Clara MotaChief Entrepreneur Officer
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I help global startups & scaleups expand from the US to Europe. GTM for international expansion | Commercial & Sales Management for Marketplaces, Consumer Apps, SaaS (Martech, Recruitment, Salestech, CRMs, productivity, management tools).


Recent Answers


Hi, You can raise from a US Investor with an Estonian entity, nevertheless, they are likely to ask you to incorporate in Delaware, and move your HQ to the US. So, if you have grants from the Estonian Gov. or UE, you need to check if you have to settle your HQ in Estonia or UE.
Suggestion: Define the market where you have the biggest percentage of early adopters and how much revenue you may have ...if you are at the idea stage, better go through an accelerator... check the tips that I just gave here and on LinkedIn about choosing investors: 18h • Edited • 18 hours ago

How can startups find matching Investors?

Fundraising isn't just about raising money...

It's about much more things... #startup founders need to see the process as matchmaking.

These tips might help to match your startup against the right investors:

✔️ Define what you need in terms of money
✔️ Define what you need besides money
✔️ List the investors that invest in your space.
✔️ List Investors that have the experience and contacts that you need.
✔️ List Investors that invest an amount of money 3 to 10 times bigger than what you need.
✔️ List Investors that have an investment portfolio that can bring your startup network effects and others and boost growth.
✔️ List both male and female investors as diversity is needed for you to have all the perspectives..and focus on one gender, and a generation whose problems your startup is solving.

Using today's theme, your relationship with an Investor is just like a marriage, and from which it is difficult to divorce...

So, besides the above mentioned there are other aspects that you need to take into consideration, as you will be meeting, reporting, and dining with these investors:

👉 What is their personality?
👉 Do you see yourself connected with that person for at least 5 years?
👉 What are your values and theirs?
👉 Do your startup goals match theirs?

The last but not least, a good marriage might end with a good divorce, if you have a good pre-nuptial agreement!


This is great for you! Congrats! Yesterday I posted some tips on Linkedin, they can be useful for you when reaching out to Investors:How can startups find matching Investors?

Fundraising isn't just about raising money...

It's about much more things... #startup founders need to see the process as matchmaking.

These tips might help to match your startup against the right investors:

✔️ Define what you need in terms of money
✔️ Define what you need besides money
✔️ List the investors that invest in your space.
✔️ List Investors that have the experience and contacts that you need.
✔️ List Investors that invest an amount of money 3 to 10 times bigger than what you need.
✔️ List Investors that have an investment portfolio that can bring your startup network effects and others and boost growth.
✔️ List both male and female investors as diversity is needed for you to have all the perspectives..and focus on one gender, and a generation whose problems your startup is solving.

Reach out to Investors using warm introductions, specially in the US.

Your relationship with an Investor is just like a marriage, and from which it is difficult to divorce...

So, besides the above mentioned there are other aspects that you need to take into consideration, as you will be meeting, reporting, and dining with these investors:

👉 What is their personality?
👉 Do you see yourself connected with that person for at least 5 years?
👉 What are your values and theirs?
👉 Do your startup goals match theirs?

The last but not least, a good marriage might end with a good divorce, if you have a good pre-nuptial agreement!


You do not need an MVP to raise money at such an early stage, and you do need to raise money from VCs at such a stage (they usually only invest with traction). Here's some tips:
1 - 3 Fs - Family, friends and people with spare money...in
exchange for a bit of equity.
2 - Startup competitions for idea stage, might give you
money and resources.
3 - Gov grants for early stage startups
4 - Business Angels, check for associations on your city
5 - Crowdfunding


Yes, you should be solving a problem that affects millions of people. Nice to have is of little interest for investors...unless is a moonshot.
If affects billions of people, and in different regions, there is a lot of market share to split amongst several players, which is the case of messaging apps, email providers, etc.


Congrats! I started pitching at 18, and there were no mentors or advisory...
1 - Learn how to code, this will be very valuable in the
future, or at least how to use no-code tools.
2 - Understand the problem that you are trying to solve,
talking to people that have it.
3 - Incorporate the learnings and refine the solution/idea
4 - Build a prototype with no code if possible and try it with
the people that you spoke.
5 - If they are willing to use it them you need to build an
MVP, and or find a Co-Founder that codes or your learn
how to code (on the long run will be better with a co-
founder).
6 - Finding a mentor would be very helpful


Work on the problem that you think that your idea is going to solve first, ideas only worth money if they solve problems...

1 - You need to learn how to code! or will have to split the
company shares with a technical co-founder.

2 - Validate the idea by understanding the problem, iterating
on the best solution, make possible users try it and after
code.


Ideas worth nothing without execution...I had at least two business ideas that here copied...they even started to execute, but one got banckrupt and the other case only part of the idea went forward;
1- You need to study the problem that you are trying to solve for large companies very well.
2 - See if the companies that would be your customers have competitions for startups or business ideas, and apply.
3 - If your idea is a solution that they need, they will give you money or/and resources for to execute the idea...


I tried several solutions myself while building my businesses, and it also depends on the type of business that you are planning to build;
1- If its digital with no need for F2F/virtual contacts with customers - You should maintain your 9-5 job, and work the second shift in your startup, or try a job that gives you some schedule during the day for your startup F2F appointments with customers.
2 - If you are building something that needs a lot of demos, meetings with customers, you will need a lot of flexibility and consulting or freelancing is best for your time management.


1- I would say that you need a Problem, that is common to millions or billions of people around the world.
2 - You need to talk to those people to have a deep understanding of their problem.
3 - Iterate around the possible solutions for that problem.
4 - Show the solution (product or service) to the people that have the problem, and see if they use it, and if not why, and incorporate the learnings until you find a product/service that people want and would pay for.


In the very beginning, and in most of the cases, you do not need code to validate your idea...test first before developing, with techniques like the concierge, build a landing page and do the operation on backstage, just like Airbnb did ou Zappos, use no code tools, templates...
Only after idea validation you should build code, and then the best is find a technical co-founder that has built something, because at that stage you will need an MVP.


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