From Pitch Deck to Payday - Kat Weaver on Raising Capital

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This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk We were welcome to the show. I'm honored to be here. I'm honored to have you here. We were just chatting before the interview here. You and I connected in the great Dan Martell's coaching group. That's quite Yeah, I joke, but not like I drink the Kool-Aid and the few things that I've done have already changed my business and my life and my husband's like, I don't know. Well, I don't believe it. And I'll tell him some of the stuff and we'll go through it. And he's like, damn, Yeah, it is. No, he, the best coaching I've ever had in my entire life. It's ever had a lot of coaching and a lot of groups and a lot of rooms. And, uh, yeah, Dan, Dan is truly the man, but you can't, you know, very tough to argue with ripped rich and rare, you Yeah, he's not taking any BS and he's got some serious standards. So it's not for the faint of heart. It's like drinking from a fire hose. You got to be prepared to be called out on your shit and you're going to Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I have a good time with him when I do. brave to the front of the line and ask a question. But, you know, that's just, you know, that's just what I do. I make people laugh. Terrible career choice, but I got lucky, you know. So, I love telling people stories on this podcast. I like going through some context, going back to the beginning of the story. That's different for everybody. Um, so bring us back to the beginning where, when you first got started, I don't know if that was your job, your business, wherever it may be, whatever that beginning is for you that brought you to present day. I know that you are heavily involved in the startup world, the pitch world, the investor world. I don't know enough to speak intelligently about it. So I'm going to let you do that, but let's first back up a little bit, help our listeners better understand how Well, not to give it all away, but I've never had a corporate job and I think ill miserably not built or meant for me. Uh, I actually, I thought I wanted to go into medicine and then started a company accidentally out of my college dorm room and really had made a product for me.

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It was a wearable wrist wall cause I had my stuff stolen and I was like, I just need the essentials.

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And then people were knocking on my dorm room door. saying that they wanted to buy one in tailgate and bar hop and go to the gym. And I was like, wait, this is kind of exciting. And so I ended up changing my major from biomed to entrepreneurship, Oh yeah. Yeah. I thought you said, wait, I was like, Oh, what am I missing? Yeah.

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So very, very different. Half my family is in medicine, half are in entrepreneurship. So I guess wrong at first, but ended up finding the right path that was meant for me and crazy enough.

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So I had everything for that first company that I kind of stored in my mom's bridal store at the time. And then she just months after I'd started, lost her business to a fire, her business of 26 years. And so we were both back to zero and her more traumatically than me, obviously, but I had no backup, no family and friends, money, no like handouts in any way. And so the only way to survive a professor was like, you should do a pitch competition. I'm like, I didn't even know what that was. I would rather yak than go talk to someone. And I just, I literally had to do it to survive. So I ended up winning $7,500 my first pitch. I was like, wow, someone besides my mom thinks this is a good idea. And I did another, and another, and my claim to fame is winning 22 of 23 I applied for. So it was six figures in free capital. That was cash in the bank. No one asked what I did with it. It was PR, credibility. It allowed me, well, I lived in my parents' basement for after college to run the company. Did everything from Amazon, Good Morning America four times. I made every founder mistake twice over. There's no perfect roadmap for it, that's for sure. And I, along the way in doing so many pitches, I had founders reaching out to me saying like, how can I pitch and raise money? So it's kind of a side hustle to that business. And I didn't realize that that was more my superpower. And I met so many amazing founders, struggled to get funding, but because they sucked at talking about what they do and what they need. It had nothing to do with the business. They were just really poor communicators. And so I had so much more enjoyment. I was starting to get them millions of dollars in funding. My husband looked at me one day and goes, you take the inventory and you bring it out back. And I'm like, whoa, homie, I got a lot here. So sold and exited after six years to start what's now Power to Pitch. So long story short, now my whole mission is helping founders get funded faster. And we've helped them raise over 50 million in Let's go. So I got to ask, what was the product or the, or the, So it was a wearable wrist wallet. I had pocket headbands, um, neck gaiters just to fit small essentials. So it wasn't like a pair of perishable consumer product item. It was something you can kind of wear. Cause they Yeah. So it was you and you geared it towards college I really just geared it for people who needed their cash and ID on the go. Like it was busy mom and dad.

