Mike Spidaliere is a four-time founder currently working on his newest venture, First Time Founder Capital. FTFC was built to be the bridge between founder and funder, offering curated, strategic deal flow to his growing network of active investors while equipping founders with the necessary tools, resources, strategies, and hands-on support to navigate the challenging landscape of early-stage fundraising.

In addition to his role as a fundraising consultant, he dedicates his time to mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs through numerous accelerators such as Techstars and Founder Institute. He also holds advisory board positions at multiple startups.

Key Moments

[00:00:47] Mike is a four-time founder, bridging founders and funders.

[00:03:38] Web CEO to cannabis cafe CEO: big shift, roadblocks.

[00:06:38] Fundraising consulting, connected founder to investor, successful fundraise.

[00:11:11] Phone essential for networking and staying positive.

[00:13:16] Open to chat with founders at any stage.

Find Mike Online

https://first-time-founder-capital.webflow.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelspidaliere

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Transcript (Provided by CastMagic.io)

Seth [00:00:00]:

Entrepreneurs Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, the wins and the fails that we all face being entrepreneurs. How we learn from adversity. Every week, I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneurs Enigma. Let’s get started. Hey, everyone.

Seth [00:00:33]:

Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneurs Enigma podcast. I am your host, as always, Seth. Today. I have a friend of mine, mike Spider. I can’t say his last name. I was going to call him Mike. He can pronounce it for us. It’s, I think Italian.

Seth [00:00:47]:

So go figure. A lot of vowels in so anyhow, Mike is a four time founder currently working on his newest venture, first Time Founder Capital. And what that is be the bridge between the founder and the funder and offering a curated strategic deal flow to his growing network of active investors. So he’s helping the founders connect to the funders. And that can get really tied up in my Philadelphia voice of founders and funders and all that stuff. And he’s been around the block a bunch, and he’s using his knowledge to help people get funded as their founders. So let’s bring him in here and we’ll talk about this past and all that good stuff. Hey, Mike.

Seth [00:01:33]:

Now, how do you say your name? I got it and I lost and I got it and I lost it.

Mike [00:01:38]:

You almost had it. I could hear spidalier now.

Seth [00:01:43]:

I got it perfectly. Go for it.

Mike [00:01:44]:

There we go. You just needed to hear it.

Seth [00:01:47]:

Yeah. I forgot to mention you’re also a mentor for Founders Institute. You’re a techstars mentor.

Mike [00:01:53]:

Yeah, I mentor for Techstars One locally here called See Ahead. I’m going to be mentoring for visible hands coming up as well. I advise a handful of companies and of course, work with a bunch in the first time founder capacity.

Seth [00:02:08]:

That’s awesome. So how did this all get started? Have you ever worked a corporate job in your life? Are you one of those lifetime founders who just kind of started out of college, decided to do its own thing? What’s the origin story of Mike here?

Mike [00:02:21]:

So I did work a corporate sales job at one point while I was working on building my second company. So I’ll get to that. But corporate not my thing. No, definitely not. Definitely not set up for my type of thinking. So I started my first company in college about six months before graduation. Went to school for music on the production side. Ended up creating an entertainment startup.

Mike [00:02:50]:

Difficult industry to get into, but we were a tad early. We were focused on content creators essentially building a one stop shop for all of their needs to build a business off of doing what they love. And we had a whole video side of curated content, so it was a pretty big platform play. We kept that going for about four years. The latter two.

Seth [00:03:16]:

When was this? In the early teens?

Mike [00:03:19]:

Yeah, started in 2014.

Seth [00:03:21]:

Oh wow. So you were a little early. Not terribly. Not terribly early. Not like we had James Green on the show way back when this airs, but he did Netflix for VHS cassettes. Way too early.

Mike [00:03:35]:

Way too early.

Seth [00:03:37]:

Slightly early.

