ROB RICHARDSON
Dawn Dickson, how are you doing?

DAWN DICKSON
I am amazing. How are you today?

ROB
I’m doing well. Thank you for joining us at Disruption Now Virtual Summit. The goal was we were going to do this all in-person but apparently, the universe had other plans so we’re going all virtual. How’s it going for you?

DAWN
It makes sense. That means we have a wider audience and people have more access than ever before. So I think virtual is actually a great way to start it off.

ROB
I agree. I’ve told people that I think COVID-19 has accelerated disruptions and actually exposed folks as well because there are people that are still on the old models, still thinking you have to do everything in-person and weren’t ready for this moment. Obviously, you’ve been in the game for a while. You’ve been ready for this moment. It actually aligns with what you’re doing in your technology. But before we go down into that--

We’re having this session to really give people a real understanding of what it takes to be successful in 2020 going forward using all of the tools and all of the capabilities online. But it still goes back to really old “tried and true” principles.

You look young, 25. We see it. There you go.

DAWN
[Laughter]

ROB
But you’re an OG in the game. You’ve been doing this for a while.

DAWN
Definitely an OG. Definitely an OG. 26 years in the game. 20 years in tech next year, late March.

ROB
Yeah, you’ve been in this process for a long time. I know people see you. You’re on the breakfast club. You’re doing this. You have a huge following. They just see like, “Wow. She just had it. It just came. It just went this process. It was just like from here to there. She just shot to the stars.” But that’s not how your process worked at all.
You’ve had a hard process. You’ve been bobbing and weaving. You’ve been pivoting, figuring out a way to make a way out of no way. So for that, I tell you “Congratulations’ because most people, even though everybody--

It’s hard in founder life no matter what your beginning is. Even if you have a network, it is a hard tough road. You take that and you don’t have a network, you don’t have that already built in for whatever reason, it’s a much, much, much harder road. And you found a way to get here.

And I know you haven’t reached your goal or your pinnacle yet. We expect a lot more. Like I said, you’re going to be one of those billion-dollar companies. -- I’m just going to call it out to the universe.

DAWN
Thanks.

ROB
We get to say that we knew [you’d win - 02:28]. But I want to talk about what surprised you in being a founder the most when you think about where you were when you really were 20 and you started in this process.

We actually had a survey that we ask folks. We ask them, “What surprised you the most about becoming a startup founder?” So I want to ask you these five to see which one of these actually align with you the most.

• Was it the challenge of managing the process and just the details of running the business that surprised you the most?

• Was is the lead time it takes to convert sales or actually raising capital?

• Did you underestimate the amount of money it would actually take to actually sustain the business? -- That looks like that’s going to be your answer already.

• Was it the amount of time it actually consumes of your life and how it becomes a complete obsession?

• Or was it the emotion rollercoaster of the process?

DAWN
It was the money part, for sure, especially when you’re talking about the first business. [What we spent with - 03:34] surprises you. So this was when I was a rookie founder. I thought I just needed $10,000 to build my business.

I think a lot of times, we just completely underestimate what it actually cost and everything that is required. All of the projections are wrong. You always burn, threw more money than you expect. The runway gets shorter. It’s really hard in the beginning to guess because you don’t know what you don’t know when all these things come up.

So certainly, I recommend everybody to just overestimate how much money that you need because there’s always going to be surprises popping up which I learned the hard way.

ROB
Yeah. Yeah, you did. So there was one period. You started off with Flat Out of Heels which was your first business--

DAWN
Well my first was actually the Urban Starr in 2001. That was my first tech company.

ROB
Oh wow. Wait. What was the first company?

DAWN
It’s called the “Urban Starr.” It was an online event and marketing platform based in Columbus, Ohio. It’s where to go to find out what’s going on the city and Central Ohio.

ROB
Got it.

DAWN
It was the first platform… one of the first in the nation of that nature.

