Michael Wasserman

I posted a few weeks ago about about the $3.2M we raised last year for Valley 🗻 & how the pre-read deck was atypical, but a strategy that worked well. Since a bunch of people asked for access - thought I’d just share it here. To set the scene - it wasn’t a great time to raise. The air was filled with narratives about how “the good times are over”. Coming off the back of the unprecedented boom in pre-seed and seed funding in 2022 - most investors said they wanted traditional decks, no frills, numbers, market sizes, competitive landscapes, proven GTM motions, etc. Investors wanted the information they would need to make an investment decision inside the pitch deck. Logically this makes sense. But I couldn’t get a first meeting with this approach. After countless rejection emails - I realized that if you structure your pitch deck around getting an investor to an investment decision. The decision you will get is “no”. The goal of your deck is not to inform the investor if they want to invest or not - the only goal of your deck is to get you to a meeting. Optimize for that. No one invests off of a deck. So we re-did the deck to tell a story. People resonate with stories. Investor, founder, accountant, museum curator, bricklayer, every human resonates with a story. Figure out how to tell that in a deck and once you’re in a meeting - convince them that the story is worth a second chapter. I’d send over a comprehensive follow-up with Looms, deck, metrics, financials, etc. after the call.

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There are more m&a and fundraise deals than I have time to write about. That’s a good thing cause it signals… …increasing market activity! Below are 5️⃣ recent capital markets highlights that stand out to me across media, agency, and creator economy… 💸 Alignment Growth invested in Wheelhouse — expect more Wheelhouse-led M&A with this new capital, likely in unscripted content and prod businesses 💸 Milk & Honey Music + Sports + Ventures acquired VMG Sports Representation — another datapoint in consolidation of talent rep co’s 💸 Electrify Video Partners invested in Simple History — bolstering it YouTube-native media brand investment portfolio, and putting its $85M fundraiser from 2023 to work 💸 VidCon is up for sale — I think buyerverse is limited, and the new vidcon is going to (ahem, must) look VERY different 💸 Range Media Partners raised funding from Liberty Global, Wildcat Capital Management — see my LinkedIn post on Monday to learn more — I’m the founder of RockWater Industries. We do m&a and strategy advisory for media, agencies, creator economy. My dm’s are open. …and that’s me below! #media #agency #creatoreconomy

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Dude Perfect raised $100M for global biz expansion. The deal is getting lots of buzz, but our team’s math signals challenges ahead. Let’s break it down… DEAL DETAILS • $100 - 300M growth capital investment • Led by Highmount Capital • Unclear if 100% invested upfront OR draw down of commitment over time • No previous capital raised USE OF FUNDS • Hire mgmt team to expand biz • More live experiences incl int’l tour, consumer products • Grow content formats, frequency, channels, global localization e.g. animation, TV, movies, streaming • Extend brand beyond 5 founders by building talent network • New HQ in Frisco, TX as prod facility and “family-friendly entertainment destination”: – Retail store, podcasts / gaming / fan UGC spaces, trick shot tower, DP museum, mini golf, restaurants – Original plans for 3-story, 30 acre facility est to cost $100M+, 2 yrs to build COMPANY OVERVIEW: Dude Perfect • Digital-native comedy and sports media brand • Faith-based mission: “We’re about giving back, spreading joy and glorifying Jesus Christ”  • Other YouTube franchises: “Stereotypes,” “Overtime”, “Bucket List”  • Media brand also incl books, mobile games, board games and toys, and merch / retail / food and beverage partnerships • 25 current team members PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS • 60M YouTube Followers, 17B views • Est 2024 revenue: $50M per DP • Est 2023 and 2022 revenue: $25M and $20M per WSJ  • Consumer product partnerships incl Nerf toy line, Columbia Sportswear • Partnered with A Parent Media co to launch a streaming service • ESPN “30 for 30” doc premiering at Dallas Int’l film festival • TV series on CMT in 2016, later aired on Nickelodeon • Alternate broadcasts for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football • 4 live nationwide tours as of 2023 ORIGIN STORY • Founded 2009 by 5 friends at Texas A&M • Cofounders = twins Coby Cotton and Cory Cotton, Tyler Toney, Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert • Started as YT channel featuring trick shot videos INVESTOR OVERVIEW: Highmount Capital • Growth stage and middle mkt PE fund for tech, media, healthcare • Founded in 2023 by jason illian and David Hawkins • 4 team members on website + advisor • 3 team members have faith-based ties per bios • No other investments listed on website other than DP My takeaway... I really like and support the trend of increased investment into YouTubers and digital-native media brands. But as I wrote about in my 2024 State of Creator x Media capital markets reports (will link them below), investment must match market and opportunity size. To ensure good ROI, and to set good precedent for future investment into our space. The DP bet is exciting, but could be overly optimistic based on our prelim math. My colleague Michael Booth's post breaks the math down (link below). More analysis to come in my Friday newsletter. —- I’m the founder of RockWater Industries. We do m&a and strategy advisory for media, agencies, and creator economy. My dm’s are open. #media #agency #creatoreconomy

