCrunch put together a Typeform for founders to apply for all early-stage features and pitch offs across Startup Battlefield 200 at TC Disrupt, industry-specific events, and TC Spotlight events.
New on the Founders Library! 📚
Founder resources from Cobble
Welcome to the newest section of the Let’s Start Up newsletter! In this section, we’re sharing articles, downloads, and more from Cobble’s Founders Library. These materials are FREE, all you have to do is sign up for a Cobble account.
Article: Creating Relationships with Prospective Investors
If and when you bring on investors for your company, you will start sharing regular investor updates to keep them in the loop about performance. Did you know you can also share updates with prospective investors?
Read this post for tips for sharing updates in a way that is consistent, structured, and stress-free.
Article: Leading with Empathy and Compassion
According to Forbes, empathy is the most important leadership skill to have. And these days, empathetic leaders are more important than ever. As a founder, you feel all of this too. Only you still have a business to build, customers to serve, and a team to lead.
So how do you navigate this turbulent space? How do you take care of yourself and show up for the people who’ve decided to travel this road alongside you?
Article: How to Build a Business Model Canvas
So you’re ready to build a Business Model Canvas for your startup! Whether you’re familiar with this popular business tool or it’s brand new to you, this guide will help you break down each section of the BMC so you can confidently build your own.
Template: Business Model Canvas
A well-developed Business Model Canvas will give you direction and insight into your objectives, value, and revenue opportunity. It will help you plan and develop the next steps of your business plan. Download Cobble’s free PDF template to create your startup’s Business Model Canvas.
Sign up for Cobble to get access to all of these resources and more (it’s free).
New Funds Announced 🚀
St. Louis-based venture capital firm Ascend Ventures launch a new $25 million fund to deepen its investment in companies that have Black, Latino, women, immigrant, and LGBTQIA+ founders. Yinka Faleti joined the firm to lead Ascend’s investment in overlooked founders.
Seattle’s Flying Fish raised $70 million for its second fund. This is double Flying Fish’s first fund of $37 million, and the firm will invest in more early-stage machine learning and artificial intelligence startups
Good Growth Capital announced its oversubscribed third fund, which will deploy pre-seed through Series B funding to companies disrupting health tech, green tech, and other sectors. All women-led, Good Growth Capital is based out of South Carolina and is now the largest fund in the state.
Flybridge Capital has launched two new oversubscribed funds with aggregate commitments of $150 million to continue backing ambitious founders at the pre-seed and seed stages. Now, the firm has over $1 billion in assets under management.
Afore Capital announced its $150M Fund III to invest in pre-seed companies, bringing the firm to $300 million total raised. Afore also launched a new product called Afore Alpha to give founders the runway and personalized resources they need to reach traction and raise a Series A.
Emory University’s Peachtree Minority Venture Fund is a new student-run venture firm that will invest in overlooked entrepreneurs. This is Emory University’s first student-run venture firm, with $1 million in capital from Emory’s endowment.
Founder Tips
What you need to know
Not sure where to start when valuing your startup’s equity? Use this model from Varun Srinivasan
There’s so much startup and VC jargon that it’s hard to keep track. Read this guide to demystify the jargon.
How to deal with trolls or negative feedback online from our Inclusive Communities Manager Chauntelle Lewis.
Here’s what to focus on while managing your startup during uncertain markets.
Before You Go 🚪
What you might have missed.
Looking for open roles at startups that don't require technical experience? Check out this Twitter thread.
Watch the season 1 highlights reel from Inside’s Venturing in VC podcast hosted by Landon Campbell.
Congratulations to Paige Hendrix Buckner who joined AllRaise as Chief of Staff.
New Columbus-Ohio-based Angel Accelerators target a $1M+ fund focused on women entrepreneurs.
Femly partners with NFL team the Baltimore Ravens to provide its feminine hygiene products in restrooms via its patented dispenser.
Went on a tech-billionaire-fraud-scandal binge. Here are my favorites.