Into The Wild 53. Raising Capital To Fund Your Business with Katherine Homuth
Hey you wild women!
My next guest is the Founder and CEO of Sheertex, the Montreal company behind the world's first pair of unbreakable pantyhose. Sheertex is Y Combinator backed and has raised over $58M USD in venture capital.
Katherine is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, and author of O'Reilly's Funded: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Raising Your First Round. Prior to Sheertex, Katherine founded and sold two businesses; ShopLocket, a pre-order platform, acquired in 2014 by PCH and Female Funders, an online education program for female investors, acquired by Highline Beta in 2017.
She has been named one Forbes Top 30 Under 30, One of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women, One of Flare's Sixty Under 30, and is a recipient of the Governor General's Innovation Award.
In this episode, you will learn about:
- The value of surrounding yourself with other founders and like-minded people, regardless of where they are in their journey
- How making mistakes is essential in the road to success
- Why Katherine started Sheertex and why it was important for her to solve a problem
- How she managed to scale her business from five employees to over 100 in less than a year in order to support a huge financial leap
- How she handled the challenges that COVID-19 presented in her business and ended up doubling her sales in 2020, despite having to shut down manufacturing for several months
- Her 4 most important tips to raising funds
- Understanding how your business changes as soon as you accept an investor's money and are operating for more than just yourself.
- Know how you are going to wisely spend the capital once you receive it
- Understanding the power of your network and how investing in relationships can result in business investments
- A good fundraising process wins over a good business any day of the week - talk to people who have done it before and define a clear process to how you are going to raise funds
- When the right time to ask for money is for you and your business and whether or not your business is the right fit for investors
What it means to be a WILD woman:
"It's about not giving into the status quo. It's about being willing to challenge assumptions and the way things have always been done. It's about the power of perseverance in realizing your vision."
Public Shout Outs:
Resources:
- Website: www.sheertex.com
- Instagram: @katherinehomuth
- Book: Funded: The Entrepreneurs Guide to Raising Your First Round
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Renée Warren is an award-winning entrepreneur, a 7-figure business starter, and the founder of We Wild Women, a business dedicated to helping women launch their dream business. She previously founded an industry-recognized PR agency that worked with funded technology startups from South Africa to San Diego.
She's a mom to Irish Twins (not planned), a published author, and a drummer.
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