Led by Susan Cooney, the cofounder of philanthropic crowdfunding platform Givelocity, participants in the panel included Michael Hughes of OneVest, Akhil Nigam of MassChallenge, Gabriella Draney of Tech Wildcatters, and Eric Olson of Origin Ventures. Hailing from different funding platforms and organizations, they were able to provide broad range of insight on how to approach the world of funding. And besides letting conference attendees know that they shouldn’t go into trying to raise funds merely to pay themselves salaries, the panelists emphasized the need for startups to focus on their customers. Before even thinking about the idea of pursuing funding, companies need to focus on the one thing that will determine whether their companies will even succeed: consumers. What are you doing to actually reach out to your potential or current customer base? How are you modifying your product to conform to their needs and demands? According to panelists, if you want to find institutional funding, you’re going to need to prove that there’s potential there for your company to actually hit it off in the marketplace, and you can’t validate that potential until you actually go out there and truly focus on the consumer. And, really, this should be part of a startup’s initial phase, according to Olson: of self-evaluating what you want or need to fulfill through your startup – to know thyself. Other topics during the panel included a discussion on all the types of funding available to startups, as well which kinds of funding pathways work best for specific purposes. Watch what else they had to say – here’s the video.
