Digital Social Hour
Avoid These Venture Capital Pitfalls: A Founder’s Journey | George Stoitzev DSH #885
13 Nov 2024
Dive into the exhilarating world of venture capital with this episode of the Digital Social Hour featuring Sean Kelly and his guest! Discover the highs and lows of a founder's journey as they navigate the challenging landscape of venture capital. From e-commerce successes to software ventures, this conversation is packed with valuable insights you won't want to miss. Join the conversation as they explore the critical differences between cash flow-based business models and venture-backed approaches. Don't miss out on the exciting discussion of leveraging new opportunities, the power of organic growth, and the importance of building a solid foundation. Tune in now to uncover the secrets behind successful entrepreneurship and how to avoid common pitfalls. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! #dropshipping #shopify #digitalmarketing #makemoneyonline #ecommercebusiness CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:25 - George's Background 05:00 - BetterHelp 08:20 - Buying Generic Programs 12:05 - Top 1% Students Differences 17:29 - Free Consultations 19:34 - Partner Creation Strategies 21:54 - Current Call Availability 25:08 - Income Disparities: 5k vs 200k 28:10 - Path to Billionaire Status 31:13 - George’s 5-Year Plan 32:44 - Impact of Words 34:30 - Consequences of Poor Decisions 41:55 - Religion Discussion 44:56 - George's Perspective on God 49:50 - Booking a Call with George 50:18 - OUTRO APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [email protected] GUEST: George Stoitzev https://www.instagram.com/georgestoitzev/ https://www.redactedstudio.io/ https://www.redactedcapital.com/ www.youtube.com/@GeorgeStoitzev SPONSORS: BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/DSH LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/
Full Episode
My goal is, so for this year, I call it the blossoming, where all these companies begin to take shape and become self-sustaining. Once I feel like all those are self-sustaining now, the bigger you want to go, the deeper your foundation has to be. No one cares about the words you say. They care about who said it. All right, guys. George Stuitzev. Stuitzev, yeah.
Stuitzev. I tried. What is that? A Bulgarian. Bulgarian. Wow. Is that where your family's from? Yeah. Nice. Thanks for coming on, though. We've known each other for, man, what, seven, eight years? Seven, eight years.
I think it was 2018. Yeah, you were doing e-commerce back then. E-commerce back then. Phone charging cases. Yeah. Mainly people know me from e-commerce. Yeah. I started in 2013, was the first time I had a Shopify store and I've done over $15 million in e-commerce sales. And then in 2020, I decided to branch away from e-commerce and dip my hand in software.
So I started a venture-backed software company called Blue Receipt, which was SMS marketing for Shopify brands. That was the first time I raised capital, so we raised $1.5 million of venture-backed capital. But then what I realized was that was a completely different game than a cash flow-based approach.
You see in e-commerce, what you want to do, especially if you're dropshipping, you want to make your money tomorrow. Whereas in the software game, there's these things called payback periods. So imagine a lot of these companies, they'll pay back the money they spent to acquire a customer 15 to 28 months ahead of time. Yeah.
And so you need a lot of that capital to burn to be able to sustain that long-term value of that software product. So what happened was we raised this money. When you raise money, you become almost a glorified employee because now you're not paying yourself out. You're paying yourself out a salary, like a W2 employee. And now you're relegated to this opportunity that you're kind of stuck in.
And what happened was a lot of my competitors, especially in 2020, 2021, raised so much capital. Attentive Mobile, one of the biggest competitors, raised $1 billion. Damn.
in a in a you know essentially a coffin they started giving away 500 gift cards to amazon just to book a demo call with them giving break even pricing because they had all this money they needed to spend clavio raised 400 million postscript raised 250 million emotive raised 50 you had a lot of these other ones raised 10 15 and then some auxiliary competitors like active campaign raised 250. and what i realized was
Fuck. Now I'm in a bad position. I'm in a rock and a hard place where I can't just say, you know what? I don't want to do this business anymore because, remember, I have obligations. I have employees. I've raised this capital. I can't just walk away. But at the same time, I can't just do other businesses to make an additional income, like other ventures, because I feel like I'm committed.
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