O2Founder: Diversifying Risk for Founders and Unlocking Potential
A newsletter for founders & friends
Get a Vetted Community of Fellow Founders Invested in Each Other’s Success
Are you a founder seeking to diversify risk, grow your network, and access a supportive community of like-minded entrepreneurs? O2Founder is a platform designed to help founders like you overcome the challenges of entrepreneurship and build lasting connections with peers who share your drive for success. Below, we’ll highlight the benefits of joining O2F and how our community can help you navigate the entrepreneurial journey. Apply Now
If you’re a founder with a successful exit who has transitioned into angel investing or considering the idea while assisting early-stage entrepreneurs, we welcome you to discover more Here.
Some background
As serial entrepreneurs, we see the pain points everyone feels building in isolation and carrying high financial risk. Our passion for supporting fellow entrepreneurs has driven us to create a new segment in the VC space.
Today’s a big day for us, as we are launching the thing that we’ve been working on since May, called O2Founder.
Inspired by the molecular structure of oxygen, the name O2Founder embodies our mission to build the most aligned Founder-Driven Investment Community Platform for founders of early-stage companies and diversify the risk of entrepreneurship using an equity swap.
How did we decide to start this?
In Search of a Systematic Approach to Reduce Startup Risks and Empower Entrepreneurs
O2F was born from a desire to systematically analyze and address risks faced by founders. As experienced entrepreneurs, we know how difficult it is to predict which of our ventures will succeed. Startups typically require a 5-year commitment to develop an idea, create a product, secure customers, and ideally grow into a prosperous business. Despite the considerable opportunity costs, efforts, and financial investments, over 95% of startups fail.
So, we posed the following questions to ourselves: How can we reduce these risks and provide support to founders? Can founders diversify in the same way investors do?
We all recognize the need for more entrepreneurs, builders, and innovators in the ecosystem.
We drafted a document detailing the concept and target audience and shared the document with approximately 100 friends as tech startup founders, representing $300M in raised capital. Out of those, 50 people signed up, and we conducted meetings, holding 30-minute discovery sessions. Our objective was to verify whether this challenge was real. While we expected skepticism from the network, we found that founders were overwhelmingly receptive to the idea. Most acknowledged the value of financial diversification and being part of a network of fellow founders, even after raising millions of dollars.
Moreover, our conversations highlighted their strong interest in becoming part of a successful community of entrepreneurs and high achievers, allowing founders to gain valuable insights, accelerate their journey, and accomplish critical milestones by being part of that community.
Some of the common challenges founders face while building companies in isolation include,
Building Relationships with Great Entrepreneurs
Getting Access to a Collaborative Network
Emotional Stress and Burnout
Fundraising Challenges
Early Liquidity Access and a Safety Net
With the O2Founders community, we solve all these challenges for our members. We dive into each below.
How O2Founders Works
Building Relationships with Great Entrepreneurs
is crucial for business growth but could be hard to achieve when operating in isolation.
O2F connects you to a curated community of talented operators, founders, and angel investors who work together to generate top-tier returns. Our members access a network of like-minded individuals committed to each other’s success and benefit from the insights, ideas, and introductions they provide.
Our team proactively seeks out prominent founders by tapping into our member network, leveraging founder referrals, engaging with angel groups, utilizing in-house tools, and inbound leads from social media channels.
At O2F, we welcome founders who demonstrate strong growth potential and have achieved initial traction with annual revenues exceeding $50K. You may have raised funds from reputable angels, bootstrapping your business, and have a team of 5 full-time employees. Ideally, our target founders have secured at least $1 million in funding.
When you sign up, our team thoroughly vets your application and conducts interviews to ensure a suitable match. Once accepted into the community, founders are asked to e-sign a Statement of Intent to Participate in the Fund for risk hedging, but it’s not an obligation.
Members are then matched with a mutually established 8-member group for mastermind meetings within a 30-day window. Following this, your peer group meets twice a month, guided by executive coaches.
