Sydnie Keddington

Calling all VC / PE / Angel Groups... 👀 I'm working on some game-changing win-win-win offerings for the VC, PE, and Angel groups around Utah and beyond From bootstrap basics to pre-seed and Series A acceleration, companies at different stages have unique branding and online presence needs Whether it's building brand assets, refining pitch decks, or rolling out custom solutions, the goal is to elevate startups (and their investors) to better positioning and longer-term success Collaboration and innovation are at the core of these initiatives, and I can't wait to see the impact! Who do you know that should hear about this? #VentureCapital #PrivateEquity #AngelInvestors #StartupGrowth #Innovation #BusinessStrategy #Entrepreneurship #Branding #Webdesign

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Confession: Raising my first $1M was one of the hardest things in my career. As a 5x founder with 3 exits, I've now raised over $130M+ in capital. I'm passionate about helping the next generation of underrepresented founders succeed in the tech industry. So, I've opened up 5 exclusive 1:1 mentorship slots on Intro. 10% of proceeds will be donated to the Latino Corporate Directors Association (LCDA). What can we cover together? ✔️ Fundraising strategies and overcoming barriers ✔️ Mergers and acquisitions guidance ✔️ Scaling your business effectively ✔️ Building and hiring high-performing teams ✔️ Career advancement and breaking into the C-suite Honored to be on Intro alongside world-class experts like Manjot Pahwa (former CEO of Stripe, India. VP at Lightspeed), Shankar Kumar (Global Exec, led $1B Business Turnaround at Caterpillar Inc.) & Morgan Polotan (Partner at monashees Investments ($3B hedge fund). Ex: Comcast Ventures). Comment “interested” and secure your spot now: https://lnkd.in/eBifjGVi

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The South Park Commons Founder Fellowship is the best way to start a company because -1 to 0 is when a company actually starts. Not at revenue or first product. Your company starts even before you have an idea—when ambition takes hold. And SPC is the only truly pre-idea program. Conventional wisdom pushes many founders to stay lean and wait for revenue or product or ideas to seek funding and support. And in the past it made more sense because there wasn't much support available. But now there is and delaying it leaves value on the table. Everything is downstream of -1. It's very easy to get stuck on good ideas and miss great ones. To waste 5 years of your life on something that was never going to work because you didn't have the right support to help you pivot earlier. Start maximizing your chances as soon as you can. You're the average of the people around you, so surround yourself with insanely talented & ambitious people. Partner with world-class operators & investors like Ruchi Sanghvi, Evan Tana, Finn Meeks, Arian Agrawal, Jonathan Brebner, Danh Trang, Dylan Itzikowitz & Gopal Raman. We've been helping founders through -1 to 0 for nearly 9 years at SPC. We defined it, developed the best practices, built the most talent-dense community dedicated to this specific stage. This gives us the confidence to bet $1M on founders before they have an idea. Founder Fellowship apps are open. We give worldbuilders $1M, bespoke partnership with the SPC team & the most talent-dense community in tech. So you have the best chance at pulling off the impossible. Apply with or without an idea. Our only precondition is ambition. FAQ here: https://lnkd.in/dDjxeck8 Application here: https://lnkd.in/d2RGEAQd

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I partnered with Kyle Poyar this week to uncover 10 PLG plays that can enhance your customer engagement, streamline processes, and drive revenue growth. Even if your company doesn't identify as Product-Led Growth (PLG), these are strategies from PLG that ANY company should be incorporating. Full post in today's GTM Newsletter by GTMnow, I’ll pop the link in the comments. The TL;DR: 1. Interactive demo on the website 2. Replace hard feature gates and paywalls with soft gates 3. Incorporate a usage-based component to pricing 4. Leverage product data to drive customer outcomes 5. Offer trials for new features 6. Correlate product usage with revenue growth 7. Automate resource-intensive processes with AI 8. Implement smart email nurture cadences 9. Build and leverage power user communities 10. Offer starter packages or proof of concepts ✍️

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Well said, Jen Abel. And even beyond these ARR guardrails, startups often instinctively throw in enterprise and SMB as dual strategies. Or direct and PLG. Outbound and channel. And more! #startup #sales #GTM #SMB #channel #enterprise #PLG #directsales

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Want to REALLY get to know the executive you're considering hiring? A well-executed 3 - 5 hour structured interview is a great way :) Fun times with Omeed and Joe on The SaaS Buyers Club podcast! Let me know when you're ready to go thru that 3 - 5 hr deep dive, guys. #PrivateEquity #Talent #ExecutiveHiring

