From Startup Dreams to Big Success: Insights from Post-Exit Entrepreneur And Investor Mike Cardamone on the Deep Wealth Podcast (#351)

“Make the time for family to be there for the magic moments.” -Mike Cardamone

In this Deep Wealth Podcast episode, Jeffrey Feldberg interviews Michael Cardamone, CEO and Managing Partner at Forum Ventures. Michael shares his extensive experience working with B2B SaaS companies and discusses his investment strategy focused on aiding early-stage founders. He emphasizes the importance of understanding customer needs, market opportunities, and having a passionate entrepreneurial mindset. The episode also highlights testimonials for the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, which aims to optimize business growth and prepare for successful exits. Michael concludes with insights into the traits needed for successful founders and the importance of balancing work and family life.

00:00 Introduction to Michael Cardamone and Forum

00:35 Deep Wealth Mastery Program Testimonials

03:24 Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast

03:55 Mike's Entrepreneurial Journey

09:07 Forum Ventures: Mission and Strategies

10:07 Traits of Successful Founders

16:45 Investment Criteria and Decision-Making

33:13 Balancing Family and Business

36:52 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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SELECTED LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE

Forum Ventures

Michael Cardamone (@MGCardamone) / X

Michael Cardamone - Forum Ventures (formerly Acceleprise) | LinkedIn

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Transcript

351 Mike Cardamone

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] As CEO and managing partner at Forum, Michael Cardamone focuses on developing Forum's investment strategy with the mission of making the B2B SaaS journey easier, more accessible, and more successful for early stage founders. Working with hundreds of founders since Forum's inception, he's helped portfolio companies navigate the fundraising process and optimize their position in the markets.

Through his experience as an early employee at Box, Mike has unique experience growing SaaS companies from small startups to large scale enterprises. He supports founders in getting their companies to the next level.

And before we start the episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Bill, a graduate, who says, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program has transformed the KPIs we're using to accelerate growth and profits.

Or how about Emry, who says, and I love this, and I quote, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program helped me create the right mindset for both growing my business and later my future exit. [00:01:00] I now know what questions to ask, what to do and what not to do, which is priceless. The team and I have found dangerous skeletons and gaps that we're now addressing due to the Deep Wealth program. Today, our actions have a massive ROI. 

Absolutely love that. 

And now, speaking of growth and adding value, check out what Bruce says, and I quote, As a business owner, I'm always looking for new programs, systems, CEO peer groups, and strategies to improve my business. Hands down, the Deep Wealth Mastery program is the absolute best. I'm both growing my business and preparing for a future exit at the same time. It doesn't get any better. 

And I gotta tell you, as I hear these testimonials, this is exactly why I do what I do. My mission, the team's mission here at Deep Wealth, is to literally change the social fabric of society, one business owner at a time and one liquidity event at a time.

The Deep Wealth Mastery program, it's the only one based on a nine figure deal. And that deal, that was my [00:02:00] deal. You know my story. I said no to a seven figure offer. I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery and that's exactly what helped myself and my business partners welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure deal.

So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, Whether that's three years away or 33 years away, and if you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. 

Please email success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C C E S S at deepwealth. com. 

We'll send you all the information about the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, otherwise known as the Scale for Ultimate Sales System. Better yet, why not hop on a complimentary strategy call? We'll see where you are at your business and what's standing between you and your financial independence and your dreams.

So that's where you want to be. You want to be with other successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders, just like you, who are looking to create market disruptions, whether you're a startup, whether you've been in business for three [00:03:00] or four decades, whether you're manufacturing, whether you're a high tech, SaaS, low tech, whatever the case may be.

Come on in and network with other business owners, with other businesses, just like you, because they all want to lock in their financial freedom and enjoy both success and fulfillment. Again, the 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery Program, it has your name on it. All you need to do is take the next step. Please send an email to success at deepwealth. com. 

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast, Deep Wealth Nation you heard it in the official introduction. We have a serious investor here. If you're doing a startup or if you're already in a well entrenched company, but you want to grow, you want to take it to the next level, but you don't have the capital, well, this episode is all about you and what we're going to do for you and what you're going to hear nowhere else.

