Michael Cardamone, CEO of Forum Ventures, talks about what he considers in potential SaaS investments and his lessons from the industry. Get more insights from the podcast.
Form Ventures is a leading B2B SaaS focus accelerator that helps early-stage businesses grow and scale. They have invested 50 million USD in over 250 companies, with their portfolio hitting an approximate valuation of 3 billion USD. Join the podcast and listen to Michael as he tells Geordie about his journey.
What You’ll LearnForum Ventures was recently rebranded from Acceleprise, an accelerator B2B SaaS which has been in existence for close to seven years. Michael says they come in at the early stage of a business and run a four-month associate-based program acting as a continuation of the founding team.
Forum Ventures helps companies devise the right market strategy to identify their ideal customers and edge closer to getting funding. Forum also has a seed fund where they invest in institutional seed rounds. Listen to the podcast to understand how the seed fund works.
The core part of the business is to invest $100,000 to each company that joins the accelerator program. While they may not have enough capital to invest in every company that sets up a seed round from the accelerator program, they strive to invest in companies outside the accelerator.
Michael and his team consider various factors when deciding who to recruit in the accelerator program. First, they look for companies that are in the earliest stages of their operations. To understand a company’s product and vision, Forum works closely with the founders whose product may be in the early stages but not fully developed. Some of them may have customers while others may not. Michael defines that stage in detail, and you can learn all about it from the podcast.
Much of what Forum Ventures does is focus on the team and the market opportunity. When looking for a team, Forum considers their founder market fit and tries to understand what they know about the problem they are solving or their target market. They also seek to determine how great the founders are; a term Michael says he detests. Find out his reasons from the podcast.
According to Michael, you do not know a good founder. Instead, he says they determine the characteristics that a great founder and leader would have. Listen to Michael as he gives an in-depth explanation of these traits.
How big or small should a team be to qualify for the Forum Ventures accelerator program? Michael says they do not have complicated rules regarding the team’s size as long as they have an excellent market fit and understand their products extensively. Michael mentions some common traits that make companies successful during the accelerator program in this podcast.
Forum Ventures has a structure that helps companies track their KPIs, which Michael says is different for each company. Get details of how the structure works from the podcast. To acquire the $100,000 funding, companies give up 7.5% equity to Forum Ventures. This arrangement may not make much sense to all companies, but it works for a significant number of companies, according to Michael.
Forum has carved a niche in the industry as a reliable provider capable of acquiring more funding for the companies after the accelerator program. Michael gives some practical examples in the podcast.
Michael says the $100,000 capital that companies joining the accelerator program get should last for the entire four-month program. He also mentions what a company should achieve at the end of the program in terms of performance. Get all the details from the podcast.
The SaaS industry is fast becoming overly competitive. What criteria does Forum Ventures use to determine a company’s potential for success? Michael says they focus on five things: vertical SaaS, the future of work, supply chain logistics, and FinTech, insurance, and tech-based stuff.
Michael explains these concepts in detail, complete with illustrations. He concludes the podcast by mentioning that while angel investing can be great, it’s one industry where being connected to the ecosystem is critical. Investors should also know that some of the companies may not work. If you are new to angel investing, consider doing it in angel groups where you can learn and gain experience before risking your money, he says.
Resources
From bootstrapping to 50m funding & 25m ARR in 24 months with Andrew Butt of Enable.com
How a conversation with one client about an insurance data problem lead to a 2m ARR pivot for Leo Bernstein of Line Slip Solutions
Converting from Translation Agency to 1m ARR AI Translation SaaS with Marko Hozjan of Taia.io
How getting on live chat with your customers can give exponential SaaS growth with CMO Michael Epstein of multi 7 figure ARR PostPilot
How Aran Khanna of Archera.ai solved cloud pricing problems worth 6 figures per client
Cosmin Costin Going from Web Agency Owner to 30% Owner in 7 Figure SaaS business
Buying 3 SaaS in a year while running 100 employee company with JD Graffam
The Godfather of Bootstrapping Rob Walling CEO of Tinyseed & Microconf and what he looks for in his SaaS invrestments
When & How to Pivot from one lucrative market to another with Persosa.com personalisation platform co-founder Greg Lim
Why Interviewing People Could Be One Of The Most Undervalued Skills You Could Have For Your SaaS Startup with Mixergy Founder Andrew Warner
Taking a Regional approach to build a B2B SaaS problem for the Thai market with 300k ARR platform founder Saroj Ativitavas of Wisible.com
Zero to product market fit with mobile app competitor analysis tool SaaS COO Eugene Kruglov of AppFollow
How Ching Goh took lessons learned from running 7 figure ARR Piktochart to start videostory SaaS Piktostory
From 0 to 30,000 MRR in 2021 with Powered By Change author Jon MacDonald
Tapping into the One Trillion Dollar impoverished agricultural markets with $1m ARR AgUnity founder David Davies
Solving His Own Agency Problem on Increasting Profitability To Agency Solutions AI SaaS with Santi Bibilioni of COR
How to position your product in Hubspot marketplace to achieve your SaaS Big Break with Post
Why SaaS founders should podcast & writing killer outbound sequences with Erik Jacobson of lemonpie.fm & usehatch.fm
How to survive and thrive as a Fintech company when your banking partner shuts you down with Neat co-founder David Rosa.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The emPOWERed Half Hour
HCI Leadership Revolution
Human Capital Leadership
The Power of Music Thinking
BusinessWISE
The Home Service Expert Podcast