Product Startup Podcast Episode 084: Raise Venture Capital for Hardware

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how to get big bucks in financing from a hardware founder that has raised almost $500 million in funding for various scaling startups.

00:00:12 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, the show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product developers,

00:00:23 Narrator: and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to getting your product on store shelves.

00:00:33 Narrator: taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small product businesses. Now, onto the show.

00:00:48 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Brett Fox to the show. Brett has a long history of raising millions of dollars for both his own hardware startup and for many other founders. Brett also sat as an entrepreneur and residence for a major Silicon

00:01:01 Kevin Mako: on Valley, venture capital firm. Today, Brett's going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can raise seed funding and venture capital funding. How to eventually raise millions of dollars to grow and scale your product after you first got

00:01:15 Kevin Mako: to market. Now, on to the episode. Brett, welcome to the show. Thanks. Glad to be here. We were just talking before the show. It looks like you used to live the life that I used to live flying once or twice a week

00:01:25 Brett Fox: between various offices. You were between Portland and California. You got it. I did that for about six painful years every week, Monday morning on a flight, Friday evening back home. And it's like you and I were talking about before. It's like you don't know where you are. You know, are you in,

00:01:40 Brett Fox: are you in Oregon? Are you in California? It's very, very disjoining, you know, to do that. And then fortunately near the end of my time doing that, I met my wife. And that ended it. I went from four days a week on the road to one day a week on the road within a year. Wow. I got married and

00:01:55 Kevin Mako: that was the end of that. I know the feeling because I, in my prime of flying, you know, a couple sometimes a week and then between time zones. So going between our Austin, Toronto office and Miami office and over the San Francisco office, you know, but you start losing track of up from down

00:02:09 Kevin Mako: after a while. Well, I'm excited to talk to you today. Why don't you just run through a bit of your background in terms of raising capital and your work with semiconductors and, you know, you've built company yourself and lots of stuff in your background to really get into the top of ground

00:02:22 Brett Fox: raising funding today. Right. So I've personally raised over $100 million, you know, in my career. And then And I've helped the entrepreneurs that I've worked with now raise about $400 million as well. So I've been around a lot of fundraisings. I know what works.

00:02:38 Brett Fox: And I absolutely know what doesn't work. And I've also seen a lot of the changes that have happened that we've seen happening over the last 10 years or so in venture capital, private equity,

00:02:47 Brett Fox: angel funding,

00:02:48 Kevin Mako: all that type of stuff as well. And it's great because you've done a lot of work in the semiconductor space, which obviously is kind of the top of the pyramid once you get into a lot of consumer electronics, especially electronic hardware products. But I think a lot of what you deal with in terms

00:03:00 Kevin Mako: of raising capital, especially for hardware, it's applicable whether or not there's electronics or non-electronics. A lot of these philosophies apply. So I want to kick it off with just at a high

00:03:10 Kevin Mako: level, explain everybody the difference between C capital, angel investments, and venture capital.

00:03:17 Brett Fox: Okay. Fantastic. So not all investors are created equal. And it's really important to understand who you're dealing with. So if you look at this is kind of like a pyramid or whatever, one way to think

00:03:29 Brett Fox: about it is size of investment. So if I'm looking for angel funding, that could be anything from

00:03:36 Brett Fox: $10,000 friends and family kind of angel, angel funding to $100,000 to maybe $500,000. I've even seen angel rounds of $3 million or so. So it can be all the way up maybe to $3 million.

00:03:50 Brett Fox: Then you have seed funding, which can be from smaller VC funds, microvCs, maybe even VC firms, and that maybe is in the range from million dollars to three or four million dollars.

00:04:01 Brett Fox: Then we get into the bigger money, the venture money. So VC funds, and again, not all funds are created equal, not all funds are created by stage. So there's going to be all sorts of different parameters that we're going to be looking at here.

00:04:15 Brett Fox: And venture capital firms might invest anywhere, let's say, from $3 million, minimum round all the way up to $100 million, $150 million rounds.

00:04:24 Kevin Mako: It all depends upon size and what they're trying to do in objectives.

00:04:30 Kevin Mako: That's a great summary. And I love having the hard numbers to make it relevant because as you're scaling your product business, it's important to think down the chain.

00:04:39 Kevin Mako: And I think the first one, I don't want to go in too much detail on the first one. We have talked about it on prior episodes, but that's kind of that friends and family, that early money, right, that angel money.

