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March 23, 2017

Three Ways to Know Your Market Better

Fundraising, Investing, Other /

One of the key criteria in funding startups is the entrepreneur’s knowledge of the target market and customer. Size of market, growth rates, and segmentation are key components the entrepreneur should know well. In this post we’ll look at three ways to know your market better. The first place to look is on the web. You’ll need to first identify which industry(s) you’re in. From that you can find out several facts about your target market size. The next step is to find out what trade associations and conferences are related to it. You can contact the trade association and find out more about the market. Usually, the director of the association has the key market information you’re seeking and will make that available to you in an email or phone call. Their job is to foster the growth of their industry segment by informing others about it. The third step is to attend a trade conference. You’ll learn more from those on the exhibit hall floor than you can from articles or other means. It’s worth a day walking the show to get the details. Finally, avoid market research reports. These reports cost anywhere from $2,000 to $25,000. Most of these are simply a compilation from a direct mail campaign that is far from comprehensive. While they can be helpful they certainly aren’t worth the money. Best regards, Hall T.

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VC Profile: FF Venture Capital

Investing, Investor Profile /

Headquarters: New York, NY Sectors: cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, machine learning, hardware, drones, enterprise cloud software, and crowdfunding Description:  ff Venture Capital was founded in 2008 and since then has invested in 90+ companies and helped to create aggregate market value exceeding $4 billion. They were founded by John Frankel and Alex Katz, who are general partners at the firm, Alex also serves as CFO. The firm’s other general partners include David Tenten, Michael Faber, and Adam Plotkin. Their team of over 25 people actively works with founders to develop products, target markets, and accelerate growth. Their funding criteria seeks out those who create new technologies and build upon the expanding capabilities of technology to develop new markets, change behaviors, and solve important problems. They are looking for new ideas and business models before they become established themes, not once they have become mainstream. They want game changers and believe the best companies define their own categories. A few examples of their consistent investing themes include: deep software stack that enables new functionality, efficiencies, and cost savings; Low-cost/High-value networks that tend to gain new users at low marginal cost and improve the user experience with each marginal user. ff Venture Capital does not only provide capital but, every company receives support of their Acceleration Team, which provides hands-on and comprehensive guidance and resources to each of their portfolio companies’ management teams. With them they provide a team of expertise in communications, marketing and branding, recruiting, product engineering and strategy, financial modeling, account and budgeting, community management, and strategic and partner development. In all of their guidance they provide, ff Venture Capital’s main focus is to keep value over valuation. Recent Investments: Socure $13M / Series B Dashbot $2M / Seed (Lead) Estify $6.3M / Series B cielo24 $1.07M / Convertible Note Website: http://ffvc.com/  

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