I'll put a plug in it right there. Mike, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. And Mike, I'm curious because there's always a story behind the story. What's your story? What brought you from where you were to where you are today?

Michael Cardamone: Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'll give my quick background [00:04:00] and kind of the evolution of, Forum Ventures, which is the fund I run now. So I grew up in upstate New York pretty entrepreneurial family. My grandfather actually ran like a scrap metal business and put his kids through college with that.

My father and. So, I grew up around entrepreneurship and business and after grad school decided I wanted to move out to San Francisco and try my luck in tech because I felt like there was opportunities to build more scalable businesses using technology. Was fortunate and ended up early at a startup called Box that's now a public company.

That was one of the first 25, I think it was the 25th employee there. Went to another startup in the education technology space that we grew to a pretty good scale, about 24 million in revenue. And I was just fascinated with the idea of investing in companies, but also like really being hands on operationally and helping companies.

So I was, I ended up leaving that startup and I. Start dabbling in a little bit of like personal angel investing with small checks [00:05:00] and then also doing some consulting for some startups and was thinking about trying to get into venture capital and decided to, raise my own fund. I think part of it was a couple of my early angel investments were off to a really good start and I had this like false sense of I knew what I was doing when I probably really hadn't.

No idea what I was doing, but was able to cobble together a few million dollars from like people I had met out in San Francisco to launch this first fund, we used to be called AccelaPrize, we rebranded it to Foreign Ventures. But the idea was, it was going to be a, an accelerator business software companies.

So software companies selling into businesses. That's what Box was. That's what the other company I was at was doing. And so it's what I knew and what I felt like I could be the most helpful on. And the accelerator model is you write a small check into a high volume of companies and then you're kind of an extension of the founding team.

we were usually the first check in, really hands on with the company, helping them get from kind of zero to one. And now fast forward 10 years May will be 10 years since I've been doing this. We're 32 [00:06:00] people full-time. Now we've got three parts of the business. We still run the accelerator and we invest in about 84 companies a year through the accelerator.

We have a more traditional kind of seed fund or venture fund that invests larger checks, so you know, call it 250 K to a million dollar checks into companies that are slightly later stage than the accelerator. And then we have a venture studio, which. Basically means we have a team of 11 people, engineers, product designers, who team up with founders to build software companies from scratch.

So we have started a handful of companies out of that as well. So across the three strategies, we're either starting or investing in about a hundred companies a year across the platform.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. What a terrific story, Mike. I'm curious though, hearing your journey, you have an appetite for risk going into startups and if you look forward to today, you're really, some people would say on the bleeding edge before it's even a proven concept, you're writing the check, helping companies get out there.

How much [00:07:00] of that appetite for risk goes to your upbringing from an entrepreneurial family, or were you just born with that? A little bit of both?

Michael Cardamone: Yeah, it's interesting. It's funny. So I was just talking to someone yesterday about this. I have an identical twin. We are very similar in a lot of personalities. But he's been like, you know, 15 years at a big consulting firm. He's a partner there, like fairly risk averse in his career. And I've gotten him to dabble in some angel investing.

Whereas like, I've been on the opposite end of the risk curve and we grew up in the same family, same upbringing, same parents, you know, so I don't know how much of it is like nurture versus nature, but I felt like certainly being around entrepreneurial parents. Made me like more willing to take risk.

I think I was also just frankly like, you know, fortunate To be able to take risks, both from like my parents being very supportive and helping with grad school and stuff, but also getting lucky with joining a startup company that I had no idea would go on to be a public company.

But like, [00:08:00] that gives you a little bit of like ability to take risks just from a financial standpoint. And also from a credibility standpoint, having been early there. And it's funny, I think of, when I was debating of whether to start the fund, I was listening. I think it was.

