Benefits of an Accelerator

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Founders face a daunting challenge in launching a startup.

There are many things the first-time founder doesn't know.

Accelerators bring many benefits to the startup founder.

Here is a list:

Accelerators bring education to the founder to fill in their knowledge gaps.

This is often around sales, marketing, and finance.

Accelerators provide support.

This is often in the form of administrative support, such as email marketing and graphic design.

Accelerators bring a network for finding co-founders, developers, and providers.

The startup founder leans on their network for help with legal, financial, and HR support.

Accelerators bring an additional level of credibility to the startup.

Investors will appreciate the fact that an accelerator provides the basics of business development.

This takes the burden off the investor.

Finally, many accelerators provide access to funding.

Through pitch events and demo days, founders can hone their presentation skills and meet prospective investors.

Consider an accelerator for your startup.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

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In this episode of Investor Connect, we hear a pitch from Jason on Ticket Rewards, a ticketing company offering "live entertainment as a service" to help enterprise brands drive engagement, retention, and loyalty through access to live event tickets. Ticket Rewards works directly with presenters, promoters, sports teams, and venues, with about $500M in consigned ticket inventory and access to $1B+ of marketplace inventory across 35,000+ events, powering a mobile-first, co-branded, white-labeled redemption platform that integrates into loyalty programs via email and push notifications.

Jason shares case studies showing how ticket offers outperform typical brand messaging, including Celebrity Cruises' "Captains Club" emails delivering 40% higher open rates and 20% higher click-through rates, and a six-month pilot with Max (HBO Max) moving forward into their loyalty program. He explains how monthly ticket credits (such as $25 that expires each month) can reduce churn, provide unsubscribe leverage, and create emotional connection back to brands like Hearst and newspaper partners, with Ticket Rewards also moving about $2M in tickets through its own marketplace.

The conversation covers monetization through SaaS subscription fees (including flat fees or per-member pricing), ticket sales margins up to 40%, incentive codes sold in volume, and advertising/packaging partnerships, along with current margins (~36% overall and ~80% in SaaS). Jason outlines a $2M raise with $320K committed on a SAFE with a $10M cap to scale sales and marketing beyond a seven-person team, noting an acquisition-focused exit strategy and interest from strategic partners; the segment ends as the program transitions to "term sheets 101."

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For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

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An Overlooked Factor of Startup Success

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Investors screening deals look for momentum and traction before investing.

They also look for the team and its capabilities.

An often overlooked factor is the team's genuine interest in the field.

Passion for solving a particular problem can be a strong factor in startup success.

The founder who wants to solve the problem no matter what can carry the business through the down times.

Many teams are motivated by money, success, or other factors.

Investors should look beyond the current revenue growth to the team's motivations.

Those with a passion have a stronger chance of success than those who are just running a game plan around a business model.

Look for founders who are driven to solve a particular problem and then back them.

This could be by making an investment, fostering connections, or providing guidance on running a startup.

Consider the founders' motivations.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

_______________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
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Ability To Learn From Mistakes

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

In the startup space, one is always learning.

There's a new technology, a new business model, a new market, or other to grasp.

It's important that those in the startup space can make mistakes and learn from them.

The faster one can learn, the better.

The startup often has two advantages over larger incumbents: technology and speed.

The mode for a startup is 'fail fast'.

Figure out quickly if something is working or not.

The startups that succeed are learning organizations.

They improve themselves automatically by finding ways to be better.

Here are three ways to build learning from mistakes into the business:

Perform a review of each event or project to see what can be improved.

Look for the next level up in performance and strive for it.

Practice transparency by assessing it as it actually is.

This keeps improving as part of the startup's mindset.

Consider these steps on how to learn from mistakes and improve one's process.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

_______________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
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Adjust Expectations to the Current Market

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Some founders find fundraising to be frustrating.

The founder expects more to happen than is realistic.

Progress is slow, and the results are not coming in as expected.

In most cases, the expectations for the fundraising results are not aligned with the current market conditions.

Most deals are done several months before they are announced.

Watching the news of funding is similar to recording the news from three months ago and watching it now.

The information is out of date due to the time lag in processing the funding.

