TSP004 | Andrew Medal – Transcription
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John Livesay:
Hi and welcome back to The Successful Pitch. Today’s guest is Andrew Medal. What a story he has. From being in prison ten years ago to becoming a writer for Entrepreneur magazine and working for an angel investment company. You’re going to be riveted to hear how he did it and what lessons he’s learned and what he shares with us today on the show. He talks about how being in prison there is a hunger to survive and that same kind of hunger is what you need when you’re a startup entrepreneur.
He shares 5 secrets that he used to become a writer for Entrepreneur magazine that you can use to reach out to the right investors. He also has a great story about how he picked the wrong business partner and how to avoid making those same mistakes for you as well as avoid making the same mistakes with an investor. Just because you’ve made a mistake, doesn’t mean you should stop dreaming, he said. You need to paint a picture for an investor to understand your pitch. We came up with a concept of being the Picasso of pitches, so you’re going to enjoy the show. He’s got incredible insights and value, I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Hi everybody and welcome back to The Successful Pitch podcast. We’re thrilled to have today’s guest, Andrew Medal who has not only worked for an angel investment company, is pitching currently right now and can give us tips on that, but is also an incredible writer for Entrepreneur magazine that gives really valuable tips and insights on what it takes to be a successful startup and get funded. Welcome to the show, Andrew.
Andrew Medal:
Thank you so much, John. I’m excited to be here and excited to have a discussion.
John:
Great. What I’d love to do is, because you have been one of the few guests that have been on both sides of the table, as it were, I think people would love to hear how you got your job working for an angel investment firm.
Andrew:
Sure. So, I actually, that was, basically the beginning of my career, what I actually was doing, I was working at a hedge fund. During college I thought I wanted to be a stock broker, so I, we had something called the Bloomberg Terminals, which is the Bloomberg is, you know, is a one of the biggest and most known instruments in the financial world, so we had access to those terminals.
So, what I would do is spend my entire time on those terminals actually networking with different fund managers and people on the space, which eventually landed me an internship at a hedge fund, so I started off at a hedge fund actually trading and learning the market, eventually worked my way up to an analyst.
For a very brief time I was a trader, but that all happened around 2008 and our fund went upside down. So, my last paycheck actually bounced and I was stuck trying to figure out what I was going to do next. During that time, I had been, you know, just looking around and trying to figure out my next move and so I was talking to a lot of different entrepreneurs and a lot of different people that I knew that had started companies and these people all needed funding and so, what I did was I started looking for potential investors just out there that people that I have found that were making investments, so what I did was I brought pre-qualified potential investments with these different startup companies and people that I was meeting through this actual different angel investor groups and that actually helped me to get a position with a team, so that was my way into the angel investment world.
John:
You were doing two things that are really important for our listeners to learn from. One, you were networking, which is how you got your job as an intern and two, you were then able to start acting as if you’re already working for an investment firm. You take your broker experience and started brokering deals together and when you started doing that people said, well, we should have you as someone that’s working on a team at an angel investment, right?
Andrew:
Right, right, yeah.
John:
So that power of acting as if, so what was it like being on the hearing pitches. How many pitches would you hear on a week as an angel investor.
Andrew:
I was probably hearing – okay so, we were a unique team. We had different tools that we’re providing entrepreneurs, so they were paid tools that entrepreneurs can use and then we are also looking to place capital, so our business model was somewhat unique. So, based on that fact, I was interacting with a lot of entrepreneurs just in terms of talking to them about our different tools, you know, just interacting with them, I’ll get pitched all day. More formal pitches I would say probably, you know, 10-20 per week.
John:
Wow. Is there any one thing, Andrew, that stood out when you would hear 10-20 pitches a week of that’s a really great pitch or that’s a really bad pitch? One extreme or the other that would be helpful for the listeners to know if I wanna be memorable, here’s what I should do and if I really don’t wanna be at the bottom of barrel, here’s what I should not do.
Andrew:
Right, right. Great question, John. You know, I think for our team what we really focused on, I mean, this is like a match for everybody, you know, and says all the time and I’ve heard, you know, your other interviewees says this, but we would bet on the jockey, not the horse, right.
John:
Yep. You can never hear that enough.