00:04:50 Kevin Mako: But I want to kind of look a little bit further towards, okay, let's say you're now trying to try to scale the business and you want to get some more serious money. And this is, you know, this is something that whether you're at the start of your product

00:05:03 Kevin Mako: journey or whether you're right in the heat of looking for a round, I think your experience here in raising these rounds and elevating it through to the bigger and bigger rounds really is

00:05:14 Kevin Mako: powerful for people to know early on in the process so you can think about it around your hardware product as you're even as early as the development phase. So why do you walk us through, how do you go from, you know, you've got a little bit of a proof of concept, at what point are

00:05:28 Kevin Mako: you kind of ready or what should you have as a hardware company now to start approaching the

00:05:31 Brett Fox: next round, which is kind of that professional seed, maybe micro venture round to get some serious, you know, early serious bucks in the door. Absolutely. So part of it is traction.

00:05:41 Brett Fox: That's going to be a big part because what are investors looking for? It's risk reduction. They want to see that you have customers. They want to see you've got customers paying you. So there are two ways to look

00:05:53 Brett Fox: at this. The first way can be number of customers that you have. That's really important. So that's going to depend. So that could be maybe 10 customers is good enough. It could be 100 customers. It's

00:06:03 Brett Fox: going to be also inversion of price. So how much are you selling for? What are your ASPs? All those things are going to come into play here. So if you've got, let's say, greater than a million dollars in

00:06:15 Brett Fox: revenue, that's going to be a great number to have. If you have 500 customers paying you, let's say, $50 a piece for something, that might be good enough. So it's going to be somewhere

00:06:26 Brett Fox: in that continuum of number of customers versus revenue. And obviously,

00:06:32 Brett Fox: the more, the better,

00:06:33 Kevin Mako: because the more proof of concept you have, the easier it's going to be to prove to investors that you're on to something. I love that you use the word proof here because I think in hardware, that's a really key milestone.

00:06:46 Kevin Mako: And the only way that you get proof is by getting your product to production, manufacturing real units, getting them into users' hands, and then having people say, look, I love this thing.

00:06:59 Kevin Mako: And that is really, you know, especially in hardware, I mean, that is key and critical proof to your first kind of major professional round that we're talking about here. And obviously, the further you push that, the better, the more customers.

00:07:11 Kevin Mako: But I think as a as a benchmark, and I think it's a bit of, of a misconception, you know, at the angel level, angels can invest in anything, right? If it's your Uncle Bob, you know, they may just invest in your idea. But that doesn't really count, right? That's

00:07:24 Kevin Mako: what gets you kind of off the ground. That's what gets you in your R&D. But when you want to get serious, you need to know what is kind of that base threshold that a professional grade investor is

00:07:33 Kevin Mako: going to look for to even consider your product. And I think the key thing here, the keyword is proof. The only way to prove it, obviously, in hardware is in manufacturing. So now let's talk about that proof. I know you've seen a lot of things to kind of work and don't work over the years.

00:07:48 Kevin Mako: I like the fact that you mentioned that it could just be a few hundred units, but if they're real people whipping out their credit card for a real thing, that creates a tremendous amount of

00:07:57 Brett Fox: derisking for the investors. So what are some of the things that hardware companies can do at this stage for this investment round to really tilt the odds in their favor to get an investor and

00:08:08 Brett Fox: ideally a good investor on board as a partner? That's right. So part of this is think creative, And if we're thinking creatively, how do we get people to pay us? And maybe we don't have a completed product yet.

00:08:22 Brett Fox: Maybe we're still in prototype phase. Maybe we're simulating with software. Whatever these things are, we can get people to prepay us to give us pre-orders. We can also do crowdfunding as another example of this, to get people to show that they're

00:08:35 Brett Fox: willing with their wallets to pay us something. It doesn't have to be the whole thing, it being part of it. but that is huge proof of concept that somebody wants to pay you something all these things

00:08:49 Brett Fox: register with investors and help you along the way so that's what you're looking for is come up with creative ideas to get out there and show your product works to show people that hey this is

00:09:00 Brett Fox: what it's going to look like even if you're not done even if you need more money which is part of the reason why we're raising money right is we need more money to develop our hardware product that's fine we can show in software that works especially with the simulation

00:09:13 Brett Fox: tools available today. There's so much we can show in software to show exactly what the product's

00:09:18 Kevin Mako: going to look like in hardware. And you can convince people to buy. I have seen people do this. This is part of what I did when I was raising money years ago. This is part of what I've seen other hardware startups that have worked with do also. So you can do these creative things to help

00:09:32 Kevin Mako: yourself along the way.