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We’ve raised nearly $6,000,000 for one of my favorite tech startups. (Now gearing up for an industry-disrupting, 8-figure A-Round). Two years ago, I bet on four visionary co-founders building an industry-transforming platform in food and beverage. Ohanafy developed an elegant solution to a thorny problem. The US food and beverage market is booming - but distributors, importers, and producers struggle with: • Disconnected systems • Antiquated technology • Manual, inefficient processes • Lack of real-time data-driven insights Ohanafy solves these by bringing the power of the Salesforce platform - used by the world's biggest businesses - to firms of all sizes. → Importers → Producers → Distributors With Ohanafy they can drive revenue and cut expenses through: • Simplified reporting and compliance • Automating processes, reducing manual admin work • Analytics for suppliers, lead times, and inventory insights • Intelligent demand forecasting to predict inventory needs The solution's truly comprehensive. CRM, Sales, AI, Data and Analytics in one system. With that, Ohanafy's clients can: • Optimize operations and remove bottlenecks • Scale with speed and agility as the business expands • Make data-driven decisions to drive growth and profitability Cape Fear Ventures is proud to back visionary founders building transformative products and services. A fantastic example of software and AI levelling the playing field. PS: In my next piece, I’m diving into 6 unforgettable lessons for tech startups from the Ohanafy journey. Hit the 🔔 on my profile to get notified! ____________________________ Hi, I'm Richard Stroupe, a 3x Entrepreneur, Technologist and Venture Capital Investor Early-stage Tech Founders: I can help turn your startup into a VC magnet. I've opened up 3 slots for my Tech Startup Launchpad Program. Send me a DM to see if you qualify for hands-on guidance to nail your niche and wow investors.

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I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on Facebook and LinkedIn from folks looking to raise money for expansions, acquisitions, or startups. A couple of key points to keep in mind: If you’re paying someone on the back end after a raise, they need to be licensed, like having securities licenses. Alternatively, bring on experienced pros as part of your team, like a fractional CMO or COO. These roles can act as your fractional Investor Relations experts. Remember, raising equity or debt is a process that requires careful planning and expertise.

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Every PE value creation plan needs a people plan. If the VCP spells out the "What" and the "How"... ...the People Plan spells out the "Who." More on how to approach this in the link in the Comments. Great convo with Omeed and Joe on The SaaS Buyers Club podcast! #PrivateEquity #PeoplePlan #Talent

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HOLY SMOKES that context switching is on 🔥 this week...and it's highlighted the old agage: know your audience. This week, we've been working on: - Converting from an LLC to a C-Corp. - Fundraising - Angel investor communication - Institutional investor pitches - Prospect calls and communication - New customer onboarding - Training partners - Affiliate & reseller partners - Product discussions There were a few times that I forgot who I was talking to - my message for one got blurred with the message for the next. I pitched when I should have inquired I inquired when I should have pitched I emailed when I should have called I sold when I should helped While it's all very closely related, different audiences need different things. This isn't a typical week, a little more chaotic than usual. BUT lesson learned - take a deep breath, remember who you are talking to, and know your audience. 🤓

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Hot Take: Hating on Signal-led and outbound means you don't get either or don't understand how to build it. We are having the best pipeline month in company history and about to beat our best quarter after going signal led(Q2 '24 results to follow). How did we do it = Stacking Signals!! The key to success here is that each signal is not a solution, you need to stack them together and triage them to get your best strike zone. Here is the list of signal's I captured manually. An OKR for me this quarter is to add more to my repository of signals and I plan on doing this by integrating all these signals into Common Room and further track their activity for unique trigger and conversion events. In an ideal world I plan on "Big Brothering" my leads/signals to see if they become hotter over time and convert. These are some of the signals we are working with currently and you can find the resources of signals from Common Room in some of the links i'll share. 1) CRM signals: Lookalike customers and prospects in your deal committed stage. 2) Social Signals: Community engagement, Dark social conversations. 3) Website Visitors: De-anonymized 4) Product Signals: Sign-up's, lookalike sign-ups and sign-ups engaging with competitors. What's fascinating is that these signal produced leads are converting to qualified opportunities and closed won 37% faster. These are also outperforming our inbound demo's and hand raisers. This is the current workflow and how as a PLG org, stacking the above signals and doing a bit of manual work is a must. I'll stress again - all these signal's without the right enablement and sales talent will fall short. Enter Debdutta Saha 🧘‍♂️ - This is how Deb stack's our signals and build's glorious qualified pipeline. Step 1: Deb tracks all sign-ups on our Tablea dashboard and looks for unique sign-ups. Aka has somebody hit room limits or has somebody invited other internally to sign-up. These events increase the score and turns the sign-up into a signal. Step2: We check de-anonamization took to check visitors on our site and validate who to reach out to. 40% activation failures exist in PLG and this signal combined with the above shows us sign-ups that might be in market and actively evaluating. Step3: Then we look for unique trigger signal to get a better sense of the org - aka do they have open headcount, are they hiring for roles that are end users of my product. Here is a repository of signal's from Common Room that you can use https://lnkd.in/gSC6Px-9 Step4: We prospect and talk to all ic's to learn what could be ATL messaging for the leaders that will help us convert an account to an opportunity. The above is just 1 of many play's we run. The hypothesis is that by integrating all my signals and product data into Common Room, i'll be surfaced more wins to go after. I'll share Q2 results soon - playbook in comments. #sales #khantent #management

