Lessons From A Repeat Founder - Jacques Lapointe
Being a founder can be really tough. It can be long hours, wearing several different hats at once, and at the end of the day, not all startups succeed. We decided to sit down with founders who have successfully started more than one business, and pick their brains.
Today, we’re sitting down with Jacques Lapointe (JL). Jacques is a Director of Metiquity Ventures, a former President & Co-Founder of Attabotics, a senior investment manager, board member, active advisor and influencer for early stage venture capital into tech companies. Jacques has led /co-led over $43 M of investments into early stage tech companies with 5 portfolio exits. Jacques has completed numerous product launches, had 4 issued patents, completed an acquisition, executed a disposition and built numerous industry partnerships/initiatives.
TNT: Jacques, I’m so excited to be sitting down with you today! You’ve had so much experience, with fundraising, portfolio exits, launching and managing products in global markets… Tell me, what are some of your biggest lessons from your career?
JL: Tall order! There’s too many to count, (laughs). But here’s a few thoughts.
Make sure to get early validation and testing of your product/idea. You need to make sure that you get to the client, integrators, vendors and distributors, and get honest feedback from them. Take in the positive AND negative indicators, the ones that will help you adjust your product, your launch, your marketing, etc.
Be paranoid about cash flow. Cash is not always easy to find for startups so you need to keep your eye on every penny as you evolve. Sounds obvious but too often, spending goes towards the wrong priorities. Why lease space, buy equipment and scale up manufacturing if the commercialization of your product has uncertainties or you can’t meet customer requirements as promised? Define key trigger events and proof points of how and when to spend. And don’t forget to keep those priorities in line with your customers’ needs.
Remember that there’s a fine balance between being too public and open with info about your company versus being confidential. If you’re too public, anyone at any level can find info about your product/service. Whereas if you’re more private, you can control the narrative and seek out the ideal audience.
And lastly, NDAs. One of the big mistakes of some founders is that they think they have something so interesting, that they don’t know how to tell you about it without having an NDA and a lot of investors won’t go through the process of an NDA. Remember you have to get to investors first, BEFORE introducing an NDA.
TNT: Wow, a lot of great lessons there. Let’s go even further. What do you think are some key things that first-time founders need to know?
JL: Let’s see - here’s a few:
Be aware of what you know and what you don’t know. Be aware that you will have blind spots when it comes to your company. There’s 100 ways to chart a path forward, 1000s of ways to screw it up - that’s your blind spot.
As a founder, you have to be strong with your decision-making, but make sure you’re thorough in your data that you’re basing your decisions on. If the decision is within your subject matter expertise, great! But if it’s not, like IP or liability issues that you’re not well-versed in, make sure you do your due diligence. Don’t just talk to one person - talk to many. If you only talk to one one person who claims to have gone through the process, the way they solved the problem doesn’t mean it’s the right answer for you.
Be truthful and believe in the integrity of telling the truth. Don’t over-inflate it or spin a story so many times that you believe your spin. Don’t hide items from your investors. It’s unfortunate that it needs to be said, but you need to act with integrity and keep your internal/external stakeholders and investors in the loop.
Remember that investors look at hundreds of business plans and businesses on a regular basis - they have a different lens than you. Try examining your business through their lens. It can show you the things you’re missing, your blindspots, and can change the priority of what you’re focused on.
Don’t assume your idea or company is investable, make sure you’re fully prepared and investable at the right stage and for the right money. Achieving valuations that are high by attracting individuals who may not know the market or the intricacies of it, can also be detrimental to you, when you go to your next raise.
TNT: Those are all really important lessons… love it. Ok, let’s talk about skills! What are the most important soft and hard skills that founders need to have or develop?
JL: Communication and selling are key skills. As a founder, you need to be able to talk about your business in a meaningful and impactful way in a short, concise timeframe. You may be a fantastic scientist, but the reality is that you can’t just build it and they will come (or it will sell). You need to be able to actually talk about the product and sell it.
It is also very important for founders to be good leaders. Hire smart - hire people to complement your skills. Make sure you’ve done self-analysis - know what skills you’re missing, what you can’t provide. And when you hire smart, more importantly make sure you listen to them!
TNT: Love your perspective on hiring smart employees. Ok, prior to your investment experience, you’ve had over 13 years of getting products to market. Any tips on going through that process?
JL: Well, a lot of startups fail because they run out of cash, or because investors/founders/employees no longer believe. What can be a really good way to get through the process of getting to market is to commercially test all the way THROUGH the process.
Also, I mentioned it before, but I’m going to mention it again - talk to the right players. That’s your integrators, your distributors, your clients. Figure out what their priorities are, what are their problems, and what are the goals? If their objectives aren’t tied to your solution, they’re not going to be interested. Sounds obvious right?
By honing in on communicating with prospective clients, you’ll be able to really hone in on who you are selling to. You’ll be able to identify the decision makers, the ones with purchasing power, and the ones who own the budget.
And I also personally think it’s important to build your business in a way that is meaningful, so that you can support cash-flow positivity for future investment.
TNT: I 100% agree with your note on communicating with clients - that information is invaluable! Let’s talk now about fundraising and the biggest mistakes you’ve seen in pitches.
JL: Not being prepared - hands down that’s the biggest one. You can instantly tell that the founder doesn’t take into account what the investors will want to know, like IP or financials.
Or you will see a founder with an unrealistic perspective of their company and the valuation. I’ve seen it all over the map. Companies think they need a high valuation, but they don’t realize that they will need to progress enough from that high valuation to get to the next raise or face a down round.
You’ll also see companies that spend way too much time focusing on the size of the market. They forget to focus on demonstrating how they will get traction to get market share versus just some saying if I just get 1% percent of the market it is worth millions. . Investors need to be convinced on your ability to acquire the market share, vs the size of the market.
TNT: That’s a great point about market share vs market size, Jacques. There were so many great points throughout this interview. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me today! This was fantastic.
JL: You’re welcome! Have a great day.