Mike [00:03:38]:

Yeah. We were ten minutes early to the party and decided to leave before the party started. As we were dissolving that company, I was actually working on opening up the first legal cannabis friendly cafe out in Denver. So big shift from web CEO to physical spaces CEO in the cannabis space. Having to deal with local officials, having to deal with real estate agents, sourcing coffee beans, designing a coffee shop. It was a, it was a whole different I was loving mean a lot of the people in Denver very excited about it. As you can imagine. The roadblocks that were put up after that bill was passed, I started working on it right before the bill was actually passed.

Mike [00:04:24]:

I saw that it was on the floor, knew that something was going to come of it. So started building the infrastructure for that. We ended up getting pushed into a position that we would have had to see massive profit per square footage in order for us to be viable. So we ended up back burnering that. Fast forward to the beginning of the pandemic. I was asked to join an impact startup studio based in Denver as well.

Seth [00:04:48]:

Working on bringing together school in Denver, I assume.

Mike [00:04:52]:

No. So I went to school in Florida.

Seth [00:04:54]:

Did you live in Denver?

Mike [00:04:56]:

I lived in Austin for nine months and then got the call from the first CEO that we were starting to gain some traction and all the founders were moving to our plan.

Seth [00:05:06]:

Moved?

Mike [00:05:07]:

Oh yeah. In a second there. I am a big skier and rock climber. So it was a no brainer.

Seth [00:05:14]:

Yeah.

Mike [00:05:15]:

So the startup studio in Denver was bringing together a bunch of entrepreneurs to build companies in industries that were hit hardest by COVID. So think things like food supply chain, all of that. So I ended up meeting my most recent co founder Jason in that studio the first day. He had an idea to bring some hardware and software into food delivery because food delivery was scaling rapidly and food waste was scaling alongside it. So we were working on cutting into some of that waste and making a good profit alongside that. We ran into some trouble a little bit down the line. Unfortunately.

Seth [00:05:57]:

That’s what people have to realize is that there’s nothing wrong with hitting roadblocks. There’s nothing wrong with failing fast or being too early to the party, realizing that you’re too early and trying something different. There’s nothing wrong with any of this. We’re going to take a quick break, hear from our sponsors and get right back to the show.

Mike [00:06:14]:

No, they’ve all been incredible learning experiences, even the hardest ones, right? Even the largest and longest falls still teach you. I started doing some business development consulting after that and focused on things like go to market strategy, helping companies with new revenue stream assessment, sales strategy, audits, all that fun stuff.

Seth [00:06:36]:

So more of a service based business.

Mike [00:06:38]:

Yeah. So slowly stepping into fundraising consulting, started to see the need for that. I ended up connecting a founder to an investor from my past and that investor closed that client’s round. So that sort of gave me an understanding of the need here. So I jumped straight in and that’s where first time founder Capital came in. So as you mentioned, I’m brought in by early stage founders precede to Series A to help build and fortify a strong foundation for their successful fundraise. So think things like helping them determine how much they need to raise their valuation targets, who their ideal investor is, how to build a data room that tells the right story, pitch, deck pitch, all the necessary building blocks to actually get around closed. And alongside that, I’ve been building a network of active investors, having one on one calls with them to dive into their thesis, really understand who they’re looking to invest in typical check size industry.

Seth [00:07:45]:

You’Re a professional connector, essentially is what you are. Professional connector, which is kind of an important thing that I think people overlook is using your network and connecting people and you’re making it into an actual business, which is really cool.

Mike [00:07:58]:

Yeah, it’s fun. So I help companies get to a point where they’re really armed to the teeth for their fundraise and then I connect them with investors that are curated and strategically positioned to help them move forward.

Seth [00:08:12]:

Oh, that’s so awesome. So you said you had a brief stay in corporate and you were made for corporate. What is the best thing about being an entrepreneur in your mind? Because you’ve had the ups, you’ve had the downs, you’ve had the ups again. You’ve had the downs again. What’s the best part about?