Andrew:
So I think a lot of the times when we would find that jockey, that for us, that experience, that proven track record, you know, for us at least that role, that was what we’d look for. So, that always, you know, you know made our ears perk when we heard someone talking about proven track record or success or, you know, that’s not to say that they have to have experience, you know, because there’s a lot of first time entrepreneurs that don’t have experience, but if you don’t have that experience, explain to us or explain to your investors why you’re the right team, why it’s the right time or why are you the right team to actually execute the vision that you have.
John:
I love that. We’re going to make that a tweetable moment from you, it’ll be why you and why now.
Andrew:
Right. I love that.
John:
Make sure you have answers to those two questions, correct?
Andrew:
Right, right.
John:
Andrew, you have so much insight, what would you say is the importance of being able to tell a good story?
Andrew:
That’s extremely valuable. You know, I think that actually, really, when it comes down to it at a fundamental level, I think the difference between someone who will get the funding that they’re looking for and someone who will not, comes down to their ability to paint the right picture, you know, funding and raising capital and pitching, you know, same with projections and putting together the pro forma. I mean, it’s an art, not a skill. You really have to be able to know how to paint that picture, because there’s so much that goes into, you know, what you’re opportunity is, but then you have such a small window to really captivate whatever audience it is that you’re looking to captivate.
John:
Andrew, you’re just full of incredible soundbites for the listeners today. Your ability to paint the picture determines whether you get funded or not, so I’m going to say that Andrew Medal says, if you wanna be the Picasso of pitches, paint a picture.
Andrew:
I love that.
John:
You like that?
Andrew:
Yeah, that’s awesome.
John:
Great. So that’s it, listeners. Become the Picasso of pitches by painting a picture that investors can easily understand and remember, if you need to learn how to tell a story, that’s when you need to reach out to people who an teach you that skill, because it is a skill and an art and it’s not something you can just go in and wing it, right? Not if you wanna get funded. There’s too much competition.
Andrew:
Absolutely.
John:
Would you agree?
Andrew:
Totally agree.
John:
Now, let me ask you, if I may, about the recent story in the charity you’re involved with called Last Mile. Can you tell our listeners your experience of what you learned from talking with inmates and how that relates to being a startup entrepreneur?
Andrew:
Absolutely. I’m involved with a charity called Last Mile Project and early on what we were doing as a charity, we were going in to different institutions and actually teaching a course on entrepreneurship. The charity has pivoted a little bit as of recently to where they’re actually teaching inmates how to code now up in San Quentin prison, but I’ve learned a great deal going back into the prison system and teaching entrepreneurs about being entrepreneurs, I’m sorry, teaching inmates about being entrepreneurs.
You know, there are a lot of parallels in the prison system as they are in the startup world, as you mentioned, I’ve written about this on Entrepreneur, you know, for one, there’s this hunger in the prison system that is reminiscent of the startup world, except, you know, I’d say the hunger goes in a little deeper and further in the prison system.
I feel like you’re not, you know, until you realize the things that you take for granted on a daily basis and the things that we all, you know, the things that we take for granted on a daily basis until those things are taken from you, you don’t truly understand what you have. So, when you’re in prison, you have no internet connection, you have no access to, you know, a free phone, you have ability to watch the things you want on TV, you have, you know, very limited resources, your most technologically advanced instrument is your number two golf pencil.
If you want to go – you just have ample time to just sit and reflect and, you know, a lot of people have big dreams and they may have made mistakes, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t dream big and have big visions for their life. It just means that some of the decisions they made in the past don’t reflect, you know, those decisions that they’ve made that caused them to be there.
John:
I love that. Just because you’ve made a mistake, doesn’t mean you should stop dreaming.
Andrew:
Right.
John:
That is such a great takeaway for the audience and to not give up, right, and to, it’s almost like being in prison and being an entrepreneur, I would say, is almost like survivor in the business world where you have limited resources and you’re literally hungry, you have to be hungry for the deal and you have to be persistent and not give up when all the odds are against you and still hold on to your dream. That’s such great work. I would love to know how did you get your job at Entrepreneur magazine, because again, that’s an extremely competitive place to land, to establish yourself as an authority. Obviously for investors that you’re pitching now for your own startup, tell us how did you come to decide, oh, I wanna write for entrepreneur and how did that all happen.