I want to say it was Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great was speaking at an event and he was talking about how if you work hard and meet with a lot of people and network and are very proactive, you can put yourself into a, in a position to get lucky throughout your career. And he said the key is when you get lucky, the people who can leverage that luck the most are the ones who can be, like, wildly successful.

that really stuck with me because I was like, all right, I was lucky being early at Box and the credibility that comes with that and the like, little bit of cushion that came with that financially. Why not leverage that luck to see if I can start my own fund versus joining another fund? And so that was like part of some of the motivation, but yeah, I've always had a little bit of that kind of risk appetite.

Maybe sometimes take too much risk but it's mostly worked out.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. Hey, when the luck comes, we're [00:09:00] thankful for that. One of my mentors very early on said, Jeffrey. Given the choice, I'd rather be lucky than smart and how true that is. And so, Mike, before we go into what you're doing specifically at Form and the amazing story that's there, there are some listeners here who perhaps are already in business or they're thinking about getting into business.

And when I'm speaking to people, broadly speaking, and I'm not pointing any fingers or making any judgments here, generally speaking, though, some people I find really have that entrepreneurial mind and they will do very well. Other people are what some people would call a wantrapreneur sounds good. It sounds really alluring.

And the whole story that goes along with that and the riches that can await and financial freedom, all those other kinds of things, they're just really not cut out for that. In the many, many entrepreneurs that you've dealt with, particularly the successful ones, what traits have you seen along the way?

And I know everyone is different. Generally speaking, though, are there certain traits that someone's listening in can check the box and say, okay, you know what, thinking of starting a company, [00:10:00] I'll see for myself, but yeah, what Mike is saying that really resonates with me, I see a lot of me in that description, what would you say to that listener?

Michael Cardamone: Yeah. I think a lot of it, a lot of the really successful founders we've worked with, money was not the main motivator. In fact, it was like probably fairly low on their list. it's usually people who have. Some vision of the future or saw some problem firsthand in whatever their career or job was previously, where they just can't help themselves.

They need to solve that. They need to either build something to enable this future that they see that not a lot of other people see yet, but they think is inevitable. Or they like, have this like, deep burning desire to solve this like, Pain in their industry that they felt firsthand because they were living and breathing it.

And they're like, this can just be done better or more automated or whatever it is. And they're usually driven by that. And then the ones that are really successful are really good at kind of talking through what their long term vision is, how their market's going to evolve, how they win in that market [00:11:00] with like really good clarity and conviction.

And if you can do that, and you're really good at communicating that, It becomes a lot easier to recruit people, like really talented people to join you on this mission, because you can explain what, where you're going and why you're going there and how it's going to work. It's easier to raise capital from investors, it just becomes easier to build a successful business when you can pull in capital and talent around you.

And in order to do that, I think you need to be really good at kind of talking about that vision. And usually that's like a main motivator and driver. And then they're usually also just very. Self motivated they can kind of handle adversity. Like they're going to get a lot of no's from customers, investors, people they want to hire.

And you just need to kind of roll with the punches next up happens. And I think too often you find people who I've always had a job and haven't faced that no in your face over and over again, and being able to kind of push through that is challenging. It's hard being a founder.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So Mike, what I'm [00:12:00] hearing, and again, you can say Jeffrey, on base, off base, don't chase the dollars, chase the passion, something that really moves you, painful problem for other people that you can perhaps help with, put them on to a better path.

Michael Cardamone: yeah, think so. I think if you're purely motivated by money, it's going to be hard to get people excited about what you're doing, and it's going to be really hard to build a big business if other people aren't excited about being on the journey with you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Mike, really, that question is a terrific segue into form. I mean, what's your passion? If we're open about it, there are lots of funding sources that are out there, yet you started another one. So what's going on with that? What's different about form that people aren't going to find with other alternatives?

Michael Cardamone: Yeah, it's funny, when I was thinking about starting it, I asked a lot of people for advice, and I, the amount of people told me the world doesn't need another accelerator, you shouldn't start this I probably, in hindsight like, maybe I should have listened to them because it was really hard, and there were, like, a lot of points along the way where it wasn't clear it was going to work, but my thesis at the time was there were a lot of Generalist accelerators and funds [00:13:00] out there, but there weren't a lot around B2B software.

