Month two on MailChimp and we still have a high open rate – 42%. But information that doesn’t appear on the top half of the newsletter doesn’t get clicked on. So we’re going to experiment with new formats going forward until we get increased clicks on the articles lower in the stack (no cheating).
The gang at theMin.ca went to a number of events in Mississauga and Toronto in June. We’re seeing the same startups appear in a loop at these events. It almost seems like they don’t know that the general events don’t get a lot of traction from Angels. Their best bet is to go to Angel-only pitch days. We had some screening meetings with a few science startups who will appear in your circulars. We’ve also applied for a syndicate agreement with AngelList. This would allow other angels to place as little as $1,000 into the deals we underwrite. AngelList would take a 5% carry rate for this service. We looked at the Pitchbook data access and it’s $17,000 USD/year cost.
Going back to the First Round 2015 post about the top 10 findings of successful startups, the number 5 reason for success is that repeat founders do better than first-timers. We went to our Gekko® Dealflow database and ran some scripts (don’t try this at home!):
- Founderfuel – 3x better exit rate for 2nd-time founders over 1st-time founder
- TechStars – 1.7x better exit rate for 2nd-time founders over 1st-time founder
- YCombinator – 1.5x better exit rate for 2nd-time founders over 1st-time founder
- 500 Startups – 1.5x better exit rate for 2nd-time founders over 1st-time founder
Well, that’s another easy one to add to the scoring system as a power multiplier when we are screening companies. Clearly, founders learn how to run a business and are better the second (or third) time around!
Drop the newsletter an email if you want someone interesting interviewed or you want to profile a company at newsletter@themin.ca.