Sell the story, not the stock!

Speakers

Scott Pantel

Founder / CEO

LSI

Scott Pantel

Founder / CEO

Scott Pantel is CEO of Life Science Intelligence (LSI), a leading medtech-focused market research and advisory firm. Scott is Founder of the Emerging Medtech Summit which brings together the industry’s most prominent investors, innovators and strategics. Scott currently serves as a Board Advisor to a medtech SPAC and several startups. Scott has held executive management roles for top tier information services and market intelligence firms, including Medtech Insight, Elsevier Business Intelligence, and Informa. Scott has a Bachelor of Science in Information and Computer Science from the University of California Irvine.

Andy Angelos

President

Forward Progress

Andy Angelos

President

Andy is a marketer and entrepreneur from Chicago. He is currently President of Forward Progress where he oversees the firm's Investor Acquisition Marketing practice. Prior to Forward Progress, Andy built and sold several marketing and marketing technology firms focused on driving revenue at the intersection of great content and data.

Andrew Corn

CEO

E5A Integrated Marketing

Andrew Corn

CEO

Andrew Corn is the CEO of E5A Integrated Marketing, a systematic, data-driven investor acquisition-focused agency that assists firms with raising assets or capital, engaging in outreach to prospective shareholders or clients, and launching new products. His experience spans several industries, including advertising, marketing, software development and investing. Previously, Andy was the CIO for E5A Funds LLC, a firm specializing in alternative investments and after-tax alpha strategies. He also served as CIO for equities at Beacon Trust Company, CEO of Clear Asset Management, and SVP for Corporate Marketing for TheStreet.com. Prior to that he was EVP Digital for Citigate which purchased his software firm MasterApproach and was the CEO/Head of Strategy for the agency Admaster Communications.

John Hayes

President

Raising Stakes Media

John Hayes

President

Scott Pantel 00:01

All right, well, thanks to everybody for sticking around. And we’re turning to our next part of the program here. So let’s get into it. It’s been a great morning. So far, lots of great information. And I’ll just make a personal comment, the technical and legal and foundational stuff, which is so important. This session really interests me because it’s a discussion with the teams that are out there, raising the capital, doing the marketing, and sharing the story. And so we’re gonna have a deep discussion here today, and we’re gonna try to have a little fun as well. Lively, and we had a prep call yesterday, and I have a feeling that this group can get can make things lively. So let’s have some fun with it. Before we jump into it, I’d like to quickly do intros. So maybe guys, we could start with John, then Andrew Corn, and then Andy Angelos to a pickup so what’s your firm up to and share something you’d like to share? Before we go to question one?

 

John Hayes 01:03

How you doing everybody? John Hayes again, sorry for bothering you twice in a row 15 years in the industry marketing to investors. And, you know, you know, I’d like to say that I’m really excited about the Reg A space and really excited and for this, in particular, because I like to consider ourselves storytellers. And we tell the story of the company and put it out in front of investors and get them to invest.

 

Andrew Corn 01:37

Thanks, John. Hello, everyone. Very happy to be here. And thank you, Scott. And looking forward to this. I’m Andrew Corn, the founder of E5A Integrated Marketing, we are a systematic data-driven investor acquisition firm, we kind of changed the industry from calling it marketing to investor acquisition. I do want to clarify, though, that we do not raise capital, only a broker-dealer does. And what we do is we figure out the audience, we tell the story, we make sure the story is told to that right audience. And then there’s an invest button, they’re supplied by KoreConX or someone like them. And then a broker-dealer takes it from there along with the technology. And, you know, I like to make sure to make those distinctions not only for compliance reasons, but also for expectations. And we’re going to really get into this about who is the right audience and why, no matter how good your story is. So I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been Chief Marketing Officer of two public companies, I’ve gone to agencies, and took ten years off as an equity portfolio manager, where I learned a lot about the data that we use to support Reg A plus deals. And last my firm focuses on very large ones. Our current smallest one is 49 million.

 

Scott Pantel 03:12

Great, thank you, Andrew. Andy, over to you.

 

Andy Angelos 03:16

Thanks, Scott. Andy Angelos president at Forward Progress. We’re a marketing firm, and we help our clients raise capital and also drive revenue. So that’s one of the cool things about the space that sometimes it can be one and the same because we’re going out to a large retail audience. Sometimes those people can be both investors and customers. We take an education-first approach, which means that the story we’re talking about is not just something compelling. It’s also something that’s informative. And it’s going to lead a prospect from seeing an Instagram ad or something like that all the way to being comfortable and having enough trust to make an investment with a an issuer. So I’m excited to answer some questions and talk to this audience.

