Perfectly Mentored with Jason Portnoy EP130: Andrew D’Souza: What Your Online Store Needs To Get Investors
E-commerce is one of the world’s fastest-growing business ventures. To succeed in this space, you need to allot funds for advertising and marketing. But not everyone has that kind of money ready. Lucky for them, Andrew D’Souza is here to help.
Andrew is the CEO and co-founder of ClearCo (formerly known as Clearbanc), the world’s largest e-commerce investor. ClearCo’s mission is to remove the barriers between brilliant ideas and brilliant businesses, and they have raised millions of dollars in venture capital. Andrew is also an adviser and investor to companies such as WealthSimple, Properly, and Tulip Retail.
In this episode of the Perfectly Mentored Podcast, Andrew shares his expertise in e-commerce, providing valuable insights for both aspiring and current e-commerce business owners. He also discusses the factors that come into play when deciding which companies are worth investing in.
Topics Covered:
- How did Andrew D’Souza get started? [1:05]
- What did you learn from McKenzie that you brought to Clearbanc? [3:12]
- What is Clearbanc? [6:15]
- Why do companies come to you for funding? [8:18]
- Is there a niche that’s been working well for you right now? [10:00]
- How should businesses look at ROI? [12:20]
- How much of your revenue are you prepared to spend to acquire more customers? [15:33]
- How do you advise the businesses that work with you about omnichannel? [18:05]
- How is e-commerce looking now? [19:55]
- What’s your advice to the company you funded? [22:27]
- Do you find that most of the funding you provide goes into competing? [24:17]
- What are the biggest e-commerce opportunities right now? [25:30]
- What parameters do you look for as potential success indicators? [26:49]
- When it comes to the VC space, how much is betting on the jockey versus the horse for you? [28:40]
- Are there certain metrics or benchmarks that you look at? [30:33]
- Do you prefer looking at things that you can control instead of things that you can’t? [32:04]
- Do you follow the same decision-making process as loans, or do you take a holistic view of the company’s operations? [32:48]
- What are important things that e-commerce business owners should focus on right now? [35:25]
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