What VCs look for in early-stage business and founders

Hosted by Ren Saguil and Rod Snodgrass

232 students

What you'll learn

Top 3 priorities for early stage founders

Identify the 3 weekly time investments that have the most impact on early stage start-ups (pre-seed and seed).

Early stage business & founder traits that attract investors

What makes a business and a founder backable?

Non-obvious skills that create 10X impact

Key skills for early stage founders

Why this topic matters

As an early-stage founder, it's crucial to understand what VCs prioritise when investing in pre-seed/seed startups. "What VCs Look for in Early Stage Founders" offers practical insights to help you identify what is important in securing funding, getting VCs to back you up and significantly increasing your chance of success.

You'll learn from

Ren Saguil

Co-Founder Fraxional, 25 yrs+ winning sales at Vodafone, Ruckus, Alcatel-Lucent

Ren is a 25-year experienced revenue leader with a proven track record of exceeding targets and growing large, complex accounts within the Technology, Media, and Telecom (TMT) industry.

She has led and won enterprise and large, complex deals at Globe Telecom (Singtel Group), Alcatel-Lucent (Nokia), Ruckus Wireless, and Vodafone, contributing to more than 130M Euro career sales.

As the creator of the B2B Sales Maturity Framework, Ren's mission is to empower sales professionals. She achieves this by integrating strategy, processes, and behaviours to drive client action, optimise sales cycles, and achieve revenue growth.

An engineer by education and holds an MBA in Business and leadership and sales coaching certifications. Ren is building and co-founding Fraxional, a start-up that helps organisations with the fractional squad-as-a-service model.

Rod Snodgrass

Co-Founder and Managing Partner Maker Partners | Ex CEO - Spark Ventures

Venture capital partner, professional director, and strategic advisor specialising in business innovation, growth, transformation, and change.

Former senior executive with over 20 years of experience in strategy, innovation, digital growth, transformation, and disruption in New Zealand. As Chief Executive of Spark Ventures, led the development of Spark's innovation arm and created new businesses including Lightbox, Qrious, Skinny, and Bigpipe. Proven track record in building and executing corporate, market, business, and product strategies in the telecom, media, internet, digital, and energy sectors.

Active start-up mentor and investor. Self-proclaimed "incredibly average cyclist." Purpose-driven leader. Supporter of Cure Kids Fiji.

Currently focused on Maker Partners, helping build great businesses with exceptional founders and partners.

Alcatel-Lucent

Vodafone
RUCKUS Networks
Nokia
Globe Telecom
Casa Systems
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