 

Scott Pantel 04:04

All right, great. So let’s get after it. I’m going to start with you, Andy Angelos, I know you’re working with a couple. You’re currently working with a couple of med-tech companies. And the line item on the agenda was sell the story not to stock. So I’d like to say and this means means something differently to different people. And there’s some things themes that can come out of this discussion. So let’s start at a high level. And we’ll get into the mechanics a little bit later. So Andy, what is sell the story, not the stock mean to you? What are the salient points from that idea?

 

Andy Angelos 04:40

Cool. Yeah. So there’s different types of deals that happen in this space. You know, some of our clients, they offer bonds, where the story there is you’re earning a percentage, you’re earning a yield, but when it’s an equity offering, there’s got to be a much more significant story. So that means that we have to do our best to work with our clients to pull out the salient points, the unique points, and the interesting points and package them in a way that is appealing. It’s something again, I mentioned this just 30 seconds ago, but we’re really fighting for people’s attention and an Instagram feed or Facebook feed or any different channel online. So without a compelling story, without something interesting and unique and well done, we’re not going to have a chance to capture that attention. So we definitely from the med-tech perspective, you know, we’re working with a few companies right now. And that usually incorporates figuring out the genesis of the company, you know, what’s unique? What are their competitive advantages, and then putting together several different media properties to represent that. That could be videos, that could be small image posts, that could be white papers, that could be webinars, but we’re going to put that in as many ways as possible. So there is a comprehensive story that if a prospective investor wants to go deeper, they want to go shallow, they can do so with different types of media that we created for the marketing campaign.

 

Scott Pantel 06:06

Thank you. That’s great. John, you had some interesting observations yesterday about kind of the story of storytelling. Please weigh in for us.

 

John Hayes 06:16

Absolutely. You know, so what my firm does is, first we build a landing page, and then we build this funnel. And our whole premise is to tell a story and get investors interested in the company interested enough for them to sign up and want to get more information? That’s a key. You know, and it can be, you know, compelling information. You know, I have a cannabis company right now that the CEO’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and medicinal marijuana, you know, helped her through some of her times. And that got him involved in medicinal marijuana, and I was the CEO of the company wanting to, to, you know, help other people in that way. That’s a great story. And people want to hear good stories like that. They want to hear things like that. So on the right, there’s a question from John Adamson. Sorry, I’m the [uncertain] here, but it just kind of just, you know, investors are fatigued, you know, they’re hearing, this company is great, this company’s Great, this company is great, which company should they invest in? And the one that catches them is the one that they’re going to be most intrigued by, the ones that are going to ultimately make them do their due diligence and make them say, Okay, I want to learn more about this company. So I’m a big believer in the whole storytelling and, and letting a person know everything about the company. You know, good, bad, indifferent.

 

Scott Pantel 07:54

Okay, that’s great. Thank you. And Andrew Corn, we thought I promised you, you’d go last on this question is tell the story, not the stock. Tell us what that means to you. Tell him to tell.

 

Andrew Corn 08:06

Yeah, so I’m not going to be as controversial on this one as I might be on some of the others. So storytelling is, you know, the core of what marketing and communications are. And, you know, there’s the old expression, it is credited to Einstein, but I don’t believe that he said it. But if you can’t tell a story, simply then you don’t understand it. And no one’s going to invest in something they can’t understand. So there needs to be a layering effect. Getting people’s attention, keeping their interests, drawing them in, and telling the story until we hit. What my firm refers to is that aha moment where I just get what’s going on. And from that moment on, I’m going to say yes, I need to be in on this. Tell me the financial part of it as well. So I know it’s a good investment, not just a great story or something that is exciting. I am personally invested when we talk about investor fatigue. I’ve got about 30 angel investments. And then I’ve got about another 70 Reg A plus or reg CF investments. So people who love to invest in private markets don’t necessarily get fatigued. It’s more about having the right message in front of the right audience at the right time and in the right context. So all those things work together to make it so the story is told, understood, compelling, compelling enough to click that invest button and finish the process.

 

Scott Pantel 09:46

All right, so that’s great. And I’m gonna toss this one out there for the group if anybody wants to jump in. So we’re talking to an we’ve there’s a med-tech audience that we’re talking to today. And there’s this idea we touched on earlier that the solutions You know, med-tech, and health tech innovators are going after they’re there they are, you know, they’re helping people. We have an issuer who’s working on a technology related to heart disease, cardiovascular disease. And so there’s a lot of people around all of us that have gone through heart disease, and so they can potentially relate to what’s going on and rally around the solution. So we’re talking to the med-tech audience, med-tech is an impact investment. Does that weigh in to the storytelling? Is that overblown? Is it important? Would somebody like to comment on that?

