On Wednesday evening (19th of May) the Gold Coast Innovation Hub hosted a fireside question and answer session where we were joined by Steve Baxter – a Queensland born and raised entrepreneur, investor and active mentor to startups, as well as a ‘Shark’ on Australia’s Shark Tank television show.
The evening event was held at Hotel CBD in Varsity Lakes and was kindly sponsored by RSM, City of Gold Coast, and R&Dium Capital.
The Q&A was hosted by Sharon Hunneybell, entrepreneur, CEO of the Gold Coast Innovation Hub and active mentor to local startups in the South East Queensland region.
Sharon asked a series of thought-provoking questions about Steve’s past investments, how to be investment ready, what happens post investment, what are reasonable and non-reasonable expectations of investment and the best direction to take when capital raising.
After the one-on-one questions and answers between Sharon and Steve, Sharon opened the mic to the floor where we got to see Steve’s very honest, dry wit as he answered the hard hitting, audience questions.
Here are a few of the important factors that Steve addressed on the evening.
- Know why you, as an entrepreneur, want investment.
- Understand the work that goes into raising investment – as a founder you stop selling your product and start selling shares.
- Know your metrics and market. Venture capitalists want you to fully understand your business and market opportunity before you approach them.
- And lastly, Steve prefers being called an ‘Early Stage Investor” rather than an ‘Angel Investor’. So, if you ever plan to pitch to Steve Baxter and his team in the future, remember he is no angel, know your pitch well and good luck!
If you missed the event on Wednesday night, we’ve got you covered! With the amazing help from Martin and Anastasha Renaud, founders of Freedom Potential, we were able to live stream it and record it for anyone who was unable to attend on the night. You can find the live stream recording here.
If you want to be notified of future events held by the Gold Coast Innovation Hub sign up for our newsletter on the bottom of our webpage to make sure you stay up-to-date! We can’t wait for you to join us at our next event!