Startup Storied: Featuring FundRazr
This week we are excited to be featuring Daryl Hatton, CEO of FundRazr, world leader in enterprise-class crowdfunding for nonprofits and social enterprises.
The company started as a personal crowd-funding site, helping people to raise money for personal charitable causes, and in the last couple of years they have turned their attention to focus on nonprofits and social enterprises.
We first met Daryl a few years ago in stereotypical Vancouver fashion, that is, while sitting in a coffee shop in Downtown Vancouver. Paul was introduced to Daryl through a mutual friend, Keith Ippel (Co-Founder and CEO, Spring Activator), and the two of them immediately hit it off.
Since then, Daryl has been an incredible source of support for Volition and Paul. Not only have the two of them continued to meet on a monthly basis, when they can, to talk through the ups and downs of founder life, but it’s also in thanks to their friendship that we met Mira Soullen (now Volition Advisor).
This past spring Daryl joined us on the pitch stage for the first time.
Hi Daryl! So, to start, can you share what your first pitch experience with Volition was like?
I won the first pitch I did with Volition last May. I’ve been pitching for a long time in a variety of different venues but I had not been pitching for a few years. Earlier on I’ve done a fair bit of work to raise money for the company and this pitch night was a chance to get back into the game. I looked at this as an opportunity to practice some of my material and to put it in front of a live audience.
This was the first time we pitched the new story of the company at all. There had been a significant change in the way the business was being run and funded, our target audience and everything. The feedback was fantastic and it felt lovely to win that first pitch.
The value of it was to test the new messaging in front of the marketplace to get more comfortable in saying it in front of a group of investors and getting the feedback.
Sometimes pitching can feel like it’s a one-way broadcast but if done well it’s actually a two-way conversation, you are getting feedback through their eyes and their body language. It’s a way to help determine whether or not your message is resonating with people.
Tell us about your journey since winning that pitch night.
We have been investigating the marketplace to see if investors were willing to fund us.
One of the challenges now is that people think they know us, because they’ve heard of us, we’ve been running for 10 years. We almost have to get them to unlearn what they know about us and think about us with fresh eyes, and from an investor’s point of view that’s actually quite difficult because they don’t understand what is different now.
There’s a uniqueness in what we do, we’re not a traditional SaaS business, and people get nervous because we are in the philanthropic market, and they think that we’re not here to make money.
With the pitch night I felt like I got a chance to really practice the messaging but then we went to two different angel groups and found that the response was really lukewarm.
So we are looking at whether or not we want to focus on investor-backed funding or look at other options. Also, we are profitable with our business so it’s less urgent than it could be with other companies, and we are continuing to grow our customer base.
What are some company highlights/wins you’d like to share?
So far we helped raise over $150M for 200,000 projects in over 40 countries. We won the BC-Tech TIA award for Most Promising Startup in 2013 and many other awards since then, and this year we were in the Top 50 Fintech Companies to watch.
We recently pivoted, as I said before, and our new mission is “re-imagining philanthropy”, proving the way charity is funded.
Recently I’ve done a TEDx Talk on it and it was very well received. It was about how in particular millennials want to engage with charities and prove the way they fund things.
Also we had some really great feedback from our customers telling us we are indispensable for them and we make it possible for them to run their charity. Those are magic words for a startup CEO!
What are your next steps from here?
We’ve transitioned from a startup, looking for a sustainable business model, to a scaleup, where you have to find out how to replicate your success without having to change too much.
So now we have a new set of challenges!
And throughout this journey, what has been your greatest challenge as an entrepreneur?
Securing the funding to grow the business – we’ve had to bootstrap most of our growth.
Just focus on doing a good job for your customer. Worry less about financing and just go solve customers’ problems.
So what is one piece of advice you would give to someone just beginning their startup journey?
Search out great mentors and then pay attention to their advice. You don’t have to do everything they say but you do need to carefully consider it and have a very strong reason if you choose not to follow it.
On that note, as you may know, we define Volition as ‘the will to do what you want and to get it done’. What is your volition?
Our mission is to help charities find funding so they can work on solving social problems. I love helping my team and our customers to be the best possible version of themselves.
I believe at a deep level that we have to work together as a community to solve our world problems, we can’t do this through individual efforts. This is a collective action. We are just trying to be leaders in that, be creative, and see if we can inspire people to change.
And now for another one of our regular questions–what is your ask here today?
I’m looking for social enterprises and nonprofits who need to create new, innovative, and sustainable funding models for their operations.
I think especially social enterprises misunderstand the opportunities for their communities to fund their activities on behalf of the people they serve.
So I just invite social entrepreneurs to see that there are different opportunities to get funding using philanthropic tools and I encourage them to come to us and ask how this could work for them.
Is there anything else that you would like to share before we sign off?
I love that Volition is bringing this community together of early-stage startups.
It’s so helpful for entrepreneurs, the fact that they provide advisors that are there to really assist and that you can try their services initially for free so they can understand why the advisors are so valuable.
A lot of times you don’t know why you need a marketing consultant and being able to almost taste test what you need helps get rid of the confusion and you understand why you need their service.
I think Volition as a community and Volition as a service and linkage to the advisors is a really important part to help an entrepreneur going.
Thank you Daryl. You’ve shared a lot of great stories and insights here, including your big ask. So, how can people best connect with you?
Email: daryl@fundrazr.com