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Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to know what I've been I don't know. I don't know if you remember this. It was a skit in the nineties on, uh, on Saturday Night Live and like one of them, it was like the satchel skit. And he's like, you put your Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that it was became a popular festival go to because it was so discreet on the wrist. That's not what I built it for. It's not what I advertised for, but it Very, very versatile, but it was like, you know, even traveling to Europe, like pickpocketing is such a big deal. And when it's on your wrist, it's way less likely to happen. And so it just kind of compounded pretty easily because yeah, everyone's ID and credit card, the exact same size and your cash. So it became like, you know, three sizes and That'd probably be a little different this day and age because, you know, like Apple Pay, like we Yeah, definitely more accessible than, what, six years ago or so. But, you know, I feel like still traveling overseas, I'd still bring cash and things like that. Or, you know, maybe need my car keys when I go for a run. I've had it fall out of my pocket into the bushes before. So it's situational, but there's definitely still some use cases for it. But I have nothing to do with the business anymore. I'm much more in my power with what I do now. And I joke, but not that I paid my dues in CPG. I will never run another consumer product company. I've invested in it, but I I had a, I had to stay on for three or four months or a certain amount of hours. That's not bad. Standard. No. So it was very doable. Actually what got me, so I was under contract four times before selling.

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It was very traumatic. Uh, the third time fell through the week of my wedding. So it was a lot and it was like this beautiful cash offer to, you know, obviously like too good to be true. But, uh, the, it, I had like prepared the inventory and was like, I'm going to go now enjoy my honeymoon kind of thing and still had to deal with Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How did, but how, like, that's a mindfuck in itself. So how did you like most exciting day of your life yet?

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Like second most exciting day selling my company, but the deal fell through. How did you navigate through that and still stay, you know, not, I cried a lot. I'm not going to lie. It's not like, all right, I picked myself up immediately. It felt so emotional. It was a very emotional thing. And I'm very lucky to have a very big family who supported and wedding planning and things. And so I felt like I just kind of showed up because my mom had the bridal store for 26 years.

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So it's more for her. than for me, so I had to Oh, totally. That's literally what she did. She even picked out my wedding dress. She knows her stuff. Yeah, she's good And I know you're in Texas now. Where are you originally from? Chicago. I That's a good answer. That's a good answer. OK, but if you had to choose. North Well, when Jeff Samardzija was playing for the Cubs, we were like big into that because my maiden name is Samardzija. So we had a like a cool tie there, but I I'm All right, fair enough. I can dig. I can dig that as long as not the way because I Yeah, that was a great note. Very diplomatic of you. It's very, now I'm a diehard Cubs fan. I lived there for a year. My daughter was actually born in Chicago. I lived there for a year. I was like, this is way too cold. So I went to Southern California, but I went to a Cubs game on a Tuesday afternoon with the company that I was working for at the time. I remember they like rented a limo.

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It was like a big deal in 2001 or 2000, something like that.

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And Wrigleyville was off the hinges and the Cubs were in like last of last place. And I'm like, this is baseball. Uh, so the rest is history. I always like to joke that I love pain. So I'm a dolphins fan Yeah. Uh, same with Chicago bears. So I also enjoy the Yeah, the bears. Uh, so let's talk about the power to pitch his name and the company that you have now. Right. Okay. So walk me through that. What do you do? What problems do you solve? How does that, how does the company make money? How does So we have three core programs. One is for grants and non-dilutive funding for founders in the early stages, not ready for investors or not even a VC backable business, which doesn't make them a bad or good business. It's just, there are plenty of other forms of capital where you don't have to give up equity. So that's my initial core area of expertise. And then the second portion is for pre-seed and seed stage founders, meaning they're raising anywhere from like 300K to 3 million on average. So we help them with all their fundraising materials, how to pitch investor expectations, what they need in their deck and their data room and all the core functions to even start conversations with investors, especially if you don't have a warm intro or a natural network. Most underrepresented founders don't. I see everything from consumer product, tech, healthcare, we're pretty industry agnostic. It's just that range of race size that they're going for that we focus on.

