{"id":2326,"date":"2017-06-29T17:31:31","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T17:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/?p=2326"},"modified":"2017-06-29T17:32:55","modified_gmt":"2017-06-29T17:32:55","slug":"the-150k-problem-how-to-properly-fund-iot-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/the-150k-problem-how-to-properly-fund-iot-startups\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u00a3150K problem: how to properly fund #iot startups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 1px solid #CCC; border-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 5px; max-width: 100%;\" src=\"\/\/www.slideshare.net\/slideshow\/embed_code\/key\/aqtKmb9HbNwvNq\" width=\"595\" height=\"485\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"> <\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 5px;\"><\/div>\n<p>I was invited to speak at <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.knect365.com\/fundforum-international\/\">Fund Forum<\/a>\u00a0in Berlin a few weeks ago and wanted to share the crux of my argument to a room full of investors and investment managers.<\/p>\n<p>I believe that fundamentally, the investment model that Silicon Valley has developed around software is completely useless when it comes to helping early stage hardware startups get off the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Traditionally, as a founder, you might look to raise \u00a350K in seed, friends or family or angel money. That&#8217;s great except that will never get you a physical connected product to test out on the market. Never. Not with the materials you need to use, not with the embedded software that needs to be developed. Never.<\/p>\n<p>Spending 3-4 months in an incubator gives you a break from your daily obligations of paying the rent but doesn&#8217;t cover the cost\u00a0of expert engineering, industrial design, moulds, certification.<\/p>\n<p>Some investment funds are starting to concentrate\u00a0on #iot and that&#8217;s great, but good god I wish people would START by investing \u00a3150K. And then leave companies be for a while, because \u00a3150K is enough to get going or\u00a0hang yourself with if you don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re doing. But it&#8217;s not enough to make your investors cry either (as a fund manager).<\/p>\n<p>\u00a3150K will cover the\u00a0certification costs for EU\/US sales,\u00a0the\u00a0design work with a team or a partner, some marketing. That&#8217;s kindof all a team\u00a0needs to &#8216;test&#8217; the\u00a0product with people, to have something in their hands. And it&#8217;s possibly enough to start to just sell the damn thing. Later the founders\u00a0can go after VC money if they&#8217;re\u00a0keen (or mad) but for the love of God(s) let&#8217;s give startups a chance. Anything below \u00a3150K and they are just bidding their time, missing one Christmas after the other, missing opportunities for that &#8216;growth&#8217; which all investors look for.<\/p>\n<p>Help them out first, in a serious and productive way. \u00a3150K\/startup. That would be great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was invited to speak at Fund Forum\u00a0in Berlin a few weeks ago and wanted to share the crux of my argument to a room full of investors and investment managers. I believe that fundamentally, the investment model that Silicon Valley has developed around software is completely useless when it comes to helping early stage&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/the-150k-problem-how-to-properly-fund-iot-startups\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The \u00a3150K problem: how to properly fund #iot startups<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The \u00a3150K problem: my thoughts on how to properly fund #iot startups in the UK and everywhere else.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-internet-of-things","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p41XhY-Bw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2326"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2328,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326\/revisions\/2328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designswarm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}