ROB
Interesting because those platforms have taken off. I’ll say this: If people….” And this is not a whining session. We’re about disrupting common narratives and constructs. I can’t remember which company it is. It doesn’t really matter. But there’s another company that did something similar to what you are doing and I think received like $40 million or something like that and they’re out of business.

DAWN
45 and they’re out of business in three years.

ROB
Yep, out of business in three years and you’ve been here for 20. If people understand the…And I say I don’t look at it as a social responsibility. I think it is a social responsibility to do what’s right to invest in diverse founders.

But my message to corporate America, my message to the majority population is it’s a missed economic opportunity. That’s what it is. So you’re looking at--

DAWN
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I’ve decided I’m no longer going to try to convince people for me to give them opportunity. Literally, taking an investment is me giving someone an opportunity. If they don’t see the value, okay. Cool. “Peace be unto you.” That’s the reason why I crowdfunded which I know we’re going to talk about.

ROB
Yep. We’re going to talk about crowdfunding but I want people to understand the process. There was a point in your life where you got $150,000 raised -- and I’m going to go back to “Flat Our Hills.” You went forward and you came up and launched your… You launched your product and you put it on Facebook but things didn’t go according to plan.

Tell people about that moment because I do think it’s important to draw from your -- whatever you want to say -- “setbacks, temporary failures” and how those helped you become better for having gone through that experience.

DAWN
I mean looking back, it’s funny and we can chuckle but at that time, it was devastating.

ROB
It wasn’t funny at all, was it?

DAWN
What happened was that I did raise the money to… This was when I first got in to the vending industry. I raised money to build vending machines to sell Flat Out of Heels, which Flat Out of Heels is still in business, and their foldable ballet flats for women when their feet hurt in heels and I decided that vending machines was a great distribution channel to deliver them to women when their feet hurt the most wherever they may be.

So I raised this money, built this custom machines, built them in Spain. I paid about… maybe $20,000 for these machines. I was really excited about it. So when they arrived, as soon as they landed in the warehouse, I unpacked it and I took a picture of it and I posted it on Facebook like, “They’re here. We’re about to take off. It’s time to go.” That was before I even ever plugged it up to assess to see if it even worked.

So after I posted it on Facebook and everybody was like, “Wow. Wow. Congratulations,” within about an hour, I had realized that the machines did not work at all. I plugged them up and they just lit up. That’s it. They did not dispense the product. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I wanted the machines to accept credit cards so I bought a credit card reader, sent it over to Spain to have them install the credit card reader. And they did physically installed it. But installing means more than just sticking it in. It has to actually be… There’s software involved to make that credit card reader communicate with the machine to actually dispense a product. None of that engineering had happened.

So the machine did not sell because there was no way to make it sell. And at that time, I didn’t know what I needed. I didn’t know what I was missing. I didn’t know that I needed an engineer to write some code and create a driver. I know that now. Back then, I just thought it didn’t work and ended up selling those machines for $8 in scrap metal.

ROB
Oh my god. Oh my god. And that was your second. I think you raised money one other time, ran out of money. This was your second time you raised money and then you ran out of money.

DAWN
Yeah. The first time I raised money, I launched the business and I launched it as an e-commerce business. That did well. I built my website. I started an online marketing campaign which is actually my expertise. So that was doing well. When I was ready to expand into the vending space, that burned a lot of cash. There were so many unknowns and there was no resources like there are for managing an e-commerce business. Lots of online tools for that. But no one was there around to tell me how to do a vending machine business.

ROB
Right. Talk about the process of really developing your network because that is the foundation that I believe will make you successful if you try to crowd invest. If you’re trying to do a crowd funding raise, you can’t do that unless you have a network of people that believe in you, that are committed to you.

Let’s actually break this up a little bit. So you talked about going to conferences. Specifically, I remember you saying that not only just trying to going to like the biggest conference you can, specifically, go to micro-targeted conferences that deal with your industry and that… -- Yes, go ahead. Talk about why that’s important for your marketing because some people might think, “Okay, I need to go to where all the people are.” But what I’m hearing from you is that that’s not necessarily true.