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Then an elite program for raises five to 20 million, which would be considered like a series A technically. Every investor has got their own definition, which is why I preface the amount. But the beauty of what we do is we're not brokers. So legally, I cannot and will not take a success fee from the raise. That means that every check goes 100 percent to the founder. that they work towards. And we have an average ROI of 1200 to 6,000% for founders in our program, because they're the ones who show up and do the work are the ones who are getting checks is pretty cool. So that's the range is focusing on all those different avenues of capital. And we also coach them to secure that capital in tandem with grants, if they're under a million. So there's multiple ways from debt, revenue-based financing, your grants, investors. It's really helping them position and So you can't take a rip off of what they get, what the funding that they get, but they can pay you a retainer to teach them to do what they got to do so they can actually get the money. Is Exactly. So we're strictly fee-based because we also say founders who pay, pay attention. There's a lot of those like shelf help founders out there who just try to do everything all at once. So we want them to be bought into the process. And when they are, it's going to pay for The average founder can see a check anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. I will say on average three to six months, but we allow support for up to a full year just in case they delay the raise, in case they need post-investment support. Your first, middle, and last check as a founder is going to be very different from your lead investor to other angels and VCs. It's a very complicated process, and it is emotional.

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There's a lot more rejection than acceptance. And so the full support is a year, but they aren't required to Very good. This is fantastic. This is like, cause you're weeding out all the, cause there's a lot of bullshit in that, in that world, you know, cause there's, you know, I got the greatest product or I'm like this, or we got that. And you're, You're yeah. You're bullshit. A filter has to be on like And that's okay. That doesn't make you a good or bad business. That's a common misconception is you see these like Forbes and TechCrunch articles of these big raises and founders think, oh, that's the badge or a merit of a great founder. And that has nothing to do with it. The majority of founders who raise actually fail and burn their businesses because of misaligned expectations or maybe a bad investor, or they're spending money in the wrong thing. So that's Yeah. I remember, um, I've known Gary V a long time and he's always said, uh, you know, half of these Silicon Valley companies raise money and they don't even do shit with it or the product and end up going out of business. Like it's all this big smoke and mirrors type idea. Um, and of course he can speak to that matter as an actual, like true investor, um, into some pretty Epic things. He always tells the story of missing out on the first round of, Uber costing them, you know, 800 million. Other than that, everything was fine. But the one time I did was talking to a contact of mine that was like, hey, we own a marketing firm. We could maybe infuse some cash into the business, help out with lead gen, et cetera, and get you guys to some revenue goals that you want to be. And I was like, all right, cool. like, it's comical, like you'd laugh. So, I'm like, okay, I don't even know what to do. Pitch deck, I don't know what to do. So, I took out my sketch pad and my colored pencils, and I drew a game plan with pictures and colors, shading around, whole nine on here. And I had established that I needed $250,000. And so I turned on shark tank and I got some terms down, you know, and I'm like, continue to draw. And I have like this two page, like child, you know, color set here, but it's got the breakdown of everything I'm looking for the revenue, the projections, et cetera on here. Anyway, I'm so proud of this. I walk into my best friend's office. Who's a pretty prominent attorney here in Miami. And he's like, you can't be serious. And I go, no, no, I am. And he goes, all right, I'm just going to, I'm just going to just appease you. I'm just going to take a quick look at your coloring job here. I go, okay, cool. And he goes, listen, You don't want to take $250,000 from anyone because when this doesn't work out, they're going to fucking sue you for $250,000. Do you have $250,000? I go, no. And he goes, get the fuck out of my office. And that was my extent.

