Jake Whitman talks fundraising through accredited investors and equity crowdfunding
On this week’s episode of The Angel Next Door, listeners get a taste of what it takes to build a brand and raise capital as Marcia sits down with angel investor-turned-entrepreneur Jake Whitman. After a successful career with Procter & Gamble and working for SoFi in the SF Bay Area, Jake decided to head to Cincinnati with the objective of buying a company. There he joined Queen City Angels as an angel investor but then decided to enter the entrepreneurial world and start Really Good Boxed Wine.
Jake is a wine enthusiast and after trying a few different disappointing boxed wines with his wife, he knew there was an opportunity to make a splash in the industry and create a truly premium boxed wine experience, which provides a 50% reduction in carbon footprint versus bottled wine. He contacted a woman he knew that owned a vineyard and started to build a brand and a plan. Jake explains how he recognized early on that raising capital would be a necessary step to build the brand he wanted. He was able to raise $310k through a friends and family round and spent a year testing and developing the brand and product to prepare for subsequent rounds.
Jake describes how he was very intentional in testing small before launching nationwide. The first launch was local to the Cincinnati area with the product selling out in 5 days, leading to a wider launch that sold out in 4 days throughout about 23 states. Jake explains how this allowed them to know if the business would be successful while generating real data to continue to build the brand. After sending out surveys and receiving feedback, Jake realized they needed to completely rebrand prior to launching nationwide in order to provide the premium experience he aimed for.
Marcia and Jake go on to discuss how during the next seed round, Jake approached fundraising with a hybrid plan of gaining investments from both accredited investors and equity crowdfunding. Launching a campaign through SeedInvest, Jake was very calculated in using a structured and scheduled plan and approached crowdfunding with a marketing campaign mindset. He chronicles how they selected which platform to use, how long the campaign would last, and how they used a specific calendar of announcements and communications to capitalize on investor interest. They implemented an early investor perk for those that invested prior to the halfway point of the campaign and distributed a discount code to interested investors so they could try the product prior to investing (also increasing sales of the product).
Listen in, as Marcia and Jake give listeners a ton of great insight into a story of an idea turning into a successful company, and what had to happen to get there.