00:09:34 Kevin Mako: And that's a beauty of crowdfunding is an amazing tool there. But it doesn't just have to be crowdfunding. I like how you said pre-orders. Pre-orders can also come at the business to business level, a B2B. It can be in the form of letter of intents from distributors, other manufacturers,

00:09:49 Kevin Mako: retailers, wholesalers, you name it. But the key is you're showing something to say, okay, look, people are really wanting to buy this. And I like how you mentioned this here, too, because the way I said it and you said, we're actually a little bit different. I was talking about, you know, getting to production, getting units into people's

00:10:03 Kevin Mako: hands, but what you're saying is you can actually start to access some of this stuff potentially, even earlier on in the process, as long as you can show that people have been willing to buy it. They might not even necessarily have it in their hands yet,

00:10:16 Kevin Mako: but you're showing kind of that market validation. And I think, you know, one beautiful thing, especially in the physical product space, is that prototypes can go a long way.

00:10:26 Kevin Mako: You can use your, you know, like you said, digital software, you can make really, I mean, these days we're making prototypes. I'm Mako Design. We've got prototypes. It's hard to tell,

00:10:36 Kevin Mako: arguably better than manufactured units. And then you can use all kinds of software to sell it. And you can take videos of it. You can describe everything. You can test the functionality. So you're killing two bears with one stone.

00:10:50 Brett Fox: You're learning how to make a better product out of it.

00:10:53 Kevin Mako: But then simultaneously, you're using that prototype or prototypes for your actual production materials. And maybe there's some software elements to it as well that you're using.

00:11:01 Kevin Mako: But the key is here, you're trying to get as much out there so that you can sell it to get those users so that when you go to the investor, you're showing that. And I love the word you use there, proof. Yes,

00:11:12 Kevin Mako: exactly correct. wouldn't change a word about what you said. That's perfect, actually. So talk about proof a bit more because when we're dealing with hardware,

00:11:21 Brett Fox: you know, at what level of proof do we now start to scale up to getting even that bigger round? You talked about venture capital financing. I know you've gone to that level before. And you've helped lots of people get to that level too.

00:11:33 Brett Fox: So what additional burden of proof is needed when you move from that seed round up until, you know, the multi-million dollar rounds. for venture capital to really start scaling your business. Okay, so it's a really good question.

00:11:47 Brett Fox: So beyond the physical product and beyond the customer stuff that we just talked about, the other piece of this that's really interesting is you have to think about from the investor standpoint, what are they looking for?

00:12:00 Brett Fox: If I'm going to invest, let's say, $20 million in your company, I'm probably going to take 20% of that company. One of the things that you learn about financing businesses is it's a very mechanical process.

00:12:11 Brett Fox: In other words, the valuations are very much percentage-driven, especially early on. I need 20% ownership of the company. I'm going to invest $20 million. That means, okay, there's a valuation of the company that we can all agree on. And that's just basic math at that point.

00:12:26 Brett Fox: That's going to be $100 million. We already know that. So that's just simple math. So if I know that, and I also know that early stage investors are looking at a return of at least 10x, let's say 10x to 30x on their money,

00:12:41 Brett Fox: That means that that $20 million investment, if the company is successful, they're looking to make $200 million to $600 million to $600 million on that money.

00:12:49 Brett Fox: That tells you then you can do the math from that and say, okay, if that's true, if I've got to have a $200 million to $600 million to $200 million on 20% of my company, that means the company has to be worth a billion, let's say, to $3 billion.

00:13:04 Brett Fox: I think that's the right math if I got that right. So that kind of tells you, can your company be worth that? And this is part of what you need to be very intellectually honest about as you go through the process

00:13:15 Brett Fox: is can you get to these kind of numbers? Because if you can't, one of two things is going to happen. Number one, investors may not be interested. Number two, if they are interested, it's likely to be a non-optimal ending for you.

00:13:29 Kevin Mako: So you want to really understand the dynamics of where you can get to with your funding. If you've got the ability to grow a business that way, then fantastic. If you can show people, you've got a big market, that it's exciting for people to get into what you're doing,

00:13:44 Kevin Mako: that you've already got customers buying from you, that you can dominate the niche that you're in, fantastic, you're on your way, and you can raise money based on that. That's the dynamics you're looking for.