Andrew:
Sure, so ever since I was younger I knew I wanted to be a business man and I knew I wanted to have a bunch of startups and multiple companies and within that same vein, I knew I enjoyed writing and I knew that I wanted to, you know, be able to write for, you know, publications of that caliber, you know, we spoke offline and I spoken a little bit about my past, you know, I made a mistake ten years ago and it ended up causing me to eventually do two years in prison. So, actually while I was in prison, I used to hand write articles to entrepreneur and mail them via USPS.
John:
Wow. Talk about an old school..
Andrew:
Because I wanted to get my stuff published and I thought, well, this might be a unique strategy and creative way to get my name out there at least with Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur for me was kind of, you know, it was a magazine I felt would be my first stepping stone, so I didn’t give up on that dream when I got out, so what I continued to do was reach out to people.
So, here’s some good tips for entrepreneurs and your listeners that may want to explore writing for a publication. Number one, go LinkedIn and search for people who work at the publication that they’re hoping to write for. Number two, you connect with those people and start building a relationship. Number three, find out who the person that you need to speak to to be able to pitch as a contributor.
Number four, do your research. Go somewhere like Buzzsumo. Go to Buzzsumo and learn what the most shared articles are, so you have a good understanding of what their audience likes. Number five, create a list of pitches that you think align with their brand and with what people have shared. So you have data backing your reasons why these pitches that you think would be good that you could write on and with that formula, I was able to get into Entrepreneur as a contributor.
John:
Wow. Andrew, that is such a – you could write your own book just on that. What I love about these five steps, you know, the five steps to getting published, the five steps to breaking through, I think that you also could do a book on the five steps to getting funded the way – it’s the same thing to getting to the right investors, would you agree? You have to research, have data to back it up. I mean, what you just gave our listeners is absolute gold.
These five steps that are proven, because that’s what got you from prison to being a writer on Entrepreneur to know, you know, to making your life a huge success working for an angel investment company, having multiple companies that you are starting up and getting funding for, so that is, I can’t thank you enough for that generous, generous strategy that you’ve just shared because it’s the same kind of strategy that startups need to use to get to the right investor, wouldn’t you think?
Andrew:
Absolutely.
John:
Let me ask you about another one of your wonderful articles in Entrepreneur when you talk about jumping in too soon in a story you had about Craigslist. So many times people talk about, oh, I don’t want to jump in too soon with the right investor, but you even back it up a little bit further and say don’t jump in too soon with a business partner. Can you tell us the importance of both of those?
Andrew:
Sure. Yeah, so I recently had an experience where I met this guy, he was kind of hard pressed on his luck, kind of down, and we decided to go into business together because he brought value, complimentary value to the things I had been doing. We’ve been building additional marketing company and I was doing web design and development back then and front-end design stuff and he brought internet marketing, resources and knowledge and experience.
I wrote an article that said and explained three lessons I learned about that failure because we ended up, you know, not being able to succeed together in business. I think the big takeaway for me though was although, you know, I jumped in, the takeaway was not to, you know, give up on taking chances and risks, because even though the business did not succeed and did not, you know, grow into the vision that we had, you know, I don’t regret the experience, because it made me smarter as an entrepreneur and I think that no matter what we’re doing as entrepreneurs if we’re learning in the process, we’re growing and we should never stop learning and growing.
John:
That’s such a tweetable moment again. Never stop learning and growing. We’re going to tweet that out, because you know what it ties full circle back into what you were talking about being in prison, just because you make a mistake, doesn’t mean you stop dreaming and just because you make a mistake with who you choose to go into business with, doesn’t mean you give up, right, you learn, listen, and makes you a better entrepreneur.
Andrew:
Right.
John:
The continuity and the life lessons that you keep building upon is such a great inspiration and huge life lesson for everybody.
Andrew:
So with that said, I would say that the two takeaways that I have from failing with that business are one, I need to learn how to mitigate my risk better. I was too exposed, it was my primary source of income, so when things went sideways, I was in a position where I could not, you know, I had to scramble hard and hustle out of that dark place that I was in, you know. So I had to get out of that through sheer determination, perseverance, and hustle.
John:
No, I love that. Sheer determination and hustle. Man, if you could have that come across when you’re pitching an investor, that’s what you want to see. Those are the unspoken things that people are judging you on when you’re speaking. They’re not asking you are you perseverance and determined. The more you have stories like you do of examples of that, the more real it becomes.