And I was part of that like first wave of fast companies in the Bay Area that had really started to scale and had built a good network there. And so, I felt like there was an opportunity to create this like Focused accelerator on just B2B SaaS and like really leverage the playbook and go to market playbook of some of these kind of first generation SaaS companies, and then keep the cohort sizes really small.

So we only work with I was only working with maybe 10 companies at a time, just being like very hands on, working out of our office, like meeting with them, almost daily and, at least weekly with each company. I felt like there was an opportunity to like really add value. And then I think the other piece of it was like at the time, especially like most VCs and investors tend to coalesce around like a very small subset of founders.

Like, It's like these either repeat founders have already sold a company or, their execs at a high growth company and, Those, that profile, which is like a small [00:14:00] subset of the people who start companies, like every VC is chasing that profile of founder, and like capital and talent kind of coalesce around those, and maybe there's a slightly higher probability of those being successful, but I felt like there was also an opportunity to kind of support and fund the unproven founders of people who are founders for the first time, but maybe they had like 20 years in a career and had some deep domain experience and really good founder market fit, but they've never built a company before.

They've never worked in tech or software before, and they needed that extra kind of support system. And so we felt like there was an opportunity to like find those unproven founders and build the support system around them to help them succeed. And then we felt like if we could do that, we could.

Have a big impact on a lot of people, both from like job creation, helping founders really get going, get connected into networks. They maybe didn't have connections into, and then hopefully eventually create like good financial returns for our investors and our funds. So that was kind of the motivation initially the thesis was and why we started the fund.[00:15:00]

Jeffrey Feldberg: And I know your focus is SaaS, SaaS based companies. I know one of your credos is for SaaS founders, by SaaS founders. So was that just because you had that background, you lived it, you walked it, that you then Put that forward, or are there some other, thinking or strategies behind that?

Michael Cardamone: Yeah, it was a mix of where do we have a right to win and can add value, and that's where we had experience. So me investing in a consumer company or gaming company like, A, I don't know it as well, and B, I can't be helpful. The other piece of it was like, we just think that type of business with recurring revenue is a better way to build enterprise value.

Then businesses that are more kind of transactional in nature or can be more fickle on the consumer side. Cause these, usually if you can create good software and sell to businesses on a recurring contract, like it can be pretty sticky, you get ingrained in the workflows and it's just easier to kind of build, we think, build a large enterprise value company.

With recurring software [00:16:00] revenue so most of the businesses we invest in today are still set pure SaaS companies. we do do some kind of tech enabled service businesses or B2B marketplaces. So it's all B2B still but as we've expanded into some other verticals where, you know, something like health tech as an example, sometimes there's like, You know, a care team kind of powered by technology.

So it's a mix of kind of services and technology, but a lot of it is still pure software.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And I'm wondering with the companies that you're investing in, so you're working with about around a hundred a year, give or take, for everyone you're saying yes to, there are umpteen that you're saying no to. And I suppose the question I'm going to ask, you could flip it on both ends, which perhaps we can do.

Generally speaking, and I know every company is different, they have their own DNA,

Michael Cardamone: Yeah.

Jeffrey Feldberg: What are the characteristics that you're looking for to have you not only say, yes, this is a terrific idea, but you then go on to write the check.

Michael Cardamone: So it's a little bit different. As I mentioned, we have three different strategies. It's a little bit different for each. So I'll quickly go through each one. So on the [00:17:00] studio side where we're starting companies from scratch, We're often coming up with ideas internally based on conversations we're having with either corporates in our network or other people in our network in certain industries.

And then what we do is we run these validation cycles against those ideas. And we try to find, ideas where there's clear customer validation. Customers are saying like, yeah, if you built that like, we would be super interested. This solves this pain point. This is exactly what we would want you to build here's how we would think about paying for it.

And so we get kind of validation around the fact that there's already demand from customers. And if we get that and think it's a venture scale market, so like we think there's, Billions in revenue opportunity if everything fell our way. You know, Then we'll start going out and trying to find a CEO to come in and continue to iterate on the idea with us and hopefully like, build a good mutual relationship.