DAWN
I think you got to do both. You know, I would go to large general conferences like Black Enterprise conference or all the different entrepreneurship summits that were out there, as many as I could to just build a general network.

But then I went to all of the conferences that I was able to go to that were industry-specific. So for example, with the Flat Out, I’ll go to the MAGIC fashion show in Las Vegas -- the biggest fashion conference where all the brands, from large and small go --and you meet buyers and… Just everyone in the industry. So I went to that every year.

Then when it came to tech, specifically for vending, I would go to the NAMA Show, which is National Automated Merchandising Association, the National Retail Federation show. I will go to as many vending IoT, SaaS, things that dealt directly with my industry, not only to learn specialized information in the breakout sessions and things that really will help me grow my business specifically -- not generally but specifically -- but meet people who understand the industry, number 1] to be a potential investor, 2] to be a potential customer and 3] to recruit team members because you want to work with people that understand what you’re doing. So that’s the value of going to these. At the same time, you’re building a wide network.

It never was my intention… Crowdfunding wasn’t a thing but I always knew that I wanted to build a large network, if nothing else, just to keep people informed what I was working on for, like I said, team and customers.

ROB
Yeah. I remember a funny post. When you first came to my mind -- when we interviewed first on Disruption Now podcast. That was a while ago, a year and a half or something -- I remember this one quote from you. You were telling people about how you have to be intentional in networking and someone comes up to you and networks with you in LinkedIn, it says, “Let’s connect,” you ignore them automatically because you know they have no strategy or vision. Talk about what you do--

DAWN
“Let’s deal. Let’s chat. Let’s connect.” Be very specific. “I want to connect with you to discuss the following.” “I came across your profile. I see you have a specialization in vending. I’m really looking for a supplier who can do this. Do you have any insight?” Ask a very direct and specific question.

“Can you mentor me?” Every day, somebody says can I be their mentor and I always say, “Mentorship is a very personal relationship.”

ROB
Yeah. “For what? What am I mentoring you for?”

DAWN
You can’t just somebody randomly to be your mentor. You need to get to know them so you can see if they’re even a good fit. I get all these things all the time and I’m like… You know, networking with intention, being very direct and clear what you want from that person especially if they’re a high profiled person or a very busy person as far as a CEO of something, you have no idea how many messages they get every day.

And I’ll be like, “Little old me, I’m flooded so imagine how many people are messaging people like Daymond John every day.”

ROB
Right.
DAWN
I’ve had several one-on-one sessions with Daymond John myself. And I reached out to him cold. This happened because I was very direct about what I wanted and he definitely respected that.

ROB
So what did you say to him, if you don’t mind? What did you say that got his attention? You came to him cold. What did you say?

DAWN
I read all his books. I cited things from his books and things that I learned from his books and said, “I would love to go deeper into these things with you.” I said, “I read your book, “Display of Power,” where you talked about how you were able to build your supply chain. I’m having challenges with my supply chain. I have these specific questions.”

ROB
You made sure that you understood--

DAWN
First of all, I invested and read his book. Bought it. I read it. I know his story. I know he can help me in this specific way. I’ve googled online, I could not find the answer. I tell people, “If you can find it on Google, don’t ask me. Only ask me things you cannot find on Google.”

ROB
Yep, and there’s a lot you can find on Google.

DAWN
There’s a lot.

ROB
It is.

DAWN
And unless you cannot, which are very journey-specific or specific resources… If you let people know like, “Hey, I’m not just asking you this because I don’t want to do any work. I’ve done the work. I’ve dug in. I’ve read all of your books or all your articles.”

People who get a response from me, they’ll say things like, “I read your Medium post. I’ve seen all this, that’s that, and I still have a few more questions. Can you tell me a little bit more about what was this or that” and I’ll answer.

