The Pursuit of Scrappiness #50 The hidden side of fundraising, how to succeed as a young founder in an old industry, routines for wellbeing and value of mentorships with Martin Vares (Fractory)
Martin Vares is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fractory - a smart marketplace for metal fabrication. Martin is a mechanical engineer by training and has turned his passion for engineering and saving time on admin tasks into a thriving business.
In this episode we talk about Fractory and how hard it is to enter such an old and complicated industry as manufacturing. We also talk about relentless fundraising and more importantly getting your life balance back after intensive periods of work. Finally, we explore the value of mentoring.
The topics covered in this episode with Timestamps
[03:10] - INTRODUCTION AND THE ORIGINS OF FRACTORY
- Turning a passion for engineering into relevant education
- Spending too much time on admin tasks as engineer
- Turning this pain point into a business
- The business model of Fractory
[08:30] - LAUNCHING A BUSINESS IN A VERY OLD AND COMPLICATED INDUSTRY
- Acknowledging the complexities of the industry
- Easier to go from engineering to anything else rather than vice versa
- Building a “smart marketplace”
- Acquiring customers with digital marketing
[11:50] - GEOGRAPHICAL ASPECTS OF RUNNING THIS BUSINESS
- Challenges to scaling and localisation
- Doing business in the UK
- Entry barriers
[13:15] - THE FOUNDER JOURNEY - FUNDRAISING
- Fundraising as first-time founders
- Raising series A for almost 2 years during the pandemic
- Raising with a big emphasis on R&D
- Investors with industry experience vs. inexperienced
- Resilience with tiny investor conversion
- Knowing when/how to say no to investors
- Dealing with the self-administered pressure
[22:10] - THE FOUNDER JOURNEY - GETTING LIFE BACK AFTER INTENSE FUNDRAISING
- Project of going back to “normal” life again
- Don’t read notifications if you can’t react on them anyway
- Company’s role in taking care of team’s health
- Specific activities companies can do to promote healthy lifestyle
[33:15] - ON RAPID TEAM GROWTH
- Importance of culture and focusing on it early on
- Hiring for scale
- Balancing values with hard decisions
[37:10] - VALUE OF MENTORING OTHER FOUNDERS/TEAMS
- Trying to be a better mentor than some encountered
- The same as going to a therapist
- Build a network before you can find a mentor
- What makes a good mentor
To reach out to Martin use: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-vares-69332b86/
Website: https://fractory.com/
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Support for this episode comes from Venetor > https://www.venetor.co/
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