And then we make a decision from there of whether we're going to fund or not fund it based on like fit with the founder and the idea and then the validation we're seeing. On the accelerator, we're usually first [00:18:00] check in, it's usually a founding team, some early version of a product. They may or may not have customers yet.

So we don't have a lot to look at from a customer, like calling customers and reference calls and stuff. So a lot of it is evaluating the founders. Do we think they have like really good founder market fit? Are they the right founders to be building this company? What unique insight or experience or knowledge do they have to give them a right to win in this market?

And then do we like the market opportunity? Do we think it's big enough? Do we think it's growing? Is it too crowded? Is it, was there some like macro change in regulation or shift in like, you know, pandemic, COVID is an obvious one of that shifted everything and a lot changed and created a lot of opportunities, but there's a lot of things like that all the time on a more micro scale that impact markets and, Create opportunities.

So we look for things like that but a lot of it is like founder and market evaluation. And then we'll try to leverage our network to figure out the customer side if they don't have any customers yet. On the seed fund, it's a more traditional diligence around founder and market, but also usually [00:19:00] they have customers and revenue at that point.

And so we'll do a lot of like reference calls with the customers to understand like, how important is the software to you? What is it solving for you? Like, What would you do without it? Would you pay more for it than what you're paying now? Like all the things to kind of figure out if, you know, is this like vitamin or a painkiller for the customer?

Like a nice to have versus a need to have so those are some of the things that we look for at a high level.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And whether it's in any one of those three different areas that you mentioned, I'm wondering what pushes you over the edge. So you have two opportunities, very similar. Is there one particular factor you're nodding your head and saying, you know what, based on this, no guarantees. We're going to move forward in this direction instead of that direction with this company over that company.

Michael Cardamone: Yeah, so it's a few things. One is do we think what they're building is the inevitable future? I'll give you an example of we're looking at a company now that the founder has deep experience in supply chain space, and he's leveraging AI to automate something that he lived and [00:20:00] breathed in his last role, or really throughout his whole career.

And, when you look at it, like it's a lot of human labor doing kind of manual things that can easily be automated. And when you look through that and we look at it, it's feels inevitable that someone is going to build something to automate that piece of the market. And if they do, that's going to create a lot of value for whoever does that.

Then the question we ask ourselves, it's okay, is this the right team and founder to do that? Like to build what we think is inevitable in the future and that comes down to like how knowledgeable are they about the space? Do they have some, like distribution advantage where they have like deep connections that will help them get their first few customers?

Like we look for what are the unfair advantages this team has in particular? And do we think they have the possibility of creating something that we think will inevitably create a lot of enterprise value? those are the sort of things we look for is [00:21:00] like, do we deeply believe and have conviction over the inevitability of the, how the market's going to evolve and does that align with the founder?

And then do we think this is the right founding team to get there? And obviously it's not always going to work out but like, we think. If we believe that's what the future is going to be, and we think the founders are really good and have like really good conviction around how they're going to get there probably increases the odds of success.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so I'm wondering, with that, I'm hearing a lot about really the chemistry with the founders, the personality, what that's all about, really, again, you can say Jeffrey on base or off base, you can have terrific technology, but if there's not a chemistry with the founder or the founder is, I'll just make this up, is a complete jerk, that's going to be an issue.

Michael Cardamone: Yeah, that's definitely one. We just don't want to work with people for, because when you invest in companies this early, you're usually working with people for five to 10 years. Like we don't want to work with people who are jerks. So that's part of it, but yeah, part of it is, And this sounds like I don't mean this for me in like a, arrogant way, but like part of what we look at is would we work for this founder?

Do [00:22:00] we think really good, talented people are going to want to work for this founder? And that comes back to what I talked about earlier around, Like how much clarity can they talk about and how much conviction do they have and how the market's evolving, how they are going to navigate that evolving market and like what it's going to take to get really big.

And do we think they're going to be able to like get people to kind of jump on, on the ship with them and go on this journey that is like, Undoubtedly going to be hard. That's going to have ups and downs. Like very few companies are up and to the right the whole time. And do we like truly believe that there'll be able to do that?