But once people would message me and say, “Tell me more about what you do in tech. Tell me more. I would love to hear more about your journey,” I was like, “My LinkedIn have about 50 articles for you to hear about my journey. That’s boring. I don’t want to talk about my journey. What do you really want?”

And I’ll say to people, “What do you really want?” I push back. Some people get very offended. Some people will reply.

ROB
Yeah. But you got to know what you want. Dawn, it goes to your point. A few things, 1] you said being intentional. I believe in starting small to grow big. I actually know one of your favorite books is Tim Ferriss from the 4-Hour Workweek.

DAWN
That’s definitely goals.

ROB
Right. But that’s what he does, right? I mean I’ve read a lot of his books and his strategy. Most people don’t understand this. They think you try to appeal to everyone, appeal to every investor; appeal to everyone and find a way to reach the most people. That’s wrong. You figure out a way to reach specific people that are aligned with you that you have a better chance of making a customer, making a mentor and doing that.

And then you were very specific about your strategy. You’ve reached out cold. A lot of people hate reaching out cold if we’re honest. It’s an uncomfortable feeling for many people. It’s not for me.

DAWN
I reached out cold. I don’t even care…

ROB
[Laughter] But that’s how you built your network.

DAWN
…because [if you want to - 16:14] build something and you believe it and you’re passionate about it, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes.

ROB
Yep. I know. I agree. I mean you inspire me--

DAWN
[Crosstalk- 16:23] for my daughter, too. The worst that can happen, they can say “No.”

ROB
Yeah. And maybe you can learn why and get a “Yes” later or get a “Yes” for somebody else. I mean that’s part of it.

So you’ve been intentional about your process in terms of building your network and applying really the fundamentals. You’ve tried to create value before asking for something. You try to learn about the people that you’re trying to reaching out to. You seek to create value. And from that, more value comes towards you. So that’s how you built this network over years and years of being intentional, right?

And then you got to this point where we talked about the 150 then there was another… You had another roadblock, right? You raised money, I think, from venture capital at this point but things were starting to stall.

DAWN
Yeah.

ROB
A million at that point but still ran out of money, right? So you needed to figure out what’s the next way. And then you came on to crowdfunding. Why don’t you tell folks, what do people wrong about crowd investing and… Well actually, script that.

Before we get to that, what are the basics? What are the top three things you need to do to be successful or have a chance of being successful in this crowd investing field right now? What is it that you need to do in order to maximize your chances for success?

DAWN
You need to have a business with a very clear path to profitability, very clear product market fit and know everything about your business -- the ins and outs of your business, the ins and outs of your industry -- and know what you’re building, who you’re targeting and what you’re doing with the money. Know your use of funds. Know why you need to raise money. Know how much money you need to raise. It’s all together, kind of.

Have your due diligence down. Have your business incorporated properly. Have all of your projections proper… Have your business fully set up and ready for due diligence -- the foundation of business.

People think you can get an idea and go crowdfund for it. You cannot crowdfund for an idea. You can crowdfund for a business. Even if the business is pre-revenue, you still have to set it up and have it structured and know who’s going to work with you, who’s on your team.

If you don’t have a team, just you and one other person, at least know who you want to hire, the type of person you want to hire, who you need to hire, what they need to be paid and have a clear understanding of how you’re going to roll out and use this money to build a team and to get a path to profitability.

It’s not easy to crowdfund. It’s not easy to raise money, period.
ROB
No. Raising money is a hard, hard, hard process.

DAWN
Not easy. There’s no easy way. It’s what your temperature is. So for me, I felt more comfortable talking to crowds than sitting in a hundred one-on-one VC meeting. I don’t have the patience for that. That’s not who I am.

For you to understand who you are, if you are not a person that is okay with talking to thousands of people, interacting with people all day long on social media, on email, on your crowdfunding campaign page--

Self-awareness is also on the top three -- knowing what you can handle because it requires a lot of engagement. If you think you can throw a campaign up and it’s going just magically raise money, it’s not. You have to really hit the ground and start working and be out there promoting your business as much as you can constantly.

