Findaway Adventures — Secrets of the Findaway Diligence Process Revealed! Part 2: The Report Card

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Where Your Pitch Deck goes after You Press “Send.”

In last week’s blog, I outlined the diligence process we use at Findaway Adventures to evaluate prospective investment companies. Our goal was to make the process as transparent as possible so that you can make your best possible application and know what happens to your pitch deck once you hit “send.”

I hope that article began to clarify the process for you. This week, I want to go deeper on one key part of the process I had to omit last week for purposes of brevity: the Report Card.

This form is the single most important piece of your application and deserves its own blog. As the sample below shows, it is packed with assessment criteria that has received a score of 1-3. As I wrote last week, Findaway requires a composite score of greater than 2.25 to consider investing in a brand. Scores from 1.75 - 2.25 are strongly urged to enroll in “Nail Your Strategy,” a six-week online workshop I lead for young companies seeking to scale, and then to reapply for funding. We also recommend the workshop for companies that score below 1.75 as a way to sharpen their toolkits as they prepare to scale in the future.

How does the workshop help brands seeking investment? All of the key criteria we evaluate in the Report Card are covered in “Nail Your Strategy.” The added benefit of taking “Nail Your Strategy” is that graduates become eligible to participate in a Pitch Slam that Findaway and Netrush offer three times a year. Live and online, each Pitch Slam provides opportunities for live deals with companies we love!

If you look at the realistic example we’ve concocted, you’ll see that the scores we assign to each category are accompanied by narratives. In the model case, we were happy to see that the founder shows strategic focus, a record of success in building the company to $50K per month in revenues and a clearly thought-out goal, which in this case involves an early exit.

This brand knows its consumer inside and out and has the potential to disrupt the current market with its unique offer. The company’s team is strong but has plenty of need for the kind of expertise a hands-on investor like Findaway can offer. In other words, they are competent but also coachable, which is key. In addition, the company shows commitment to educating its customers about its product stands out among the competition.

The Report Card also shows that no company is perfect, and our model is a case in point. For example, despite all the positives, there is some concern that the company is operating in a highly competitive and well-capitalized market that makes it vulnerable to replication by other companies against which it has no patents or intellectual property rights to protect it. We are also unclear on the exact size of its overall market, which certainly weighs on the brand’s long-term prospects. The low ranking on customer acquisition costs reflects the fact that as a premium brand, the company must work harder to find and educate customers who are willing to invest more in their health and wellness. It can be done, but they will need help if they are to be successful here.

As the boxes marked in red show, this firm has a great deal of upside with a move to digital. While it has had limited exposure on Amazon, its rankings there have been high. And while the company received its lowest overall score on “momentum,” which measures how much the firm has already done to grow, it is set up to scale with the right guidance from key advisors like Findaway. The company has shown it is focused on a specific growth strategy by using both direct to consumer and Amazon as channels. This makes it very attractive to Findaway Adventures and our partner Netrush.

The data we use to make our analysis comes both from the brands themselves through our Intake form, and from Findaway’s own data analysis, which we place a lot of trust in. In the end, we want change-the-world brands like yours to succeed and believe our Report Card lets us offer you a useful snapshot of where you stand, relative to your marketplace, at a given moment in time, as well as what we feel your best options with us are in the present and down the road.

I hope this was helpful. Let me know! Write info@findawayadventures.com with questions.

Sincerely,