S3E14 - Colin Hirdman - How to fund a startup without investors

Colin Hirdman - How to fund a startup without investors.

Less than 1% of startups are able to raise venture capital. If you’re starting a SaaS business and need funding, there are creative ways to move forward. My next guest is a serial entrepreneur who built multiple companies because he first focused on building a well-operated service business. In this episode, he talks about his many business failures as well as a few of his success stories. Please welcome Colin Hirdman.

Key Timecodes

• (00:42) - Show intro and background history.
• (01:34) - What was his first business
• (02:08) - Deeper into his background and business path
• (04:06) - The wins and losses of his SaaS products
• (10:12) - Understanding his digital agency model
• (13:04) - The engineering team is based in the US or globally?
• (13:18) - How can startups raise funds on that model
• (14:46) - Deeper into his SaaS products
• (19:15) - The challenges of running SaaS businesses
• (20:07) - More details about his SaaS model
• (20:59) - Is this service monetized?
• (21:54) - How to offer solutions to the SaaS customers
• (26:18) - How to find a sweet spot of scale and features in that business model.
• (28:00) - The importance of keeping the focus of the service as a client pain solver
• (30:48) - A key takeaway that the audience can apply today
• (34:30) - The worst advice he ever received
• (35:00) - The best advice he ever received
• (36:19) - Guest contacts

Payback Time Podcast

Payback Time is a podcast for investors. The goal of this podcast is to help make investing approachable and easy to understand. We will interview beginner and experienced investors and ask them to share stories on how they got started, what challenges they faced, what mistakes they made, and what strategy works for them today. The overall objective is to provide you with a roadmap that helps you become a better investor.