Building a purpose driven venture by Nuha Siddiqui - Quarterly Publication - Ed. 01 - Flipbook - Page 8
Building a purpose driven venture by Nuha Siddiqui
FOUNDERS
BUILDING A PURPOSE DRIVEN
VENTURE AND FINDING THE
RIGHT INVESTORS
BY NUHA SIDDIQUI (CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, ECOPACKERS; NEXT 36, 2018)
especially the ones who are going to be involved
early on. They’re the ones who will support you and
guide you through different fundraising rounds and
then they’ll also be there when you fall. Ideally you
should find investors who are looking at and interested in your growth - as a result, you’ll have a better, long-term relationship. You’ll be able to share
strategies together and really think about what’s
best for the long term growth of your company.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL
IMPACT, PROFITABILITY AND FUNDRAISING
Starting out, we always pitched with “social
venture” as the tagline for our company. But, over
time, we realized that approach puts you into a
bucket. There’s no reason for you to differentiate
between being a social venture and being a venture
- If your venture is fundamentally doing good for
the environment and also making money, there’s no
reason to differentiate. So, over time we changed
our investor and customer pitch strategy - we focused on the product first and the fact that it was
environmentally friendly became a given.
LIVING AND BUILDING OUTSIDE OF CANADA
7
FINDING PRODUCT / MARKET FIT
HOW TO BUILD YOUR TECH AND YOUR BUSINESS
When we came into NEXT, we were creating our
own packaging material to replace styrofoam. But,
when I went out to sell to brands and companies, I
realized that there was no way I could make enough
packaging to solve every plastic problem in the world.
So, we ended up going to Asia to identify what was
really required in the plastic manufacturing industry.
As a result, we came back and changed our business model and our product - to become the input
for plastic manufacturers to enable them to create
any single use plastics in a 100 percent compostable
way. When we came back and shifted our product focus, we raised our first pre-seed round in June and
then we ended up raising another seed round two
months later.
We started Ecopackers in university as a research
project that took us two years to develop. We didn’t
actually think about the business side of things until
NEXT, where we started building our business strategy.. Now we have a good balance, with a lot of focus
on our R&D, but just as much focus on our business
and our partnerships. At one point in your business,
it’s all about your tech and then you need to shift focus to be more strategic in order to grow.
PICKING AN INVESTOR: A MARRIAGE STORY
I would definitely say it’s important, especially
for a lead investor, to have that face to face interaction. You’re pretty much marrying your investors,
For anyone looking to start a business, you
should really reflect on where your customers are.
For us, the plastic manufacturing industry is in Asia
and we needed to go there to validate some baseline unit economics. So don’t be afraid to stay in
Canada if your customers are here and you can validate here. On the flip side, if your customers are
somewhere else then you should be bold enough
to move or test in other markets.
Ideally you
should find
investors who
are looking at
and interested
in your growth.
As a result,
you’ll have
a better,
long-term
relationship.
- Nuha Siddiqui
Co-founder & CEO, Ecopackers;
Next 36, 2018
ADVICE TO HER YOUNGER SELF
I think it’s really important to reflect and think
about your mission as a founder. Your personal
brand is just as important as your company brand.
When I first started out, I don’t think I really paid attention to my personal motivation, how that linked
to my business and how to develop myself as a
founder. Going through Next 36, I found my story.
So I’d say, really reflect on who you want to be as a
founder and how you want to make an impact with
your business.
Toronto-based Ecopackers Inc. uses
the power of plants to create 100% compostable alternatives to traditional plastic
inputs. To date, they have launched pilots
with companies in China and Canada, as
well as raised $4.3M in preseed and seed
financing.
Learn more
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