We closely monitor the progress and success of each batch and continuously refine the format by reviewing and learning from each meeting, ensuring transparent conversations about company performance or fundraising challenges. This hands-on approach helps us shape O2F into a valuable program and build tools for the platform. Founders can switch groups if needed, and their business information is shared with the new peer group.
A great meeting focuses on valuable content, such as a SWOT analysis of each founder’s business, revealing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Members openly discuss their challenges and seek advice from peers. The key is for everyone to share their expertise and experiences to help one another.
In our initial 3-month span, we keep an eye on our founders’ participation, involvement, and input, putting the spotlight on improving our offerings. At the end of the program, if founders are fully engaged, they receive an $800 tuition refund or transition to an equity swap agreement while staying in our community. That’s right the O2F three-month program is FREE when you’re #Involved!
Opting for the equity swap and sticking with the “skin in the game” community leads to the creation of pools. Within these pools, members form a lasting “tribe” that assists in navigating the entrepreneurial journey while reducing risks and mastering the art of angel investing.
Getting Access to a Collaborative Network
Being a Founder is a lonely journey, and you might feel like an outsider in your community. Lacking a support network, founders struggle to gain unbiased and constructive feedback on their ideas and strategies.
Our digital platform allows you to join a curated group of like-minded experienced entrepreneurs, engage in meaningful discussions, and build lasting relationships.
We also plan to host dinners and activities, including boat outings and trips to stunning, lesser-known destinations, to foster friendship and networking among our members.
Being part of the O2F community means you’ll no longer face the challenges of entrepreneurship alone.
Emotional stress and burnout
Building a business can be emotionally taxing, and without a support network, we can feel isolated and overwhelmed, increasing the risk of burnout.
Entrepreneurs often feel pressure to maintain a positive image with investors, customers, and employees, but O2F provides a safe space where we can openly discuss our challenges with peers. In a group, we can be honest about what’s going well and what’s not. It’s like group therapy in a supportive environment, where you can share your experiences and gain valuable insights from others.
Most people overrate the idea of a mentor as if there’s some genius who can solve all their problems. In reality, mentors are overrated, but the support and insights from peers are massively underrated.
Fundraising Challenges: A Problem Worth Solving
Many founders don’t have an extensive network of connections who can provide introductions to desired investors. While we may have a solid contact list, for various reasons, getting warm intros to investors doesn’t result in fruitful discussions, such as:
Introducers are selective and protective of their business network
Lack of motivation from introducers
Limited networks leading to irrelevant investor introductions
Incomplete investor lists sent to potential introducers
Cold outreach to investors is ineffective. Founders need warm introductions from people investors trust, such as current investors, portfolio company founders, or scouts who vet founders before making any introduction.
To assist with this, we’re developing a fundraising tool that simplifies the process for early-stage founders to receive warm introductions to investors. The platform fosters connections between founders, enabling them to ask for a warm intro from peer groups to investors who have already backed them.
Early Liquidity Access and a Safety Net for Founders
Building a new technology company is challenging, and startups are inherently risky, with 75% of venture-backed startups failing. Founders often face the same challenges each time they start a new business.
O2F is designed to help founders diversify the risk of entrepreneurship associated with building a business with uncertain outcomes by spreading financial risk among prominent founders and fostering close collaboration so our community can benefit from collective success.
Our Investment Community allows members to use their illiquid shares to invest in top entrepreneurs, participating in economic success in the same way as venture capital investors. We envision every high-risk, high-growth entrepreneur joining a pool, contributing up to 10% of their vested equity, and benefiting from the long-term financial hedge provided by the pool’s overall performance.
Thus, we are gathering the first group of founders for a three-month program scheduled to begin this coming May. With limited spots available for this cohort, we encourage you to apply and unlock your potential, mitigate risks, and join a vibrant community of fellow founders who share your vision.
That’s all for today. If you liked our announcement, feel free to share it with a friend or two. We’ll be back soon with more updates and fascinating nuggets from our journey.
If you know someone who is a startup founder or angel investor, please take a moment to like & share this with them 🙌🏻