And so part of that is like our gut of what we want like, do we feel that way? Like, Would we go where if I wasn't doing this right now, would I go Work on this problem with this founder because he or she has such passion and conviction around, around this inevitable future. And so, like, we, you know, that's some of what we look for.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Mike, it's interesting here at Deep Wealth in our nine step roadmap, when it comes to choosing an advisor, which is actually step six, very similar to you, one of the questions we ask everyone who's going through the program [00:23:00] before you hire an advisor, do a quick thought experiment. I'll give you the abbreviated version.

If you're on an airplane taking a trip with this advisor and the plane gets stuck and the captain comes over the PA system, ladies and gentlemen, we have an issue. We can't go back to the gate. We're waiting for the part, but we're going to be on the tarmac for nine hours. Are you crawling out of your skin after the first five minutes or nine hours coming to go?

Not so bad. I would have chosen this, but I enjoyed my time with the person back to your point of chemistry. And so you're, you're spot on with that. So when it comes to success for every one of your companies that ultimately goes on to become successful, whatever success means different, people have different definitions of that.

How many companies didn't make the grade?

Michael Cardamone: Yeah, again, it depends on which, so our core strategy around the Accelerator, which is the one we've been running for 10 years now and have the most data on. If you look at like, our fund from 2014, as an example we had 42 companies that we invested in out of that fund. I believe 16 of them are still alive right [00:24:00] now.

Of the ones that aren't, it's probably about seven that were acquired, I think it was, and the rest went out of business, so went to zero. Of the acquisitions It was probably two that had like meaningful, like nine figure acquisitions where the founders and investors all did really well.

And then the other ones were like small kind of aqua hire, maybe the investors got their money back. The founder got like a little bit of money, but not a home run. And then of the 16 that are left. There's probably three to four of them that are going to still create a lot of value for both investors and founders, where it'll be a 50 to 300 million exit.

And then the rest are probably not going to really be value returners for the investors, but may end up being decent kind of lifestyle cash flowing businesses for the founder or they may not end up working out. so, of the 42 companies, I think we'll end up Six or seven with like [00:25:00] meaningful exits and outcomes which given how early we're investing and how long it typically takes to build a big company is like a decent hit rate for venture especially for that early stage, but that's probably about where it breaks out.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, Mike, you're really a modest fellow. When I'm speaking to other VCs, the numbers are staggering and they are much higher in terms of, you know, instead of one out of every 10 or 20, 30 companies, going to make it. Yours are much higher than that. So I'm wondering, the Forum Secret Sauce, is it?

Your intervention along the way, is it choosing right? A little bit of both. I mean, what's going on with that? Because your ratios there are really phenomenal.

Michael Cardamone: it's interesting though, because it depends who you're talking to. If you're a big fund a good outcome for you is like billion dollar plus, because you have to return a lot of capital. Your entry price was probably invested at like a 50 million valuation. And so if you exit for 150 million, it's not, it's considered a failure from a fund, from the fund's perspective.

[00:26:00] So when they're quoting those numbers, a lot of those are like, How many were home runs were like billion dollar plus outcomes for us and the accelerator model, we are investing super, super early at really low valuations. And so a 50 million exit. Would look like a failure to most bigger kind of multi-stage VCs.

We're investing LA later than we are, but for us it's actually like, we'll probably return our whole fund on the first fund, right? So it's a little bit different because of the entry prices that we're getting in at and how early we're investing. With that said, yes, I do think I think we've built a lot of infrastructure and resources and support system and have had a lot of data points to learn from.

We've invested in 450 companies now over the last 10 years, where I think we can increase the probability of getting from like zero to one and raising that next round of funding and then therefore giving you a shot to build a company here. And I think we can, if [00:27:00] you are doing it on your own versus coming into our program and doing that.

I would like to think we increased the probability of success because of all the learnings and support and resources we provide the founders. Yeah,

Jeffrey Feldberg: the accelerator, why don't we just stick with that for just a moment, because that's where you have the experience. That's where you have some of the numbers. Imagine a family member came to you and said, Mike, I'm starting a company. When you look at your own experience with Box, when you look at the Accelerator, if you could give me one or two strategies that are really impactful, they don't have to be complicated.