Andrew:
Right, agreed. Yeah, so number one point was mitigating my risk. Number two point is to figure out how to protect yourself, which is complimentary to mitigating your risk, but there are other ways I could have protected myself even better even just with a little bit stronger agreements we had in place from a legal standpoint to a financial standpoint to more control over certain areas of the business. You know, that is another really valuable lesson I learned and I’m glad I learned now because, because now I’m wiser from it and I’ll be able to apply that knowledge in future endeavors.
John:
Right before we started this interview, you were telling me you were in the middle of a capital raise. I’m sure our listeners would love to hear from you about taking all these lessons you’ve learned from being in prison, working with prisoners, helping them become startups, being an angel investors, writing for Entrepreneur, how do you pull all of that together and when you pitch, what are your secrets when you’re in the middle of doing a capital raise.
Andrew:
Sure. So, great question. I am currently in a capital raise. We’re raising a seed stage round. We’re looking at a convertible note of about $650,000 and so, you know, there’s so many different ways to approach a capital raise. First of all, there are three places that you can typically find funding. One is friends, family, and fools. Number two is angel investors, which play a more of a professional role than just the three Fs that I mentioned and then the third is obviously, you know, venture capital.
A lot of first time entrepreneurs think that if they have this idea, they just need to go out and raise money right away and, you know, I talk about being able to raise money without a product in place, which is possible, it doesn’t make it easy, but it’s definitely possible and I’ve done it on multiple occasions, but I think..
John:
Let me ask you, to expand on that, because that is such a key question that everybody asks me. How do I get money if I don’t have a prototype and you’ve written about it in Entrepreneur from having screenshots of slides and things like that, but it’s so valuable your skill set and very few people know how to do it. If you could tell the listeners, if you don’t have a working prototype yet, you can still raise money and here’s how I did it with A, B, and C.
Andrew:
Absolutely. So, I do talk about, I just wrote an article and it was actually on Quora, can I – I don’t remember specifically the question, but how do I raise funding without a product. Pretty much the bulk of everyone on Quora said, oh, you can’t do it, it’s not possible and I countered that point because of my experience and I know it’s possible because I’ve done it on multiple occasions. You know, when I helped raise – I had a 2.2 million dollar raise I was apart of, we didn’t have a product in place. You know, I’ve done it for multiple six figure investments where I had an idea and more than just the idea and I’ll explain the three things that I think that are instrumental in raising without an actual product.
So, three items in my opinion, in my experience, are team, validation, and some sort of demo. So, team is obviously referring to who are you, who’s your team, what’s your experience, why, again, are you the right people for this vision and how are you going to accomplish this. In terms of validation, validation can be anything from a letter of intent from a big customer. You know, if you’re developing a mobile app, go out and create a landing page and get interested users to sign up for this, you know, for your, let’s call it a beta or whatever it is that they’re signing up for, but validate your idea through actual people that have interest, so there are a number of validation techniques you can use.
You can go on Google and search them and find a list and then third is demo. If you don’t have a product, you must have some sort of demo whether it’s Photoshop designs, whether it’s, you know, I mean, even a drawing on a napkin is better than nothing at all, you know. I would recommend against a drawing on a napkin, but you know, have some sort of demo.
John:
Right. A little more sophisticated.
Andrew:
Right. Oh yeah, for our current capital raise, we don’t have a product in place yet, but what we’ve done is we’ve designed the front end, so we have all the Photoshop design files that we’re going to use to convert and actually create your website, but what we’ve done is we’ve used an application called InVision that allows those Photoshop designs to become real and clickable, so I can walk people through what our actual website is going to look like and what the platform is going to be and they get, you know, investors get a real sense of the platform in its entirety.
John:
That’s fantastic. We’re going to be sure to put that in the transcript notes and a link to that InVision that allows your drawings or your Photoshop designs to become real and click-able. That’s an incredible resource you just shared with everybody that I don’t think a lot of people know about. Thank you again for your incredible generosity of sharing your incredible secrets that obviously work. You know, what’s so important for me is working with my clients who have explained to them the importance of branding from the get-go.
So, even if it’s a Photoshop design, it should represent your brand. You need to spend some time thinking about what is my brand stand for, what is the logo going to look like, what colors are we going to pick, what’s the font, what’s the professionalism, is it fun, is it hip, is it sophisticated, that you just aren’t showing something that’s so off-brand. The more thought you put into something, even if it’s not an actual demo, the more people are going to understand it quickly and be willing to say, yes, I get that. Don’t you agree?