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I’m seeing more partial “Venture Studios.“ Should they be considered studios or something else? What do I mean? I’m seeing groups that apply some of the core studio elements 1) a repeatable playbook, 2) playing a (late) cofounder role, 3) making a capital or sweat equity investment, and 4) have a degree of decision control over their area. A few examples: A group that builds your sales and support operations groups once you have a product and have raised a Seed round. They support through the next round and fully setup your own sales and support operations teams, playbooks, training, etc. They make a small investment for a preferred stake and earn a common stake through their sweat equity. They own the success of these areas of the company and provide guidance on broader company challenges. A group that offers product management, design, and development from as early as idea stage. They play a core role in customer discovery and own product design and software development. The team they build your product with may fully transition to the company along with a full operations playbook and they help find and train the leaders than will replace them. They make no capital investment, but do not charge for their support, rather earning sweat equity. A group that builds your marketing team, delivering, marketing, branding, PR, and social influence for the company. They own creating the full marketing strategy, devising branding, building influence to drive sales and building a team for the company to continue with post-engagement. They don’t invest money, just provide everything for zero cost. They are not agencies. They don’t follow the direction of the company blindly, having a degree of control over their area of expertise. They own success, lead their areas, and integrate with the full company. In many ways they act like the CxO and team. They could displace the need for a founder. Their equity stakes look more in line with an accelerator and are often structured as fees treated as convertible investment, often with a cap. They are not full studios. They are either designed from the ground up with this singular focus or are a transition from a traditional agency to a full studio model. So the question is: Are they studios? If so, do we call them Venture Developers? Venture Operators? Fractional Studios? Let me know in the comments. I am VERY curious to hear the community’s thoughts on this.

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Ritual may be a 9 figure business and may be a leading prenatal in the US, but we’ve only just scratched the surface. I started Ritual when I was 4 months pregnant and couldn’t find a prenatal I could trust. So I made one - then I built that trust. Trust is the main pillar of what makes this company successful and it’s the main driver as we grow. On this week’s episode of Fitt Insider I talk with Joe Vennare about how Ritual has used trust to build a top performing DTC women’s health company into an omni-channel winner, on it’s way to becoming a household name. Trust isn’t one-sided. With trust comes community, and in order to get trust from your community, you have to give it, too. We rely on and trust our community of skeptics to tell us where to go next and what we should deliver to the market - and sometimes the results are surprising. One example of this is our Natal Choline. Our consumers made it clear they had an interest in some form of natal choline, but when we looked at the total addressable market, it was close to nonexistent. It was far from an obvious choice for expansion - so why did we take the risk? Trust. We worked with expert scientists who proved to us that there was a correlation between choline intake in pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and the cognitive growth of their children. We took these findings and agreed unanimously that this was a valuable product, not because of dollars in the market, but because it was a necessary nutrient for our biggest skeptics: mothers. The results were phenomenal… now, less than a year into launch, we are the number one natal choline on the market in several channels - and its performance is exceeding all of our forecasts. Mothers are often the Chief Health Officers of the family. Being a supplement company means that if we want to do well, she has to trust us. Now, 6 years after our first product launch, I am proud to say that we can measure that trust, and we have won it. “Chief Health Officers” across the country are opening their doors to us, and giving us a spot in their family’s medicine cabinet… which gives us the permission to grow further. Ritual’s winning vision is “To be the most trusted platform for women’s health, forming lifelong relationships with her”. The next stage of Ritual is extending that platform - and I can’t wait to show you what we've got up our sleeves. Thanks again to Joe Vennare - check out this week’s episode of Fitt Insider here: https://lnkd.in/g7-wWqz2 #Business #Podcast #Health #BrandTrust #BrandLoyalty #DTC #Supplements