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Having a cofounder can be the best thing you can do: - Its a person that can hold you accountable - someone that can help you with the development - have other relationships than you and connect to other people - twice the power of one person Is there any person out there that is looking for a co founder that has CTO skills ? But at the same time they do not want to share equity with them ? Well I can be your co founder. I can help you with picking the tech stack, give you ideas of how to do things and what to do on the launch and post launch: marketing, SEO and all that stuff. I can even write a bit of code , or the whole code but then we are talking about a different price. Just DM me if you want to hire me as your co founder. I think depending on the business type we can launch in 1-3-6 months.

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A very simple formula for progress (thank you, Ray Dalio). Pain + Reflection = Progress Too much is made on failing fast. Not enough is made on reflecting On WHY you failed. So whether: -An investor says no -A team member quits -You didn't get the desired position -You got fired from your dream job Take the time to reflect. Absorb the learning. Move forward.

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Start of the week update: 1. Pitched myself and the podcast in public 2. Followed up with a few folks for live podcast recording and virtual as well 3. Pitched to a few sponsors to come on board 4. Creating the bonuses for the masterclass 5. Started job search

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Where are you stalling out your fundraising process? 1) The constant rejection? 2) Feedback that you need to be a better storyteller? 3) The "Ick" about asking for warm intros? 4) The neverending work on the deck? 5) Your fundraising has gone on for 6 months and isn't working? 6) You had a handshake deal with a VC for a term sheet...and then they ghosted you? I can help you cut out the noise, deal with the rejection and keep moving towards a positive result. Imagine what it will feel like after your last investor has wired...and you've got money to grow your team and crush your milestones? Book time with me if you want to close your round by September. https://lnkd.in/eKTy99bS

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After many years of investing and advising in tech companies, I’ve picked up a ton of wisdom. Here are six things I wish I knew right from the start: 1. Founder First: I've learned to prioritize founders. Much like in sports, the coach outlasts the player, making the leader's vision and resilience crucial for success. 2. Ecosystem is Everything: Success hinges on fostering an inclusive ecosystem with robust systems in place. This eco-mentality creates a nurturing environment for growth. 3. Mission-Driven Momentum: Companies driven by a clear and compelling mission have a strategic advantage. The synergy of mission and vision propels these organizations toward their goals, navigating them to the "promised land." 4. Unity and Teamwork: The formula for success is simple yet powerful—teamwork and unity. The more cohesive and collaborative the effort, the greater the success. 5. Agility in Strategy: Mastering the art of pivoting at the right time—aligning product strategy with customer needs and market dynamics—is essential. This agility can turn customer interactions into revenue, driving substantial growth. 6. Deep Market Understanding: Know your market and customer better than you know your tech. This depth of understanding will make sure the product resonates with and meets the needs of your target audience.

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Much ink has been spilled from startups to established corporations about the need for businesses to have a purpose (beyond achieving various financial goals). Ideally your company’s purpose can align with “your why,” or the drive behind what you do and how you do it. At Arbo a “patriotic purpose” drove our founding, having seen in the Navy how access to energy or lack of it causes conflict and war and enables peace and prosperity. This patriotic purpose motivates our team’s day-to-day support of the energy infrastructure industry, which helped our country become energy independent and is expanding the fabric of our modern society. As we enter our second decade in business, we’re at the start of another historic energy infrastructure build out and possibly the most exciting time to be in the energy business. The Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Chevron highlighted just how critical permitting, litigation and policy will continue to be. In 10 years it’s only gotten harder to build all kinds of energy projects, with headwinds for traditional energy from carbon reduction advocates, and tailwinds from reliability and affordability proponents. As a country, I believe we’ll thread the needle and figure it out, as we always do. (A photo from last year’s July 4th, while cooking out with my family.)

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Product usage data is a goldmine for growth. But only if you know how to dig. Amplitude built a $7 billion business helping companies leverage this data. Here's how you can do it: 1. Identify power users for upsell opportunities 2. Spot teams approaching usage limits 3. Predict and prevent churn with engagement metrics 4. Inform product development priorities 5. Personalize user experiences and offers Companies that effectively use product data see a 30% reduction in churn rates. Are you fully capitalizing on the wealth of data your product generates?

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