If that’s not your personality, don’t do it. [Crosstalk - 20:02] accountability there. People are going to ask you everything and you have to be ready to answer full disclosure people’s questions.

ROB
I completely agree. And I’m thinking why we want to help others do this and eventually, do it ourselves, too. But help others because I believe… It’s very similar to running for office. I think I told you that I ran for… actually ran for office twice.

DAWN
Yeah.

ROB
I ran for mayor the city of Cincinnati and I ran for treasurer the state of Ohio. Both times, I outraised my opponents. Things were out of my control in both times. But that process taught me a lot and made this journey almost… -- “Easy” is not the word. It’s prepped me for the journey.

I went through periods where I had to figure out like how I was going to raise the money. I knew a certain amount that I was comfortable raising. I had to figure out to essentially 10X that which I did.

But it happened because, first, I’ve been networking for a long time, building relationships, so people trust what I say. Some don’t even agree with all the things I say but they trust me as a person, as a leader.

So I was able to get investments in terms of investing in my campaign from folks because of that -- because of all the years of building value.
You’ve done the same thing. You’ve started a podcast.

DAWN
I did.

ROB
You do outreach sessions where you… And I’ve listened to you. You answer questions. You help educate people on the process.

So sometimes, people are investing in you more than just your product. I think they’re investing in you because they believe in you.

DAWN
That’s exactly what people… All investors across the board, they invest in you as the leader because you can have a great idea but if you’re not the right person to execute, if they don’t believe you are the one to do it, they’re not going to invest. They’re always investing in you.

ROB
Right.

DAWN
Always.

ROB
I know Max did not have a large social media following but she had a large network from emails and a past network. You already had an email list and you had a pretty good decent social media following, too, right?

DAWN
Yeah. I’ve had a large social media following for years. I mean it’s like serendipity just because of how my career progressed. I started out in event promotions. I maxed out my Facebook friends so many years ago. I already had thousands of people on Facebook. I already had thousands of connections on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter from my previous career of doing events and then Flat Out. So I was very well-known as the CEO of Flat Out. That carried over.

My hack was always… Every time I go to conference, which I went to a ton of them like we talked about, I would get all these business cards and I’m like, “Everybody had a synergy but I don’t know what I could do with these people right now.” I don’t really have anything to do with them.

I have my Evernote, scan their card in, send them an automatic LinkedIn request, put them on my email list and send out… Sometimes, it would be monthly, sometimes it would be quarterly email updates to all these people that met me somewhere, saying, “Hey, this is Dawn. This is what I’m working on. Here are some resources for you. Here’s the ask.” I might ask for advice, ask for a referral but I always kept myself top of mind.

And I was doing this for years before I crowdfunded. I didn’t know what I was going to use it for. I didn’t know that I was going to be able to monetize it. I just knew that I wanted to stay in touch with these people but I didn’t have time to send out emails individually to a thousand-plus people that I’ve met over 10 years at 100 conferences. You know what I mean?

ROB
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It’s funny. Like that was… Entrepreneurship was later for me because I started off… I wanted to be in public service. First of all, I just like people. So having a network when you tell people, “In order to be successful in this--”

In order to be successful in any type of fundraising, let’s be clear, if it’s VC, if it’s your family, your friends, you have to have a relationship. And you have to be in touch oftentimes before you get anything, receive anything, because people I think--

DAWN
Before you need anything.

ROB
Yes. They go to, right, trying to transact, right? And there’s nothing wrong with transactions.

DAWN
Right.

ROB
But if you’re not seeking to actually build the relationship, people can… I believe people can feel it and [sell it - 24:24]. And there are some people that I deal with that I know I have to deal with. And the situation is completely transactional. It’s like, “Okay. I know if I’m working with him, I have to do X and Y and nothing more.”

