Week #20 Email Update: The Most Important Question to Ask Your Customers – from Brandon on August 27th
We’re headed into week 36 of 2022 like a X-15 hitting 4,520 mph.
Here’s your weekly roundup with things that will give you an edge to win in your business and your life:
- Community announcements and shoutouts. A show I was on and more…
- New EDGE podcast episodes that will move you and your business forward. Including….
The Most Important Question to Ask Your Customers, Using Your 401k to Fund Your Business, Jeff Bezos’ Two Types of Decisions and How They Can Help You and more!
- Stats from Q2 2022 Venture Financing worth sharing. Read about Deal Volume, Invested Capital and Early-Stage Pre-Money Valuations.
- A book worth reading that will help you improve your memory… regardless of your age.
- A movie worth watching.
- What I’m writing about
Let’s go!
Community Announcements & Shoutouts
Welcome the 57 new subscribers to this newsletter who joined since last week. We’re grateful to have you here! We’re now 17,385 strong.
Thank you to Ben Currier host of The Failure Guy podcast for having me on the show to talk about some failures and lessons learned. Should come out this coming week and I’ll send the link.
Office Hours for students and subscribers live Office Hours this Tuesday. Q&A format, bring your questions. Details will be sent out.
Worth Listening on EDGE
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The Most Important Question to Ask Your Customers – Net Promoter Score Introduction | Ep. 376
An introduction to Net Promoter Score. Why it’s the easiest and most important metric you can measure with your customers.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
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401k Part 14 – ROBS 401k – Using Your 401k to Fund Your Business with Matt Ruttenberg | Ep. 377
How you can use it to fund your business.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
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What If Something You Believed About Yourself Turned Out Not to Be True? with Shanna Nardone Founder of Maternal Grove | Ep. 380
We talk about what opportunities can come your way if something you believed about yourself or your business turned out not to be true?
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
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What Your Net Promoter Score Means | Ep. 381
What your Net Promoter Score means.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
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Jeff Bezos’ Two Types of Decisions and How They Can Help You | Ep. 383
Two types of decisions Jeff Bezos laid out in his 2015 Amazon yearly letter to investors. You’ll learn the two types of decisions Bezos describes, the decision making approach to each one and how you can apply the framework to your company.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
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How to Get Answers From of Your Data with Ahmed Elsamadisi Founder of Narrator AI | Ep. 384
How to set up your data stack so you can answer questions like “What three things happen in our customer’s journey that leads to customers with the highest LTV”.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
On Business Podcast
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7 Tips to 10X Your Brand | Ep. 3
Danielle and Brandon offer you 7 tips on how to 10x your brand. You’ll leave with actionable steps you can start putting into action to propel your brand forward!
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Worth Sharing
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Q2 2022 Venture Financing Report
Cooley released their Q2 2022 venture financing report. Their report is a great indicator of what’s happing in the VC space because they are the leading law firm in the US for representation of companies in venture capital transactions.
They handled 332 disclosable venture capital financing deals for Q2 2022, representing $16.6 billion of invested capital. Both numbers are down from Q1 2022, when Cooley handled 401 disclosable VC financing deals with invested capital of $24.3 billion.
The invested capital in VC financing deals for Q2 2022 is at its lowest since Q4 2020, when they handled 353 disclosable deals representing $14.3 billion in invested capital, while deal volume is at its lowest since Q3 2020, when they handled 308 disclosable VC financing deals.
Though consistent with generally reported market dynamics, the slowdown in deal volume and invested capital is something to watch during the second half of 2022 to see if the trend continues.
In early-stage VC financing deals, median pre-money valuations also declined somewhat, returning to levels comparable to valuations from the later part of 2021, but still high compared to valuations from early 2021.
Series Seed deals had a median pre-money valuations of $17.1 million, with Series A deals at $60 million, in June 2022. Although slightly down from highs in late 2021 and early 2022, these medians remain elevated compared to numbers from the first half of 2021.
Series B deals saw a slightly greater decline in median pre-money valuations during Q2 2022, dropping from a record high median pre-money valuation of $300 million in January 2022 to $164.4 million in June 2022; however, the June 2022 median pre-money valuation for Series B deals is still above those seen in early 2021, which were in the range of $150 million.
Even in the current climate, median pre-money valuations in later-stage VC financings increased after the decline in Q1 2022, with June 2022 boasting a record high median pre-money valuation of $4.3 billion for Series D or later deals.
Although invested dollars, deal numbers and valuations were generally down, Q2 2022 deal terms themselves continued to be favorable for companies.
In Q2 2022, 97% of disclosable deals had non-participating preferred stock, down slightly from the record high of nearly 98% for Q1 2022.
The percentage of “up” rounds remained high at 94% of disclosable deals, again slightly down from 97% in Q1 2022.
Deals with a pay-to-play provision remained low at just 4.5% of disclosable deals, though this does represent an increase over 3% of disclosable deals in Q1 2022.
Similarly, the percentage of deals involving a recapitalization also remained low at 1.5%, but this is an increase over Q1 2022, when deals with a recapitalization made up less than 1% of disclosable deals.
Disclosure: I’ve been using Cooley for all the early stage companies I’ve started or ran over the last two decades. They currently represent a company I am an owner in.
Sources: Cooley, Pitchbook
Worth Reading
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
This book has been sitting on my shelf for a while and I picked it up about two weeks ago. It recounts Joshua Foer’s yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top “mental athletes.”
He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human memory.
You’ll walk away from reading it with some tricks you can use to greatly improve your memory. Turns out, memory is a teachable skill.
It has over 5,800 ratings on Amazon and scores a 4.5 out of 5.
Agree. Recommended.
You can get it for under $10 here
Worth Watching
 photo: Paramount Pictures |
Top Gun Maverick
Put simply,Maverickpulls off a feat even trickier than a 4G inverted dive, delivering a long-belated sequel that surpasses its predecessor in wildly entertaining style.
I watched the original last night just to check it out again and Maverick is so much better!
On Rotten tomatoes it gets a 96% critics score and 99% audience score. Agreed. Recommended
Now available to steam here
What I’m Writing About in
EDGE’s Print Newsletter
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Still at the keyboard writing my first book. I started on the evening on June 16, 2022. Here’s my progress:
Some solid progress over the last week. Shooting to have a rough draft out by the end of this coming week.
Here’s my total words by week:
Week 1: 8,000 (+8,000)
Week 2: 30,641 (+22,641)
Week 3: 33,368 (+2,727)
Week 4: 33,123 (-245)
Week 5: 33,798 (+675)
Week 6: 32,948 (-850)
Week 7: 33,496 (+548)
Week 8: 31,572 (-1,924)
Week 9: 31,594 (+22)
Week 10: 31,594 (0)
Week 11: 31,642 (+48)
This Week at EDGE
* Four guest recording sessions for the EDGE podcast.
* New Episode of On Business Podcast released. Already in the Top 50 of Apple Charts.
* Sending out this newsletter.
* New episodes on the EDGE YouTube channel daily where you can catch the video version of episodes.
Last Word
Thanks for reading. Here’s to a great rest of the weekend and week ahead!
Brandon
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