Spearhead Capital: Looking for *ONE* Fast-Growing Start-Up to Take Mainstream

(Photo: Andrew Atkinson)

I am looking for one great company to put my name, brand, and entire network behind.

Usually, I do this through advising, and my start-ups include Uber, Evernote, Automattic (WordPress.com), and Shopify, among others. I’ve been with some of them from pre-seed money to $1-billion+ valuations.

Here’s my full bio and credentials, and below is a testimonial from one of my start-ups:

“Tim has played a huge part in putting Shopify on the map. He has been an advisor to Shopify since 2009, and he’s been invaluable in the growth of our business.

Back when no one knew about us, we were brainstorming with him. He challenged us to prove that building an online business was in fact as easy as we claimed. In order to accomplish that, and under Tim’s guidance and leadership, we created the Shopify Build-a-Business competition. Now, it’s one of the most important things that we do.

In the most recent Build-a-Business contest alone, more than 12,000 brand-new shops sold more than $55 million in products. It’s become the most popular ‘online retail’ competition in the world.

This helped Shopify ‘cross the chasm’ in terms of pushing Shopify’s brand to a mainstream audience.

It was risky, but Tim knew it would succeed – it was entirely consistent with his track record for PR and Marketing. Simply put, Tim is our secret weapon!”

- Harley Finkelstein, CPO
Shopify – The world’s most popular ecommerce platform for small businesses, currently powering more than 60,000 online stores that sell more than $1B in products annually. Shopify also powers stores for brands like Gatorade, Forbes, Budweiser, The Chive, and more.

Back to Spearhead Capital…

This time, I’m doing things differently: I’m raising an entire round of financing for one company… with unusual perks. I’ve been planning this for a long time, and it’s only possible now.

Here’s what it looks like…

You should want (or be willing) to raise $500,000-$1,000,000, and here are the benefits of doing it with me:

- I won’t take a board seat, so you retain all control.
- Massive national PR/exposure. This is going to get a LOT of attention, and I’m famous for maximizing impact (e.g. Forbes’ “The Tim Ferriss Effect” and AdAge awards for product launches).
- VCs usually want a minimum of 20% ownership. You can sell as little (or much) % as you want here.
- Once VCs see you succeed, you are in a massive position of strength and will probably receive unsolicited term sheets. This flips the tables. If you want optimal leverage for a larger round (say $5-10M total), raising a small amount with me makes sense.
- Minimal disclosure. You don’t have to pitch to investors and potential competitors.

What I’m looking for:

- Consumer-facing product/service (e.g. Evernote, StumbleUpon, Uber, etc.), or small-business focused product/service (e.g. Shopify), not enterprise software.
- 100K+ active users OR serial founder(s) with past exits OR 10K+ paying customers.
- 10%+ month-on-month activity growth.
- Clean cap table, minimal previous financing (or none), no bridge rounds.
- If you’re in “stealth” mode, you’d have to come out of stealth when I start fundraising, which would only last a few weeks.
- US-based companies, or companies willing to create US-based investable entities (which is easy). Shopify started in Canada, for instance.

Interested? I’m psyched. Please fill out this form. Deadline is July 25, 2013 at 5pm EST, and I’ll be in touch!

VERY big things ahead.

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Please note: I’m only recruiting the start-up at this point in time. I’m not talking publicly about the mechanisms or process, so thanks for understanding if I can’t answer many questions in the comments.

Posted on July 17th, 2013

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