It will be easier to start a fundraiser campaign at the beginning of the year rather than during the holiday season.

Consider the holiday and vacation cycle and schedule a campaign that makes the best use of the investors' available time.

After setting your expectations based on the current market conditions, go back to work with your campaign.

Fundraising continues throughout the year and over seasons and economic cycles.

Fundraising will be easier in up markets and more difficult in down markets.

Adjust your expectations to the current market.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

_______________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
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How To Sell Into the Enterprise

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

The best asset in raising funding is growing traction with customers.

Knowing how to sell into the enterprise is a key skill that founders should have.

Here are the steps for selling into the enterprise:

Find a champion for your product within the target company.

This is typically the person who owns the problem your product solves.

They need to be at the executive level in order to make buying decisions, or someone who has a connection to them.

Find out their plan for buying software and building out capabilities.

Look for opportunities to be a part of existing initiatives within the company.

It's easier to sell into an enterprise when there's already a budget in place for it.

Identify the competition they are considering.

This could be buying from another company, building it in-house, or doing nothing.

Assess how the enterprise tests new software tools.

This could be free pilots, paid pilots, beta tests, or more.

Show the ROI your product brings to the table based on the results from previous customers.

Devise a plan for testing out the software and where it will go into the organization after the pilot is complete.

Understand the company's data management practices, security systems, and privacy policies.

Set the price for the product and negotiate it with the decision makers.

Finally, prepare to defend your product against internal forces with another agenda.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

_______________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
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How To Close Investors

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

Closing an investor for funding is a critical skill founders need to have.

Here are some key steps in closing an investor:

Investors look for startups that show evidence of success.

They avoid startups with red flags and problems.

To close, you must show key elements of success already in the business.

Predicting success will not work.

The first step is to show alignment with the customer.

This could be growing traction or high engagement with a few key accounts.

The second step is to know your market well, including the customers and the competition.

Investors look for signs that the target market is large and growing fast.

It's important to educate the investor about the market as most will not know it well.

The third step is to show a strong team with a track record.

Highlight the key skills of the team that point to success in this startup.

Instead of telling the investors the team is great, it's better to show it.

This includes past experiences, current wins with the company, and how well the team works together.

In addition to these three steps, remove any red flags from the startup before fundraising.

Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let's go startup something today.

_________________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
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On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Sue Xu, Managing Partner at Amino Capital. Located in Palo Alto, California, Amino Capital is a global venture capital firm investing from seed through growth stage, with over $1 billion in assets under management and a track record that includes backing companies such as Chime, Webflow, Rippling, and Grail. Sue shares how the firm's name—drawn from "amino acids," the building blocks of life—reflects its mission to invest early, often at the pre-seed and seed stage, in founders within their trusted ecosystem. With a background as a Stanford-trained scientist, she brings a deeply technical lens to venture investing, focusing on AI, data infrastructure, and frontier technologies where long-term defensibility matters more than short-term hype. As Hall likes to say, it's not just about seeing deals—it's about knowing how to underwrite them.

Amino Capital differentiates itself by emphasizing data moats, network effects, and true workflow ownership in an era where many AI startups are simply "wrappers" around large language models. Sue breaks down how to distinguish sustainable businesses from impressive demos, noting that the real winners are those that integrate deeply into user workflows and replace meaningful labor. The conversation also explores the evolution of AI investing—from infrastructure to copilots to today's agentic systems—and why durability comes from strong first principles rather than broad diversification. Along the way, Hall and Sue touch on global innovation ecosystems, the importance of resilience in founders, and why small, disciplined teams with high agency continue to outperform.

Sue also shares how Amino Capital is leveraging AI internally, building its own data-driven investment systems to evaluate deals, support portfolio companies, and provide real-time insights to LPs. She emphasizes the importance of developing a clear investment thesis, staying humble yet decisive, and building systems that improve decision-making over time.

Visit Amino Capital at www.aminocapital.com/

Reach out to at sue@aminocapital.com , and on www.linkedin.com/in/suexu/

_______________________________________________________

For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/
For eGuides check out: https:/_/tencapital.group/education/
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group

Please follow, share, and leave a review.

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