DAWN
Exactly.

ROB
As soon as the meter goes off, they’re going to stop.

And I know people that I know I get value. You’re one of those people. And we exchange. And I know, at the end of the day, it makes people want to invest in you more. And some won’t. I’ve had people that don’t do that and that’s okay, too. You go into the process just trying to create value and you’ll get more value instead of just seeing it as an immediate transaction.

So I want people to understand that you have built this network and you cannot be successful in crowd investing without having a real following.

DAWN
No. Actually, that’s not exactly true.

ROB
Okay. All right. Please push back. I want to hear.

DAWN
That was my way. I used my network and it allowed me to raise capital without my first tranche which is like segment--

You know, I raised my first, let’s say, $250,000 off my network. But I had to invest in an online ad campaign and a marketing strategy that involved flooding podcasts, blogs and media.

Max can relate to this as well because, as you mentioned, she didn’t have a large social media following. She had a large email list. But she definitely did a lot of online marketing and interviews. I’ve seen Max all over doing interviews.

So you don’t have to have a large audience. But if you don’t, you must invest in spreading your message to build your audience.

ROB
Yeah, you did both.

DAWN
I did both. That’s how I got $2 million. But it comes in the form of Facebook ads and LinkedIn outreach.

ROB
But you can be very specific on that like you said and get to your target audience. So let me just end. I’ll let your finish. What I was trying to say is that others will not invest in you unless somebody has invested in you first, generally.

DAWN
100%. And it really starts with you. Others won’t invest in you if you haven’t invested in you. That’s the first investment. And then two, getting someone else who they feel is credible to validate that.

Also, both Max and I had already raised money from somewhere else. We went through Techstars. We had to raise a million in VC. Max had already raised money, had a product to market generating revenue. That’s how we raised millions.

So bring your expectations around what you are going to raise based on your traction and your current investment status. If you’re a brand new business out the gate with no traction, I haven’t seen it happen yet where someone raised a million with just a beginning business.

ROB
And you might get lucky. But it’s not the model. It’s not going to work [crosstalk - 27:08].

DAWN
Not the model because people want to see a little bit of progress.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
But what I have seen is people raising what would be your seed or your friends and family round, about 250-300 without a product in the market.

ROB
Got it. That’s a good place to start.

DAWN
You always go back and raise more because the legal limit for crowdfunding on under a Reg CF is a $1.07 million of calendar year. So you can raise, let’s say… Okay, you need $200,000. You need $100,000 to get this going. Raise it. Get some traction. Come back. Launch again. You have a million.

So think about it like this: You can raise a million dollars a year using crowdfunding. You can raise a million dollars a year.

ROB
That’s awesome.

DAWN
Yeah.

ROB
But you still got to start with the foundation. You still need a foundational network that will help take you to your next level. You don’t have to have the network that can raise a million dollars for you but you need to be able to show that someone does believe in you for others to believe in you, period, and then seek to add value to everybody that you bring in.

What I also appreciate… I know you’ve invested in a platform where you’re communicating with your investors all the time and I think that’s what--

DAWN
All the time.

ROB
All the time, right…

DAWN
All the time.

ROB
…which is the most work. Talk to me about building your team and how you do that knowing who you are--

What’s the most important aspects that you look for in a co-founder? -- And these are some questions that we ask people. -- Is it the character? Is it the commitment or is it how they have different skill sets that you may or may not have? Which of those are the most important do you think?

DAWN
Missing another one -- “Character, commitment, skill set and culture fit.”

ROB
Okay.

DAWN
So for me, I go “Culture fit.”

ROB
Mm, okay. What do you mean by “Culture fit”?

DAWN
The culture fit, you’re not going to fit in this environment so your skill set doesn’t matter because you don’t fit in. Your character, that could go along with culture fit but it’s still like, “Can you handle the startup environment and then our specific environment?”

So first, it’s culture fit. Do we like each other? Do we vibe as human beings? We’re about to be working real closely?