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Yeah, well, he's very intense. He keeps me honest. But the funny part is, and I kept that for memorial reasons, that very next year, guess Yes. And I was like, why would anyone ever, like, I see this constant, like, I don't want thumbs on me. Probably why I'm not married, but I. No comment. People say, are you married? I go, no, I'm happy. I was a little unconventional. I had a kid at 20 and I raised her and sent her off to college. Check plus on raise a responsible human being. As a matter of fact, she lives in Dallas. So I'm a little bit different of a empty nester, if you will, on here. But yeah, that was my closest, short of like, but I've also like emceed and spoke at like pitch competitions and things like that. I had no idea what's going on. Our conversation right now, what you're doing, it makes sense and it resonates. And you also meet an individual like yourself and you're like, not full of shit, actually knows what she's doing, can actually get you the money. And because I was thinking about that, it was a couple of calls ago with Martel, but I can tell that Martel is a huge Cat Weaver fan, just based on what you do and you understand. he understands your world, like the whole nine. I was like, if she's not a perfect fit for this, for this ecosystem, you know, but I'm grateful to never have to, I don't know what that looks like in the future. Maybe I will need Well, you let me know, but it's not, it's not the end all be all, but I knew I felt like I had made it when someone asked about raising capital and he goes, where's Kat? Out of the 500 people on the call, he's like, she here, go talk to her. And that was like, I, I, I could die now. I'm, He knows the people who know their niche, and when he can call it out like that and you stick out that much, I mean, that's a huge For sure. No, he totally was. He's like, you want to start a podcast, go follow him and hire him. And people do it. And I was like, that's rare these days. Someone actually said that. That's true influence, in my opinion. Screw all these influencers. That's influence, you know?

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But also you prove that you know what you're talking about.

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And if someone came back and like you're never going to hear from him again, like you do right by the people that you bring, which is why he's got no problem saying Correct. Correct. So you seem pretty stoked about the business and what you're doing and what you got going on. What's the worst part not growing fast enough or to my expectations. It has nothing to do with the outside. It has everything to do with me and my own worst enemy. I know that. And a lot that I've learned from Dan is in terms of just leveling up my leadership. Even though I've exited a company, I had a very small team. I never thought of myself as a great leader by any means. And so I've been working a lot on books and education and to really level myself up and empower my team a lot better. And I know that when there's issues, Like he says, like it's a leadership problem.

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It's me taking ownership of that. And so it is everything to do with the internal factors versus any Yeah. Love that. Love that. Well, I absolutely love what you're up to, Kat. I knew that you and I would be instant Well, I mean, I mean, this is what I get from Cat Weaver. Like she does what she says she's going to do. Imagine that. I mean, such a rare quality these days, you know, going to use that soundbite. Do it, do it. So if someone's listening to this right now and they're like, this was perfect timing, I got a new product, I got an existing product, I got a whatever, and I need an infusion of cash and I have no idea where to First thing is don't take advice from someone who hasn't raised money or achieved what you hasn't achieved what you want. It is there's so much more wrong and more wrong advice that you're going to get as a founder, whether you're doing $10 in sales or a hundred million, there's always going to be someone with an opinion, but that doesn't mean that they deserve to give you their opinion. And so that's number one. Number two, I've got a free pitch template on my Instagram. If you DM me the word prep, I am Kat K A T Weaver, and it's all there. I have a ton of free resources on my YouTube. Um, you can apply to work with us directly at power to pitch.com slash apply.

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It's all there. We chat to every single founder that comes our way, whether we can support you or give you a resource. It's one of our core values that we leave a founder better than when we found them because all the misinformation that is out there. So that's kind of core to what we do. But lastly, I'll say is not all investors have your best interest at heart and not all money is good money. So learn anything. Not all That's great final advice, and also investment advice as well. Kat, you're amazing. I absolutely adore what you do, what you're up to, and what you're working on. And I'm stoked to be running with you, and I'm glad we're in the same circles. And I look forward to seeing what transpires in the future on here. But keep doing what you're doing.

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It's clearly work that matters. Congrats on that exit and really just living the life that you've designed. That's another rarity these days. Living a life that we design is one thing. Living a life that we design and actually enjoying it. I is another and you're in your content kind of tells that story. It's No, I say I'm like, I, if I had time, I wish I could make him Instagram famous so he could start paying bills because that guy, let me tell you, he said, she's such He helps. So I appreciate you saying that and having me. Touche.

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Being in good company, it's contagious. So I'm Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios.