Kyle
If you’re an angel investor, venture capitalist or have any other kind of hand in investing in startups and early stage companies, than you know that tracking your investments isn’t as easy as you would like it to be. That is until now.
Orange County California based startup PortfolioDashboards offers something that angel investors and VC’s have been longing for. Their problem, was to find a better way to track investments in startup companies and they’ve done it.
PortfolioDashboards was founded by Ancestry.com alumnus Kerry Kane. Kane ran digital marketing at Ancestry.com and has had his hand in many different startup companies. Ancestry.com alumni are starting all kinds of companies. Just over a week ago we interview Jesse Gant, also an ancestry.com alumni who started Recmnd.Me
We got a chance to interview Kane about PortfolioDashboards. Check that interview out, after the break.
PortfolioDashboards is an online portal that provides angel investors and venture capitalists with regular, standardized, and aggregated performance data and reports on their portfolio companies. It initially connects investors with the entrepreneurs running their portfolio companies, and then enables these entrepreneurs to provide the investors with regular visibility into the performance of their company. By performance data, we don’t simply mean the financials (which are obviously included in a report, but also information about trends, marketing efforts, product development, goals, commentary on legal issues, competitive issues, etc.
Who are their founders and what are their backgrounds?
Kerry Kane, see here: www.about.me/kerrykane and http://www.linkedin.com/
in/kerrykane Background is software and Internet. Ran digital marketing at Ancestry.com, plus involved in several startups.
What is the problem that PortfolioDashboards.com solves?
Pretty much every early stage investor will tell you that company reporting is a massive challenge. This is understandable, as the entrepreneurs are busy running the business and often find little time to report performance back to the investors. Yet, obviously the investors need those regular updates to understand what is occurring and if they can provide any help. PortfolioDashboards solves this problem by providing a platform to help the entrepreneur easily deliver regular reports. Not only does The website provide the platform, it reminds the entrepreneur, prompts him on what to say, helps him to understand the topics that investors are most interested in, and makes it an easier and simpler process than opening a blank email and thinking “what should I say”
What’s your secret sauce?
We spent a lot of time on one thing: how do we make the product super easy to use and yet still provide enough data for the investor to find value in it? We tried lots of prototypes, interviewed lots of investors, gathered lots of feedback, and the current product was the result of that work. I won’t say it’s perfect, but the investors that see it love it and the entrpreneurs say it is MUCH easier than sending a spreadsheet with comments.
PortfolioDasboards.com did scale quickly. We got plugged into some international investor networks overseas, primarily in Europe and the middle east. Users in those areas signed up very quickly. We have noticed that the biggest lever we have in scaling is plugging into these networks. We are always in discussions with several networks about partnering with them. Feedback has been that the product is great, easy to use, and that they definitely see it fulfilling their need to get better reporting from their portfolio companies.
Primarily through distribution partnerships. We’re currently in discussions with major angel and investor networks around the globe to become the reporting platform of choice for them. We have been pleasantly surprised at the international interest in PortfolioDashboards.com
The biggest lesson is that building the product is one thing, but distribution is a whole other story. In fact I’d venture to guess that the distribution is probably becoming even more important that the product itself..plenty of people use it, they find value in it, now we just need to get it exposed to a larger number of users.
Continuing product development. Let’s of feedback from users tell us what product enhancements they want next. We will also be spending more time and budget on marketing to angel and investor groups. The ultimate goal is to have sufficient data to sell aggregate reporting on the angel funding industry.