ROB
Right.

DAWN
Do we vibe as human being? That’s always it. Because they can be a great talented person but if we’re just not connecting somewhere, it’s not going work. So culture fit is first and definitely, skill set is quickly there.

I don’t have a co-founder. I tried it before. It didn’t work. They were fired before the one-year cliff period. I just don’t--

Actually, my whole team, there is not a single person remaining with me from my first team -- not one. They were the team to get started. They were not the team to grow with.

So really understanding the stages of which…”Okay, this person can get me here but how far can they go with me until I’m going to need someone else?

So again, it’s like understanding where you’re able to attract the talent level that you need. Like I said, the person who gets you from zero to one is not always the person who gets you from one to a hundred.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
But zero to one is very difficult.

ROB
Yeah, zero to one is the hardest.

DAWN
That’s the hardest.

ROB
That’s the hardest.

DAWN
So who is the person that gets you there? Again, for me, it wasn’t the same group of people but I definitely value and appreciate those people who got me from zero to one. But they weren’t the team to get us over to the next level.

It’s important for a CEO to understand that -- not get too attached to people as humans and know when it’s time to hire fast and fire fast.

ROB
Yeah. That’s hard to do.

DAWN
It is hard to do because you’re humans and you like people as people. And I struggle with that a lot. And I made a lot of mistakes. I spent a lot more money paying people who did not deserve to be paid anymore. Their time was up but I just felt like, “Oh my god, I don’t want to make them be unemployed.”

So I’ve learned that my responsibility first is to the shareholders in this business. And I have to do everything in the best interest of this business, not my personal feelings.

I always tell my team, “If the best interest of this business ever means me stepping down, I’ll do it” -- ever -- if it means that I no longer serve. That’s how self-aware you have to be, wanting your business to see to the point where you are willing to do whatever it takes including step to the side.

ROB
Yeah. A couple of final questions and I’ll let you go. “Recommended resources for entrepreneurs.” I know you had some websites that you recommend for getting your due diligence together, if you can shout some of those out. And then any advice for… or like general books you think are mandatory for you to understand as you evolve in this process for folks.

DAWN
Yeah, I want to name a couple of things. Y Combinator has an amazing resource of documents you can use for free. Just Google, “Y Combinator Startup Documents” -- a lot of things that can help you alleviate the need to have attorneys draft documents from scratch.

“Due diligence, Data room information,” which you need to have in your checklist is called “Dataroom.net “

Check out my Medium page -- medium.com/@dawndickson. I have tons of resources about crowdfunding. Everything you want to know about crowdfunding is literally on there. You don’t have to ask me any questions. I’ve literally documented it all for you.

And also a book that I love is Venture Deals -- if you are interested in raising money or just understanding how the money works. Everybody automatically just thinks “Venture capital” but probably only 1% of businesses are even a good candidate for venture capital. So understanding your business and what venture capital… what they need and see if it’s a good fit for your business.

I love The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.

ROB
That’s one of my favorite books, too. I love that book.

DAWN
Yeah. Just so you can write really… It really puts things into perspective. Like, “Okay, this can really happen.” And most all things in that book have happened to me. At least I knew that I wasn’t alone.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
I also love the book, which is not a business book but it’s just a book… It’s a book called “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz -- one of my favorite books. It’s just like a philosophy. And the philosophy carries over on into life and business.

And I’m actually reading a book right now called “Measure What Matters” because I’m really learning now, as a leader, how to measure success and keep milestones and benchmarks and have accountability on my team including me. So we’re really putting into place, doubling down on KPIs and OKRs. This really helps you to set these things in place for your business once you have a team so that everybody can be working cohesively.

So those are my recommendations.

ROB
All right. Well Dawn Dickson, thank you for coming to Disruption Now Virtual Summit. We look forward to watching you rise and being in touch in the future.

DAWN
Thanks, Rob.

ROB
Thank you.

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