Andrew:
Yeah. I think yes and no. How about that?
John:
Okay. Please, I’ll take the no. Let’s hear the no. I love when people say. What’s the no on branding?
Andrew:
My only hesitation there is that sometimes people get stuck in this, we call it an analysis process or whatever you want to call it, but what happens is they think too much, they over think, and then the over thinking hinders them from acting, you know, so what I would say if the over thinking and the over analyzing is hindering them from being able to move forward in some capacity and make progress, I would say hold off on that and figure it out what it is that’s going to move you forward. On the converse side of that, I do think that, you know, branding is specially important, especially in today’s digital age, you know, I work on my personal brand, so I have a business brand, I have a personal brand, and so building my personal brand actually helps compliment and help grow and build my business brand, you know, so if I can show my expertise as a personal brand and show the things I’ve done and show the value I provide and have a compelling story that people can latch on to and be engaged with, you know, building up my personal brand will actually in turn build up my business brand.
John:
Everything is in sync. They’re not operating at completely separate worlds, so what I hear you saying is, it’s important to do more than just a napkin drawing and just put some thought and effort into actually doing a Photoshop design that starts your branding process, but don’t get stuck. I tell my clients all the time, it’s about being a progressionist, not a perfectionist.
Andrew:
Love that.
John:
So, put enough effort into it to make it look professional, but don’t get so caught up on figuring out the color of the logo that it prevents you from getting it done.
Andrew:
Right.
John:
Because it can evolve, everything is a pivot even with the branding and the logo, but don’t do nothing where it’s on a napkin and don’t have anything to show, but don’t stop yourself from having something to show, because it’s not perfect. So, there’s happy medium which is all about being a progressionist. I’m glad you like that.
Andrew:
Yeah. I love that and I totally agree. You know, because a lot of people will just over think everything and they’ll get stuck in this rut where they’re actually not even accomplishing anything and then, you know, what’s the point of going back and figuring out your entire branding strategy if you’re not even going to get through point one.
John:
Andrew, we’re approaching the end of the podcast and it’s gone so fast and you’ve been so generous with so many great tips, I can’t wait to have it all put together for you and our listeners, of course, so thank you for that. I want to ask you if there’s one or two books or one or two quotes that you really got a lot out of it that you’d like to recommend.
Andrew:
I have so many different books that I love. When I was away I read 197 books within a two year span.
John:
Wow.
Andrew:
You know, so I love The Art of War. You know, during that time actually, so The Art of War is a great book and I use all the time. There are a lot of specific books related to, you know, startups and entrepreneurship. During that time The Lean Startup was really big. If people haven’t read that, I really think that’s an important book to at least read, whether they apply it today or not or that’s kind of outdated is irrelevant. I think it’s still a great book to really understand some of the ways that you can go through the process that we’ve been talking about. There’s this quote that I really love, I can not remember who said it, maybe we can look it up, but it’s, I wanna say it’s like the CEO of HP, but the quote is something like, “If we have data, let’s use the data. If all we have is an opinion, let’s use mine.”
John:
Great. If we have the data, let’s use it, but if all we have is opinions, let’s use mine. That’s a great example of confidence, which is what I think an entrepreneur needs to have and express without being ignorant and that’s what you certainty come across as. I mean, you’ve obviously are perseverance and strong and you’ve shown our listeners how to have confidence and believe in themselves and believe in their own opinion. What a great ending. Andrew, how can our listeners follow you, support your articles, whatever else you might want them to – how to stay in touch with you, follow you on Twitter, give us all that detail.
Andrew:
Sure, sure. First off, thanks John, I’ve really enjoyed our time and appreciate what you’re doing. You can follow me, my website is AndrewMedal.com. I love getting connection requests on LinkedIn and always communicate there. Twitter @AndrewMedal is my handle. I’m Quora all the time. Andrew Medal. There’s only one Andrew Medal out there.
John:
Fantastic and then obviously anybody who follows Entrepreneur is going to see your articles and they can like them and comment and share it.
Andrew:
Correct. If you sign up for my newsletter on my website, you’ll get access to those.
John:
Ah, terrific. I highly encourage everybody to sign up for that newsletter. If you had one newsletter to sign up to for this month, that’s the one, people. I’ve gotten so much out of everything he’s ever written and it’s been a thrill and an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much, Andrew.
Andrew:
Thank you so much, John. I really appreciate it.