Mike [00:08:30]:

I was I was listening to my first million a couple of weeks ago and one of the hosts, John, was talking about how entrepreneurship is like a roller coaster and there are ups and downs and when you get on, you got to understand that there are really high highs and very low lows. The best part. I like the freedom. That’s a big part of it. I’m out here sort of determining my own fate instead of coming in and being forced to sit in an office for 8 hours when I can get the work done in three. So it’s the ability to work like a lion and do fast sprints and really work on anything I want to. I think that’s the biggest part of the freedom that I love is being able to talk to who I want to and build what I want. I learned more in my first startup than I learned throughout high school and college.

Seth [00:09:38]:

Oh, you always right.

Mike [00:09:39]:

Yeah. The constant and consistent learning and having to put out fires by learning something new and progress your business by learning something new and just ingesting all of this data is fascinating to me.

Seth [00:10:00]:

On the flip side, what keeps you up at night being a founder and all this stuff?

Mike [00:10:09]:

With the freedom and the flexibility comes the existential dread that you’re not doing enough. Yeah, right. Yeah. You lay in bed thinking, I should have been doing more, I should have accomplished more. Even even though some days the accomplished list is significant, it doesn’t make the days that aren’t as significant any less in your head when you’re trying to sleep.

Seth [00:10:40]:

Oh, absolutely. I totally sympathize with that. And finally, what is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Mike [00:10:51]:

That’s a good question.

Seth [00:10:52]:

Isn’t that a good one? I love that question.

Mike [00:10:58]:

The most important thing that I carry with me at all times?

Seth [00:11:01]:

Yes. It can be internal, it can be metaphysical, it can go as deep and woo as you want to go. It could be your phone even. I mean, it could be whatever you want.

Mike [00:11:11]:

I mean, the phone is important. I can’t deny that. Having email and LinkedIn in my pocket is definitely necessary. I would say the idea of the positive side of things, right. Even on bad days, thinking about perspective, I would say, is probably the most important thing because I consider some days down days and even on those days I’m talking to some of the greatest investors. The back end, the busy work is potentially going to lead to a founder realizing their dreams, being able to afford to pursue these moonshot ideas that are going to be incredible if they can pull it off. So I think the perspective aspect is very important because it’s very easy to get down in the dumps. It’s easy to build that down part of the roller coaster even more until you’re through the ground.

Mike [00:12:22]:

So perspective is something that I find is very important to stay on that course and actually see those ups again.

Seth [00:12:31]:

I love that. That is so true. And so Mike, where’s your watering hole online? If people want to connect with you, where can they find you? Where do you hang out the most? I mean, some people say Instagram, some people say LinkedIn. I’m assuming LinkedIn.

Mike [00:12:45]:

Yeah, you assume it’s. That’s been a huge tool for me. When I’m not in LinkedIn, I’m in my airtable that I have set up that has all my investors, my clients, all the investor conversations, all of that. So definitely find me on LinkedIn. I can’t imagine there are any Mike Spitoliers out there that are going to take that first spot over me. So it shouldn’t be too hard.

Seth [00:13:11]:

No, I find you every time. I just can’t say your last name. But I can find you every time, though, so that’s a good thing.

Mike [00:13:16]:

It is a good thing. Yeah. I’m always open to chat with founders, regardless of how early the idea is. I still have a few investors on the list that are truly investing in napkin ideas pre revenue, pre traction. So there’s always an opportunity here. But I’m always interested in talking to new founders, helping them figure out how to build the right strategy, get to a point where bringing in someone like me makes sense. And I was always happy to talk to more investors. If you’re looking for curated strategic deal flow, let me know.

Seth [00:13:51]:

Absolutely. So, Mike, this has been so awesome. I’m so glad we got you on. And guess what? We’ll see everyone next time. That was a great show. If you’re enjoying entrepreneurs Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than the Marketing Podcast Network at Marketingpodcasts Network.

Seth [00:14:44]:

Goldstein Gear hopes you have enjoyed this episode. This podcast is one of the many great shows on the MPN Marketing Podcast Network.