Never invest in technology, invest in people.Jeff Carmody
Jeff Carmody is the founder of Agility Capital in Santa Barbara. They focus on making loans to growth companies. Jeff and Mark have been friends for more than 20 years, and this conversation will help you better understand how this type of financing works for your business.
We covered a lot during this interesting discussion:
• What are debt financials?
• How he got his start in the business
• What’s an engineer from the Air Pollution control District doing in finance?
• Studying Geography at uCSB
• Working at Sandhill Capital (recognize that name?)
• Setting up a sister fund for Sandhill in Santa Barbara
• Loved this quote, “I was living in a fur-lined rut.”
• He explains what he means by Connections in the Community and how that’s guided him (and should guide you as well.)
• What’re his criteria for working with a company and giving them funding?
– Is there a business?
– Who’s running the business
– What’s the ecosystem look like for the business
– How is Agility going to get paid back
• Great discussion about Guy Kawasaki’s 10, 20, 30 rule for Powerpoint
• Pecha Kucha (Mark chimed in on this one)
• Good questions you should ask yourself, How big is your market? And do you really need outside money?
• He’s got some great tips on how you select a service provider (Lawyer, CPA, etc.)
• finally, Venture Debt is a thing – this could give you another option you’d not considered