00:13:55 Kevin Mako: And that brings up a really good point is you really need to consider whether venture capital is even appropriate for your business.

00:14:03 Kevin Mako: I hear that 10x number a lot. and it's a great it's a great thing to look at when you're considering the value of your company because you have to really be honest with the fact that you believe that you can get that investor 10 times return on their money of course you're going to have to convince them of all that

00:14:18 Kevin Mako: world changing product all this sort of stuff I'm sure you know a lot of inventors believe in their product but they need to understand that you can financially execute on this venture capital though remember that that's that's only one type of financing and that's

00:14:31 Kevin Mako: only one type of way to grow the company so you really have to ask honest question

00:14:35 Brett Fox: am I really looking to grow like a tech firm? Because essentially that's what you're valued against. Your hardware product is valued against some software product and they can invest in

00:14:44 Brett Fox: one or the other. And they're looking for the one that's going to give them the least risk on that 10x return. So if you don't believe that you can do that, or maybe you don't want to give away

00:14:54 Brett Fox: the equity in order to do that or maybe you want to build the company to be more valuable before you are offering that first, then you have to even ask yourself the question is venture capital even worth it. That's right. So that's absolutely correct. And those are all good

00:15:09 Kevin Mako: decisions to make. Remember this.

00:15:12 Kevin Mako: Only 1% of all startups are funded by venture capitalists, 1%. That does not mean your hardware company is a bad company if you decide to go a different

00:15:23 Kevin Mako: route. If you decide to bootstrap or whatever else you decide to do, that's fine.

00:15:28 Kevin Mako: It's just whatever's right for you. This is a possible avenue for you. If you have the right dynamics, everything fits right. You can do it. If it doesn't fit, that's cool too.

00:15:40 Kevin Mako: Those are all decisions you can make along the way. One of the nice things about venture capital I find too for many the companies we've worked with that got VC backed is that they do usually also come with a

00:15:50 Kevin Mako: tremendous amount of resources as well. And obviously, like you said, not all firms are created equal. But I know it's quite daunting, especially if it's a first time aggressively scaling

00:16:01 Kevin Mako: hardware startup, it's their first time doing a seven-figure raise, which is, of course, valuing you at $50 to $100 plus million, eventual value so they can get their money out

00:16:13 Kevin Mako: or more, like you said, you can get into huge numbers when it comes to, you know, especially if you've got a, you're attacking a bigger market. That's right. But keep in mind that the VC's job is to enable you to do your best work, but

00:16:26 Kevin Mako: also they've gone through this process many times. They know how an exit strategy works. They know how you need you know they know how to work with you to make sure that your numbers start working with

00:16:36 Kevin Mako: them as well um they've got a tremendous amount of experience generally they've got boards they work with firms like ours to help with product development that sort of stuff on the on the backside

00:16:45 Brett Fox: to make sure that that side is good there's a lot that a VC can do for you so i always feel that um it's important to consider not just the money but also who it is that you're partnering with

00:16:57 Brett Fox: to make sure that i always when i'm talking to you know hardware startups i like to think okay, if you're getting money, especially a little bit later stage, especially when you're giving up a lot of the company, make sure it's what I would call smart money. Money that's going to help you. It's not just dollars.

00:17:10 Brett Fox: It's dollars and experience, which can really get you over that finish line, both for you and for them, right? Because at the end of the day, you want to make sure you're signing up to a deal that both parties are happy upon exit years later, right? That's right. I agree.

00:17:23 Brett Fox: I call it being in alignment with your investors.

00:17:26 Brett Fox: Your goals and your investors' goals should match. if they don't match you know the flip side is you're going to have problems if they match then then great if they see the same market that you do if they if they have the same financial

00:17:38 Brett Fox: outcome that you do in terms of what they want from the company if they have the same time frame that you do for that financial outcome okay everything is great then you're aligned properly

00:17:49 Brett Fox: and you're good to go because they're going to be pretty much wanting the same outcomes that you're going to want um so that i think that's a really important point that you're making

00:17:58 Kevin Mako: and it's absolutely correct, I mean, because that's what they want. Now, the nice thing is that in ways that venture capital has changed positively,

00:18:07 Kevin Mako: I want to reassure all the CEOs out there, VCs are not looking to replace you.

