Nicole Washington: You Closed Your First Round of Funding, Now What?

Congratulations! You closed your first round of funding, what's next? To scale, you better have a plan, a structure and commitments for who’s on board.

 Today's Quote:

“If you're trying to create a company, it's like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.”

- Elon Musk

 Show highlights:

The importance of having a structured plan
Stick to the plan
Layout structural elements

Stick to the defined plan!

Cause, Mission, Vision
Should have an active pipeline ready to go
Key positions in place, partners, hr strategy in place
Hiring without compromise- values and mission driven alignment
Investors should have dig into core company values and compromise levels of hiring
Just a bunch of people winging it… you won't be able to hire right in today’s landscape

Create a team that investors will continue to invest in

No, no’s
Knowing the difficulty creating a team

Hard for people to find a good technical people
Don't hang out in the same places

Setting Expectations & writing them down
What happens when it doesn't work?

Structure… Have everything lined up!

Company values in cement
Define your Road map
Set the stage for what happens next

All documents & agreements in place
Getting people to join before you have funding or a product
Leverage university talent, students, - easier to get people to resonate with them
Students: finding the ones who are doing research in your particular field
Develop the relationship with the professors
Reach out directly to the student *attractive to investors

Takeaways:

Do not make compromises!
Goals of the company first
Hire with the end result in mind

Nicole Washington, Director of Innovation and Growth of OCTANe OC, focuses on engaging with strategic partners to accelerate the growth of early to later stage ventures and small to medium size business throughout the entire Southern California Ecosystem.  

She currently serves as Chair of the Academic Committee and Trustee of the Board of Education for Samueli Academy. A (STEM) high school that delivers state of the art education to a large population of underrepresented youth.

Nicole is a member of the Ohio TechAngel Fund, the 2nd largest Angel Investor Network in the United States, where she served as the due diligence team, technology lead for several years.