 

Andrew Corn 10:38

I’m glad to jump in on that. So impact is super significant to those who it’s super important to, which I kind of said yesterday when we did our prep, there are a certain level of investor were investing with their values and investing with their wallet go hand in hand. And that’s super important to know who that is, who that isn’t, is, and who that isn’t. So that you can target them properly. So a lot of the world, I would say half of the country has no interest in that at all. And half the country does have an interest in it. But having an interest in something and clicking an invest button and filling out the entire form and ACH and your money in is a whole nother story. So I would say it’s part of the story, but it’s not the compelling part of the story. But it is a way of getting interest. And that’s super important. I believe John talked about, you know, an offering page, and then everything he does to get people through. It’s definitely a facet of that, but I don’t think it’s the most important one.

 

John Hayes 11:47

Okay, yeah, you know, what I’m gonna jump in, because I agree wholeheartedly with Andrew on this. You know, it’s the story gets them interested. The story gets them to give us their email address. But we’re, we’re, it’s still an investor, and what the psychology of investor is, is this going to make me more money? And, you know, helping the world is great. But is this gonna make me more money. And as harsh as that is, it sounds, you know, we get them interested in the story, and then convince them that this is a good investment for them, to where they do wire funds, ACH funds, or, you know, I’m going to connect. Now, that big news came out this morning.

 

Andrew Corn 12:38

Yeah, just to underscore that, you know, we do a lot of ESG marketing in the ETF space, which is not the same, of course, as a private investment. But we’ve done healthcare ETFs, as well. So I have a lot of data on that and who owns it, and who has sold it as well, which I think is really important. But it all comes down to also can I make money. So getting my interest in having me come to the Page Three times is very different than clicking the InVEST button and completing the process.

 

Scott Pantel 13:13

Right. So I, so I would like to think that we could maybe do both let’s, let’s make a lot of money. And let’s do good along the way. And so hopefully, that helps in this.

 

Andrew Corn 13:25

When you see the ETF flows, I’m sorry to go back to that. But it is a good analogy. It’s much bigger in Europe than it is in the United States, but it’s coming up quick. And then which is the E S or the G, which is more important to which audience and all that as possible. All data as possible.

 

Scott Pantel 13:46

Okay, I have Andy, unless you have anything to add, I want to go to one more broad question, then we’ll start getting into some of the mechanics, anything that can keep going. Okay. This, this is coming. This question is coming up regularly. Okay. It’s the question on everybody’s mind. The broader market conditions, what we all see going on in the world, what we see going on in our 401 K’s, what we see on the news, how does that how is that impacting a potential Reg A, Reg A offering? Is it positive? Is it negative? Is it virtual? I’d like to have a discussion of this. And so why don’t we let Andy Angelos go first?

 

Andy Angelos 14:23

Cool. Yeah, so from data from our live raises, it does depend on the issuer bar. We’ve definitely seen some success in kind of doubling down with existing investors and had some some windfalls from that recently. So as investors increasingly look for diversification, and they’re already, you know, have a relationship started with a company through regulation and plus, we’ve had success over the past couple of months, and you know, whether it’s a webinar or offering them something exclusive to get them to come back into the funnel and reinvest. So I think that appetite is there for people that are looking for alternatives. They’re seeking different places to put their money for sure. I think that if you’re launching a campaign today, you know, that might be different just because there are different reactions to fear, uncertainty and doubt. I think that makes some people hide for a little while, and that makes other people more aggressive. So I, you know, I still think there’s a market for it. But I do think if you’re launching a campaign today, it’s going to be different conditions. And if you did it, you know, six months ago, when the world was a different place for investors, at least.

 

Scott Pantel 15:39

Anything to add anyone? There’s a there’s been a theme that’s come up in some of discussions that I’ve heard anyway. And that is that money needs a place to go. In fact, Oscar talked about it in his intro. Any additional commentary on this general subject? 

 

Andrew Corn 15:54

Sure. When you look at the last two big market downturns, cash money, sat in cash and on the sideline until the market until they miss most of the upswing. So no doubt that indecision and doing nothing is the easiest thing for investors. But then it all comes down to data and targeting. Are you targeting people who have invested in the private deal before? Or are you looking for people who have never invested in a private deal before who might be interested in this offering because of an affinity. So a lot of those things are in play, whether you’re launching now we’re launching six months ago. And I do want to agree completely with Andy actually, we say every three months, this market has changed since kind of q4 2020 that every quarter has had its own personality and its own video of syncretic. Things about it that has made us shift strategies, mid-core. So you know, there is a ton of money sitting on the sidelines, but it can sit under mattresses. So that’s again, the right message, right place, right audience invest data. 

 

Andy Angelos 17:09

I think that’s the that’s a good point is that when there’s a market shift, or some external force, if you keep your marketing strategy the same, and expect the results to be the same, it’s usually an opportunity for something to go wrong. So I think in the, you know, that’s our job as marketers to recognize what’s happening in the external world and try to take advantage of it and be nimble enough that we only have a year, we only have a finite amount of time. And we’re going to have to change lanes and change course, a number of times during that period. And that could be market conditions, it could be some news event that happens that makes the deal more relevant. There’s all types of opportunities that could shift the strategy and make it so we’re playing a different game at different points in the campaign.