00:18:13 Brett Fox: They want you to succeed.

00:18:15 Kevin Mako: They truly do because there's no benefit in them getting rid of you. There's so much DNA of a company inside of your brain that the worst thing they can do, the most risky thing that they can do is fire you. They're not after that.

00:18:29 Kevin Mako: They want you to succeed. They want you to win.

00:18:32 Kevin Mako: That's their mission. That's their goal. So their bet is on you and the team that you've built that you guys are going to be able to execute. That's their goal.

00:18:43 Kevin Mako: That's great insight. It's nice hearing it from you. It's gone through the process as well. And I know you hear some horror stories out there and whatnot. But again, most of the time,

00:18:53 Kevin Mako: if you focus on that alignment factor, you can ask those hard questions. Yes. mind that these VC meetings, it's a two-way street. You may desperately want that money. You may

00:19:04 Kevin Mako: desperately feel like you need this as an opportunity, but that does not mean you should lose sight of asking them the serious questions. I love the one that you mentioned about exit. That's one that seems to come in later in the conversations. If they're coming in and they're going to invest,

00:19:18 Kevin Mako: when do they want out? How much do they want out for? How do they want that to take place? Because if that's dramatically different from what you see as the output of the company, you're going to be misaligned from day one because your goals are going to be just misaligned from day one as per

00:19:32 Kevin Mako: outcome. So those are the strong conversations that are good to get on, you know, out on the table

00:19:37 Brett Fox: early. And what I always say when people are talking to these investor meetings is don't, don't be afraid to, don't be afraid to give them the straight goods. What is it that you truly

00:19:48 Brett Fox: want? What's in your heart? You don't need to come in with this big veil and you're trying to say all the right things. And this isn't like a job interview. This is something where you're saying, here's what I want. This is what I'm doing. This is my value. And you know what?

00:20:01 Brett Fox: If when you meet the right investor, whether it's a VC or whether this is even right at the very early stages, whether it's Uncle Bob with his, you know, $50,000 investment.

00:20:11 Brett Fox: If you get these conversations to be honest and transparent from the get go, you're going to get far better partnership results down the line. Don't worry if you lose a few along the way because eventually

00:20:21 Brett Fox: the right one is going to hit that is aligned with those same goals that you have. That's a thousand percent correct you know look you're going to be in a seven to 10 year relationship with these

00:20:33 Brett Fox: people think about that that's a long relationship it's a lot like a marriage you know i i talk about the same thing with co-founders as well you have to really think about are you going to want to work with

00:20:45 Brett Fox: this person for the next seven to 10 years of your life because it's the likely outcome if it's positive so if it's not better to understand that early just like you said than later you know So better to understand and make sure that everything is right, right from the beginning.

00:21:00 Brett Fox: And what's interesting is one of the other things that I've done in my career is I was also an entrepreneur in residence inside of a VC fund in San Francisco. And I learned a lot about how VCs think. I sat in on investor meetings. I sat in on how they debriefed.

00:21:14 Brett Fox: So I have a really good feel for what it's like to be a venture capitalist in the way that they go at this. They want you to be asking questions. They want to feel like everything's out on the table.

00:21:26 Brett Fox: The issue of transparency is so critical that you just mentioned, Kevin. That is crucial to them because they want to make sure that they're not being BSed.

00:21:36 Kevin Mako: They want to make sure that everything is right about you. They're going to do a ton of diligence. They're going to do a ton of research. But the personal side of the relationship is really, really important.

00:21:46 Kevin Mako: And when you're raising money, the other interesting thing, just to add one more little bit here is fundraising is not a logical process. It's an emotional process. The emotion comes first. They fall in love with you, which is really interesting.

00:22:00 Brett Fox: We're talking about millions of dollars, but it's really they fall in love with the idea, they fall in love with the concept, then the logic comes second in terms of the diligence that they do, both in the meetings they have with you and their own research.

00:22:13 Brett Fox: But the thesis is formed early. It's like, wow, I love this idea. I love this hardware company that's in here. I want to be involved in this. And then they go through a checklist of things to make sure it fits. and that's the way that a century VC's work.

00:22:28 Brett Fox: That's a great insight, Intel. Do you have any last words of wisdom to folks at any level of investing, whether they're asking for their first few thousand bucks from a relative or whether they're asking for a few million from a VC?