In fact, the simpler, the better. But if I were to do one or two things in this company that I'm starting to really. Defy the odds. I'm not going to become a statistic on the negative side. I'm going to, you know, become closer to actually winning. What would you say in that imaginary conversation?

Michael Cardamone: some of it, this sounds simplistic, but just be maniacally focused on the customer and have way more customer conversations than you think you need to have to like truly make sure you understand who is your ICP, what do they [00:28:00] care about, what are they personally incented by, what would make them buy this like, One of the downsides of getting founders to have like deep understanding of a space is like they sometimes will build in a vacuum because they feel like they know all the answers based on their personal experience and they don't spend enough time actually talking to the people who would buy their software to like really understand What is it that they want solved?

What do they care about? All the things that I mentioned, like personal incentives like, do they have comp tied to outcomes that this software can impact, and, all the things that would go into deeply understanding the customer and what their willingness to pay is for what you're building, because at the end of the day like, you could Amazing branding, great website, like great people.

If you're not building something that people actually want to pay for, it's not going to work. So I think just being so focused on that in the beginning and doing way more than you think, like 40, 50 customer calls where you're just like interviewing them to like really understand what makes them tick, what makes them want to buy things, like what problems [00:29:00] are like.

Burning problems for them. I just think founders don't do enough of that sometimes in the beginning. And I think it requires a lot of that to like really get it right.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Mike, it's really refreshing to hear that. You don't often hear that. If this were a bootstrapping conversation and yes, Guilty as charged, I'm a bootstrapper, that would be one of the anthems. Hey, you know, as a cockroach startup, you don't have outside funding. You've got to live another day. Do whatever you can.

Speak to your customers, make sure you're in alignment. But you don't really hear that once you leave the bootstrapping world. I'm hearing it from you when it comes to things like the burn rate and just spending the investment dollars. And I'm hearing you say, well, it's really all about the customers.

What's that mix? Where are you? Where's form in that regard?

Michael Cardamone: look, I think this market, we had a crazy time in venture in 2020, 2021, like things were. People were raising at valuations with like very little proof points and it was head scratching to say the least. And I think we've reverted back and rightfully so to you have to [00:30:00] prove more in most cases.

There's still a small subset of those like proven founders where they're raising rounds pretty easily without having to prove much. But for the most part, if you're an unproven founder, you just have to prove more at each stage to raise capital. So our take, like we still think. If you are clearly showing signs of pull from customers, then there's that, there's an opportunity to like raise capital and lean into growth, even if it means like increasing burn to fund that growth.

But I think until you like, are clearly seeing pull from customers and like really understand who your buyer is, what industry, what are they using it for? And is there pull? Are you starting to, is it like, does it feel easy to build top of funnel and pipeline and like our close rates from first call to close rate like higher than normal based on all the data we have.

Then I think it's okay, raise some money and lean into growth because you've now got a machine that can grow faster. But until you figure that out, which usually [00:31:00] Takes a while. I just don't think it should be like growth at all costs anymore. It should be, be capital efficient as possible to figure out, until you get that like product market fit or, pull from the customers.

So I think there's like a time and place to step on the gas. if your aspirations are to build, a really big billion dollar business, sometimes it's hard to do that bootstrapping because if you have something that's like really working, like you're going to end up with a bunch of copycat companies trying to do it too.

And if they end up raising a lot of money and leapfrog you and resources around sales and everything, like in some markets, it can be a bit of a land grab for market share. And so sometimes. If you want to build that really big business, like sometimes it does make sense to just raise some capital and step on, on the gas from a growth perspective.

But I think you, too many companies make the mistake of raising a bunch of money and hiring a bunch of salespeople too soon before they've actually figured out who the right customer is and are they solving the right pain point for them and is the pricing right [00:32:00] and all that kind of stuff.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. As we were talking about offline, I'll bring up that expression again. Timeliness is next to godliness. And really what I'm hearing you say is prove the concept, get the customers behind you, and then you can step on the gas, raise some capital, perhaps do some more spending, focus on growth and get out there.

