Evan Loomis talks about his new book "Get Backed"
Where are you from
originally?
I’m
one of those rare natives who was born and raised in Austin, TX
What university did you
go to?
Texas
A&M University
What brought you to
Austin?
After
graduation I spent almost a decade as an investment banker in New York and
venture capitalist in Washington DC. I
moved back to launch a home improvement concept called TreeHouse. You can think of it as the “Whole Foods
version of Home Depot.”
What is your group’s
mission?
We
wrote Get Backed to demystify one of
the most intimidating parts of launching a venture: raising money. There’s no
shortage of advice on fundraising. Most of it is terrible. We asked ourselves:
What if we could give entrepreneurs what we wished we had had when raising
money for our ventures?
At
a deeper level, this book is about helping people bring their ideas to life and
building meaningful relationships in the process. We want you to crush it with
your startup. But even more than that, we want you to build friendships that
outlast any term sheet and create true value for you, your community, and your
venture.
What need does it
fulfill?
Entrepreneurs
don’t need more advice; they need to be
able to look over other founders’ shoulders. They need to see the real pitch
decks of ventures that have raised money, what kind of investors they closed,
the email scripts they used to close them, and the mistakes they made along the
way. That’s what we do in Get Backed.
What exactly does it
bring to startups?
Get Backed shows you exactly what Evan,
I, and dozens of other entrepreneurs did to raise money—even the mistakes we
made. We teach you a step-by-step process that can be used to initiate and
build relationships with anyone, from investors to potential cofounders, and
help you create a pitch deck, building on the real-life examples of 15 ventures
that have raised over $150 million.
What type of startup
would benefit from your group?
Get Backed is for anyone who has an idea and needs to move people
to get it off the ground. If you’re raising money, thinking about raising
money, or just need to know how to better pitch your idea, Get Backed is for you.
What was the most
challenging aspect of starting up the initiative?
Time!
We wrote this book over the course of two years while we were launching
our own startups.
What advice do you have
for entrepreneurs?
The
secret to raising money is one simple principle: successful fundraisers don’t
raise money, they raise friends.
What Austin-based
resource have you found to be the most helpful and why?
There
are phenomenal accelerators here that support startup founders. Places like
Techstars, Capital Factory, SKU, DreamIt, and UnLtd USA provide community,
mentorship, and focus in those critical early days.
