Where to find founders

You can find founders to invest in in all sorts of places, you just need to know where to look

Jul 13, 2022

It’s been a while. After gallivanting around Miami, Amsterdam and Lisbon, I’ve recently moved and am now settled. A lot has happened in the markets since my last post, and it’s not something I’ll write about in the short term. I will say that this period is when great founders and products shine, and there will be a lot of investment opportunities in the pre-seed and seed stages.

In my last post, I spoke about what I look for in founders. But it can be hard to find founders you want to get to know and eventually invest in. So this week, I’ll highlight some places where you can find founders.

Your Existing Network

During your work life or university, there’s a chance that people you’ve met are starting companies or are thinking of starting one. There are people who I’ve worked with who I will gladly and blindly write a cheque for because I know they’ll succeed at whatever they do.

Think about these sorts of people from your past and if you see them starting something new, reach out and offer to invest. Provide them with ‘belief capital’.

Erik Torenberg @eriktorenberg

Rebrand "family/friends" round as belief capital round and include: - former employers/colleagues/investors - present or future customers - cofounders/employees/advisors Basically, invite anyone who has data on you to put some skin in the game, even if a token amount ($1K-5K)

Events

If you’re in a densely populated area, there’s a strong chance tech events are happening nearby. Many of these events are theme-related, such as AI or crypto, so the people attending will likely be interested in those topics. If you’re trying to invest in a particular vertical, find an event on somewhere like Meetup that fits with that vertical.

Sometimes many events get bundled into one major event, such as Miami Tech Week (which I attended). When I was there, I spoke to all kinds of different founders at the eMerge Americas event. And through talking to people, I’d discover new events where I could speak to founders in areas that interest me, such as Deep Tech and FinTech. Some events have pitching competitions where founders pitch their startups to a panel of investors. Attending those and thinking of what questions you might ask and also listening to the questions the judges ask is a great learning exercise.

The Internet

This is an obvious one. And there are many places on the internet to find founders, such as Twitter or communities on Slack or Discord.

You can choose to reach out in either a cold way (such as a cold email) or going for an organic approach. I see approaching organically as replying to posts or privately messaging with added insight. I prefer to ‘get to know’ founders rather than cold emailing.

Twitter is the best for this (it’s the best social network, end of discussion) because it’s where many ‘tech people’ are, and people’s messages are often open. And they do read them. Don’t just connect with founders on the internet. Find peers in any topic/discipline that you’re interested in. I’ve made several genuine friendships thanks to the internet, and actively engaging on Twitter has been one of the best things I’ve done.

Another place to look is ProductHunt. Find products that are bootstrapped and look into them. In some cases, the founder of the product is waiting for funding so they can go full-time on it. What’s great about PH is that you can see how other people are responding to it, this can become part of the due diligence process (which I’ll discuss in a later piece)

Broadly, you just have to talk to people, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and talk to people. Because if you don’t, you’re not going to succeed. In investing and in life.