It's really a nice approach that you're taking. And it's refreshing again, to hear from Venture Capital with what you're saying, it's a unique message and kudos to you and the team for that, Michael. So That said, we're you know, unfortunately I would love to go down so many different rabbit holes, but we're bumping up against some time.

And so it's a tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast where I really, it's an honor, it's a privilege, every guest asks the same question and it's a fun one. So here's the question for you. So Mike, imagine that the movie or think of the movie Back To The Future. And in the movie, you have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time.

So imagine now, Mike, it's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside, but the door is open. It's waiting for you to hop on in, which you do. And you're now going to go to any point in time. Mike, [00:33:00] as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom?

Or hey, Mike, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like?

Michael Cardamone: That's a really good question. yeah, I'd probably go back to, I have four kids and my first is almost nine, and I started the business nine and a half years ago, so spent, the early parts of my kids being born, like grinding, trying to build this business. And I'd probably go back to just before then and give myself a little bit of a pep talk around I know you're want to build this business and like you're dead set on building this but like maybe find some balance in your life because I feel like I didn't spend enough time In the first couple of years of our kids, and I'm sure my wife would say the same thing, because I was, like, so [00:34:00] maniacally focused on getting this business off the ground and making it work, because I just didn't want to fail.

And I think it took me a while to really realize how precious the time is with your kids those really young ages, and like, Find that balance of family life and business. And like, I think I was trying to do everything on my own as opposed to like bringing in other people around me sooner and delegating and all the things that, I've now kind of figured out over the years.

And so I probably would go back to that and just like tell myself So like have a bit more balance in those early years. Cause I think it still would have worked out just maybe not quite as fast or maybe slightly differently, but

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, Mike, that really resonates, you know, make the time for family to be there for those magic moments. And one founder to another, I missed the first five years of my daughter growing up because I was all over the place traveling six months of the year, building the business and you never get that time back.

And when you do get to that success, all the accolades, all the financial success, you can never. [00:35:00] Go back to those times. So I, I hear you loud and clear. Although, is it balancing or is it blending? Because I know my personal thought is balancing, leave it for Hollywood, leave it for the books. It's really blending.

Between the two.

Michael Cardamone: Yeah. I think it's, blending. I think it's also just like setting. the right like my part of my problem was like i just wasn't present enough i think i was just like even when i was with the kids i was like on my phone responding to emails and was not so now it's it's more of a i still work a lot i just that i work a lot In hours where I'm not around the kids, like after they go to bed or while they're at school, or during the day, but I make sure I'm back.

And when I'm back, I'm not perfect. Like I'll sometimes have my phone with me, but I try to put the phone down and like really be present for like dinner and bath time and bedtime with them. And then I just get back online afterwards. And just trying to find more of that, balance of being present when I'm with them and being all in on that versus being half in and half working because then it's not, you're not doing, you're doing both a disservice, I think.[00:36:00]

Jeffrey Feldberg: exactly. It's not the quantity, it's the quality. So if you're fully present, you're fully engaged, and like you, Mike, I found as a cardinal rule in our family, everyone's there for dinner, no matter what. Just make the time you're there, and it can make all the difference. And before we go into the final wrap up mode, we'll have all this in the show notes.

Mike, for someone who has a question, they want to reach out to you or the team, they want to explore going into the accelerator or you helping them to raise some capital. Where's the best place online for someone to reach out?

Michael Cardamone: Yeah. We're just on at forumvc. com. We have a forum you can fill out to pitch us. You can also email me. I'm just Mike at forumvc or find us on LinkedIn, but we're pretty easily accessible.

Jeffrey Feldberg: There you have it. Deep Wealth Nation. Mike gave his email address. Take him up on it. He's a smart guy. He's successful. Here's some of his insights. Again, this will all be in the show notes, so you don't have to worry about it. It'll be a point and click. And that said, Mike, firstly, congratulations. It's official.

This is a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and [00:37:00] prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Michael Cardamone: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. Did you find this episode helpful? Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

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