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💰 New grants for founders - shared straight from Mogul Millennial, Inc. funding database! Check out the post below for the latest funding opportunities, and follow Mogul Millennial, Inc. for more content like this! #startup #business #founder #entrepreneur #smallbusiness #blackowned

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Before diving in on how #VentureStudios support founders, I must also answer the question many of you have in your minds right now... "Wtf is a venture studio?" It's a perfectly fair question...the studio trend is still relatively new, and I've come to learn that most studio leaders have to answer frequently. #VentureStudios create companies, playing the role of Co-Founder and actively participating in opportunity identification, strategy development, company formation, product building and testing, fundraising, growth... you name it. To do this, Studios typically maintain a roster of top-notch entrepreneurs, advisors, product managers, marketers, engineers, designers, analysts, lawyers, accountants, and finance experts that can be categorized into a few key buckets: ⚗ Research & Strategy 🛠 Building, Testing, & Scaling 🌎 Ecosystem Development 🤝 Corporate Development 📚 Platform Support I'll go deep on each one in my next few posts. 👀 If this content is at all interesting to you, please stay tuned or drop me a line. Talking about studios is one of my favorite things to do, so don't be shy!

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Conversational podcasts need NOT be boring exchanges and I will die on this hill! Don't believe me? THIS clip here is proof that you can ABSOLUTELY convey the same information with a good story! DISCLAIMER: I worked with Boris Epstein at 1st10 to ideate and produce the #1st10Podcast, and that includes doing guest research and episode prep. One of things I always stress in all my episode prep is that we need to frame questions in a way that it elicit anecdotes instead of information. For instance, when prepping for this episode, a quick look at Andrew's LinkedIn profile revealed that he had had stints at 4 of the 5 FAANG companies as an intern. And that meant there was definitely scope to compare and contrast his experiences. But asking something like "Why is company 1 different than company 2?" would have yielded (slightly opinionated but) pure information as an answer. So, we rephrased the question in the prep document thus: "Andrew, you interned at 3 of the 5 FAANG companies while still in college - Amazon, Google, and Facebook, with a brief stint at Microsoft as well. Talk us through how you ended up getting your first full-time job at Facebook?" This instantly puts the guest in anecdote-mode because we are now asking him to tell us the STORY of him landing the job with Facebook! Every one loves telling stories, don't they? The icing on the cake was that Andrew turned out to be such a natural storyteller! 😊 --- PS: Now I'm thinking I should putting together a list of 'advice' for how to be a great GUEST on podcasts. Yeah, GUEST! Because there is enough material out there about how to be a great podcast HOST but very little on how to be a great GUEST... And, IMHO, a good podcast episode requires both to be at the top of their storytelling game... 🎯 The only question is how should I format it - text (like this) or an image carousel? Drop a comment or something?!

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Yesterday was World Earth Day and we at Acast announced that we'd reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 72% year-on-year. In 2022, we discovered that the largest contributors to Acast's total emissions came from: -Indirect cloud based emissions from the streaming of podcasts -Business travel by employees And so over the last year, we've run the following initiatives to help reduce our emissions: 💚 Our brilliant engineering team recognised that we could change the physical presence of our Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers and relocated Acast's servers to only within the EU and US, where access to renewable energy sources is greater. 💚 Acast's emissions from third party servers for 2023 are now one fifth of what they were in 2022. 💚 We also had a continued focus internally of keeping business travel to a minimum, and made a blanket rule globally of only travelling when essential. 💚 This has resulted in a 75% reduction from our business travel emissions from 2022 to 2023.We are all incredibly proud of the progress we've made, and will continue to work towards reducing our emissions and saving the planet. 🌳   If you'd like to find out more, you can read our Sustainability (ESG) report which is in our Annual Report here: https://lnkd.in/exyXRfS6

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You've heard of video game design jobs, but do you know what a video game producer does? In this episode, Jessica (Jessie) Yee Yee '20 discusses the intricacies of managing large, multi-disciplinary teams in the development of sci-fi action-adventure role-playing games. #CornellEngineering

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