investment

HCL, Tech Mahindra to invest $2.5 mn into IaaS startup

  • HCL and Tech Mahindra are set to invest $1.25 million each into a Delaware, United States based infrastructure as a service startup, Austin GIS. While Noida based HCL said it will gain 13.9% Series A dubbed preference shares of the company, through the investment, Pune based Tech Mahindra said it will gain 13.8%, as per separate stock exchange filings.
  • Tech Mahindra said in its filing that AustinGiS is an 5G services and IoT service provider incorporated in 2021, with a projected revenue of $28 million in the calendar year ending 2021.
  • Tech Mahindra expects its deal to close by September 15.

[Via]

5 Reasons Why Investors Might Not Want To Invest In Your Business!

No investor wants to lose money and so they’re particular about which startups they fund.  Here are some reasons why investors might not want to invest in your business. Thread #businessplaninnigeria #businessplan #funding #startup #nysc #retweet
1. You’ve approached the wrong investor. If you approach an investor who has no interest nor experience in your sector or market, then it’s very unlikely they will invest.
2. You have no coherent business plan. Without a solid business plan, the investor you approach will have no idea whether your startup is worthy of investment.
3. Your startup is not financially sound.  Investors like startup founders with some financial intelligence. If you’re spending too much money on products and strategies that do little to grow your business, this will reflect poorly on you
4. Absence of marketing strategies When you have no substantial strategies to make sure your product or service keeps reaching your target audience, investors will most likely not invest.
5. Absence of business acumen Investors recognize and respect a shrewd entrepreneur. You gain their trust when you demonstrate confidence and business skills.

» NextBigWhat’s #Threadmill brings you curated wisdom from Twitter threads on product, life and growth.

Read more posts on Entrepreneurship and Leadership here. For podcasts, click here!

ALSO READ:
#StartupResources: How To Make It As A Solo Founder?
#LeadershipDevelopment: What Great Leaders Should Do (And What They Should Not!)
#StartupResources: Tips To Stay Organized And Productive!
Why You Shouldn’t Raise Too Much Capital Before Finding Your Product Market Fit?

Why You Shouldn’t Raise Too Much Capital Before Finding Your Product Market Fit?

Seeing a lot of startups closing big rounds in the pre-B stage which is great for the startup ecosystem but it seems to be getting very frothy and I wanted to share my experience from raising way too much capital for my previous company Shyp prior to finding product market fit.
For starters it’s really hard as a founder to see your peers or competitors raising massive rounds and not to do it yourself. I got caught up in this trap and looked at funding rounds as a gauge of success.
This is a trap unless you have product market fit. Taking on lots of capital at big valuations puts so much pressure on yourself & raises expectations for everyone involved in your company. It forces you to hire faster, spend more on S&M, build more product features etc.
If you haven’t validated you have something your customers love and you can scale to produce the expected venture return this can be (and was for me) one of the nails in your coffin.
Without having product / market fit extra capital forces you to scale something that is not yet working. Constraints are one of the main advantages a startup has. Stay as small and scrappy for as long as it takes to find that fit. A startup can do this when an incumbent can’t.
After shutting down Shyp and starting @AirhouseHQ we had the opportunity to raise a $10M “seed” but chose not to because that would have forced us to scale up the team way too fast and limit the customer / product discovery even though we had a pretty good idea of what to build.
Turns out that was the right choice. We raised our “seed” w/ a fair valuation in small chunks based on what we needed for the next year+. It allowed us to keep expectations with our investors and our team low until we found our fit (which we now have and are scaling up).
Stay safe out there and remember you can say no when someone offers you capital. You know your business better than anyone else and it’s important you are honest with yourself at which stage you are at.

» NextBigWhat’s #Threadmill brings you curated wisdom from Twitter threads on product, life and growth.

Read more posts on Entrepreneurship and Product Market Fit here. For podcasts, click here!

Top 10+ Free Investing Tools

Last week, I asked my followers to share their favorite free investing tools I received 200+ responses and dozens of recommendations Here are my top 10 favorite answers:
2/ @QuartrSE This is a GREAT app for listening to investor conference calls for free I love that you can 2x the call speed & skip ahead/rewind easily It’s SO much better than calling in
6/ @KoyfinCharts This is yet another platform that gets plugged A LOT on fintwit, but for a good reason The dashboards are great, customizable, and it’s very useful for building a watchlist It’s a bit intimidating at first, but you get used to it fast
10/ YouTube I wish YouTube existed when I first started Here are some great channels for learning about money/investing: @7investing @AswathDamodaran @ChooseFi @heydave7 @JonahLupton @MicroCapClub Minority Mindset Our Rich Journey @RichardMoglen Rose on Investing

» NextBigWhat’s #Threadmill brings you curated wisdom from Twitter threads on product, life and growth.

What are some of your favourite free investing tools? Share with us and we will share it with the masses!

Read more posts on Investment and Leadership here. For podcasts, click here!

Best Websites To Learn Crypto Investing From!

Random thoughts about crypto investing and investing in general. Do your own research (DYOR) often sounds like something people say to protect themselves if their projections/forecast about a coin are wrong but it’s actually good advice. These are some sites to go:
Think about taxes. If you live in countries where you file your taxes every year, you’ll need to account for your crypto gains and losses too so if you join any exchange to buy some coins, not on Binance or Coinbase, make sure you can download your order history to excel at least
During crashes like yesterday when prices dived so low on so many coins but the big exchanges couldn’t accept new money, the easier option is to use margin to buy those strong ones that you know will go back up. On my community, we did on ADA and made 50% yesterday. Free money!!!
When the market cools down, you can send in your money and pay off the margin or use the profits to pay the interest off, pocket your profit. The issue is remembering to take advantage of these when they happen.
Obviously, this is a higher level of risk on an asset that is already regarded as high risk but its a stop gap because you can’t get your money onto the exchange. It shouldn’t be used arbitrarily. You could basically lose your equity.
Lastly, take profit. I know you want to declare that you made 500% or more on a coin. As soon as you make enough to take your capital out at less than 70% of your investment, Take it out. I think because crypto gains happen quicker than equity a lot of people keep forgetting…
it’s only because its early days. Economic theory teaches us that all markets eventually head towards efficiency and as you get closer, information asymmetry reduces, room for wild gains reduces. They may still happen on fundamental changes but it becomes more structured.
so take profit. You can leave the gains to ride out till infinity but take your capital out once you can. As you were…

» NextBigWhat’s #Threadmill brings you curated wisdom from Twitter threads on product, life and growth.

Read more posts on Cryptocurrency and Leadership here. For podcasts, click here!