00:22:42 Brett Fox: Over your career of many years doing this, do you have any last pieces you want to leave them with? And then how can folks get to know the work that you do more or anything else that you want to share with them and then we'll say goodbye?

00:22:54 Brett Fox: Okay, great. So let me answer your question first about what they can do.

00:23:00 Brett Fox: What's really important? Let's go back through it. Alignment is critical.

00:23:04 Brett Fox: Think about alignment. Don't be afraid to ask questions just like you were pointing out, Kevin. It is a two-way street. People forget this.

00:23:11 Brett Fox: And yeah, it's tough out there and everything else. But you know what? You can do this. There are simple things you can do to reduce risk all along the way. Think about those things as you're going through the process. Be creative. Ask people for help.

00:23:24 Brett Fox: It's amazing how many people will want to help you all throughout your journey. That's what I found as well, both as an entrepreneur and also working with entrepreneurs. There are tons of people out there that will help you. I needed help on doing a simulation really early.

00:23:39 Brett Fox: I couldn't do it. I asked a friend of mine, would he do the simulation for me? He did it.

00:23:44 Kevin Mako: And it was crucial for us in terms of what we needed to do at that point in time. It's amazing what people will do to help you. Remember that. So there are a lot of good people out there. There are a lot of good investors out there also. ask them when they're done.

00:23:57 Kevin Mako: This is another good tip also,

00:24:00 Kevin Mako: is ask everybody that you talk to who says no.

00:24:04 Kevin Mako: Who else would you think can help us? Who else might be interesting investing? And you know what's interesting about that? That's how I found my first investor was asking that question of

00:24:15 Kevin Mako: somebody. Wow. Smart. We're passing. Love what you're doing, but we're going to pass. Here's why. And then I said, well, anybody else you know. And he said, well, there's this other fund. was capital.

00:24:27 Brett Fox: You know, I can make the introduction or if you know somebody over there, you can do it yourself. I recommend you do it. Turned out I knew one of the partners over there through another connection I had, asked my connection to help me. He helped me. And then a month later, we had our first investor.

00:24:42 Brett Fox: Wow. That's a way to do that. Solid advice. You know, something I like pairing with that. You kind of mention it there too, is asking why they didn't invest and listening very, very carefully to what they say, right? A lot of the time you're just

00:24:57 Brett Fox: going to get, you know what, this isn't an RMO. We're just not in these types of deals. But other times, they may be willing to give you some candid honest feedback that might be the

00:25:07 Kevin Mako: game changer on your next meeting. So true. So double edge that sword, right? No reason to waste to turn down, basically the way that I would look at it. You can just leave and exit the room, but there's two big things, you know, ask what they could have done better. And like you said,

00:25:22 Kevin Mako: Ask if there's someone else that they can think of that maybe you should connect with. Yeah. And on the thing that you can do better, it's all about the detail of what you hear because a lot of it is going to be very generic.

00:25:33 Kevin Mako: But every once in a while, you'll hear these real nuggets of information, which can totally transform what you do. So, so true.

00:25:41 Brett Fox: So into your second question in terms of how people can find me, you can go to my website, bret-chaifox.com. I have a free giveaway for everybody today that's listening.

00:25:52 Brett Fox: have a free pitch deck template if you're interested in raising money it's there for you for free

00:25:57 Brett Fox: right on go to that website brechefox.com forward slash Mako and it's yours for free and um it has all the slides you need it has a note section below each slide to explain what to do what to put in there

00:26:12 Brett Fox: and everything else and it's there for you for free wow that is incredibly generous very helpful So if you're anywhere in the thinking about raising investment or you're in the investment process head over there.

00:26:24 Brett Fox: I'll put all the links in the show notes as well. So you can go to the website, go to that free giveaway. And Brett, much appreciated for your insight behind the scenes of the VC market. I know it could be a bit elusive at times. So I really appreciate you coming

00:26:39 Brett Fox: and giving us behind the curtains here today. It's my pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot. Thanks. Take care. All right. You too.

00:26:45 Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by

00:26:58 Narrator: Mako Design + Invent, the original and leading firm in North America to provide global caliber in-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product business clients. If you're looking for

00:27:13 Narrator: product development help on your invention, head over to MakoDesign. That's M-A-K-O-design.com for a free consultation from one of Mako Designs for Design Studios from coast to coast.

00:27:27 Narrator: Thanks for listening and see you next time.