Introduction What follows is a public draft of the investment memo that I intend to use for Earnest’s second fund with as few redactions as possible. This is not a invitation to invest; we are currently investing in new companies out of our Fund 1 (now closed) and Earnest Fund 2 does not yet exist. […]
An interesting aspect of running a fund is that I am both raising money from high net worth individuals and institutional investors and speaking to founders who are raising money from investors like me. One upside of that is I get to learn fundraising best practices from smart founders and then test and deploy them […]
I incorporated my first real business entity in 2010. Every part of the process of setting up a business—incorporation, opening a bank account, setting up payroll, etc—was a horrifically inefficient and expensive experience to me. Over the past decade we’ve seen a number of startups emerge to put to modern customer experience, often by using […]
One of our primary areas of focus at Earnest Capital is software as a service built by and for specific industries. We’ve made several investments in the B2B SaaS space and feel it’s a great market that aligns with our model. One of our more recent investment was in Junglebee, software for connecting local tour […]
The theme and purpose of the inaugural Founder Summit is: having the conversations we’re not having. As founders we are fire-hosed with tactical and strategic advice on acquiring customers and building products. We have enough books, blog posts, and podcasts to fill every waking moment with tips for building a company. But there are still […]
At Earnest Capital, we are big fans of platforms that enable entrepreneurs to build profitable, scalable, remote-friendly businesses. MemberSpace enables nutritionists, personal trainers, educators, and entrepreneurs of all kinds to build a membership business on any website. Although the category of enabling members-only sites is not particularly new, we think MemberSpace is unique in a […]
These days it’s common for venture funds to raise an “opportunity fund,” a separate fund that sits alongside the main fund so they can invest more cash the performers in their portfolio. These funds are about opportunities for the fund. I want to talk about opportunities for founders. We are designing the Earnest Opportunity Fund, […]
We have some bittersweet news at Earnest. The inimitable Ben Tossell is going full-time on Makerpad and stepping down from his role running platform at Earnest. Fortunately he’s not leaving us as I’m thrilled to announce Ben and Makerpad will be joining as the latest Earnest portfolio investment ? When Ben came on board last […]
This post will answer some common questions from investors looking to use a SEAL themselves or considering co-investing with us. If you are a founder looking to raise capital you will probably find the main Shared Earnings Agreement page more helpful. Relevant excerpts from our public term sheet are pasted inline but the full document […]
Earnest Capital is proud to back Wholesale Gorilla, which allows any Shopify store to seamlessly serve wholesale customers. Matt and Hallie, from Louisville, Kentucky, founded Wholesale Gorilla in a classic scratch your own itch story. Hallie launched Graymarket Design, a scarf and textile vendor on Shopify. When wholesale buyers started inquiring they found Shopify was not able to […]