 

Scott Pantel 17:55

Interesting, John, anything to add?

 

John Hayes 17:57

You know, just I’m just gonna, you know, piggyback off what my fellow panelists have said, and that’s investors are still going to invest. Right now, they’re not investing in their usual portfolio. So diversification is key. We’re seeing a great deal of people signing up for these, these, you know, to learn more about these Reg A companies that we’re pushing into them, attaining leads, has become easier. So in that regard, I’d say that the Reg A world is, is pretty good right now. Private companies or good public companies? Tricky.

 

Scott Pantel 18:43

Okay. Well, I can give you a small sample. I know some see a small sample of folks that are pulling money out, as you pointed out, pulling money at traditional investments and taking a closer look at these private investments. So I think we have a question that’s coming up. I’ll read that question. But in parallel, I want to throw out another topic and that is, we talked about this earlier in the call. What are the three of you looking for in an issuer? What are the ingredients for success that you see? And maybe what are some of the what are some of the things that would cause you to take a pass? And whoever wants to jump on that one, and then we can all pile on if interested? Ingredients for Success for a successful raise?

 

Andy Angelos 19:30

Well, I can, I can go first. I think that’s, you know, as the space has evolved, and there’s more opportunity. Obviously, my business has changed as well, but we tend to we’d like to work with people that Andrew mentioned some of them but are doing larger dollar amounts. And they also have a sustainable business already. They’re past the proof of concept. They have some product market fit, and it really is about scale. And the reason for that is because I think that the story is, is easier to sell at that point. So when there is a compelling story to show how a company can go from where they are now to a place where an investor could get a return, that is compelling. It’s easier to build funnels and easier to convert all that good stuff, as opposed to a prototype for a proof of concept. So that said, Not everyone’s at the same stage. So I think the same thing that an investor would look for, we’re also looking for his client, we want to make sure that the we believe in the CEO and the team that are executing on the business side, because obviously, as we go through the campaign, we need to be able to show momentum, we need these traction points to help incentivize people to move in our funnel to move from being, you know, a passive person to active and thinking about the investment. And so we need traction, we need whether that’s more users, whether that’s sales, whether that’s, you know, milestones, new hires, we need the company to be active to so we really go deep into understanding what their growth plans are outside of the capital race. So it’s not all dependent on that. They have to be moving on their own as well. So do that. That’s our part of our due diligence process.

 

John Hayes 21:20

So I actually wrote down a few notes over here, you wanted three, I wrote down three. And the story that fits with the times is great, that helps. You know, and a lot of the med tech companies that they fit, you know, the example you gave with the cardiology and stuff that that all works, because everybody, you know, knows someone with some sort of a heart issue or something like that. So if it fits the times, that’s great, compelling stories, great, realistic expectations. That’s kind of enormous. You know, nobody wants to call out, nobody wants to think their baby’s ugly. And, you know, they everybody, you know, I just built this company. And it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, and we’re gonna do such big, great things, this Reg A should sell itself, and we should be able to raise $75 million in a month and slow it down. You’re up here we need to hear and realistic expectations and a budget. You know, I’ve had companies come to me and say, Okay, we’ve got $10,000, what can you do for us, and I say not much. And over $10,000, I’m gonna get you call it 500 leads, if 10% of those 500 leads come through and invest, you know, the minimum, you know, a $500, you know, now we have an actual math problem. And, you know, the more investors we can put in front of it, the better.

 

Andrew Corn 22:57

Great. So I’m going to have some of the same ones as my fellow panelists, and then a little bit different. We look also at the stage, especially if it’s anything to do with pharmaceutical or FDA approval. Where are you? And what did you do to get to where you are? And what is the probability of you’re getting all the way there? So one of the very first things for us, I’ve been a portfolio manager. I mentioned, I have a lot of these types of investments. Do you have a very good probability of returning capital and a profit to the investors? So why does that matter to a marketer? Call it the stage in my life or stage in my career, but that is the first criteria that we look for. The second is the team. Does the has the team worked together before? Do they have a full team? If not, do they know where they’re going to get the rest of it to the CFO? It’s not just about the science. And also, do they have investor relations, or someone who will speak our language a little bit so we could work with them as well. Next is capital. A Reg A plus is one of the most difficult things anyone can do to raise money doesn’t mean it’s insurmountable. We’re doing lots of them right now. And they’re working. But it is not a simple thing. And it takes some perseverance, and it definitely takes capital. So this is not money of last resort. We need to know that they are for real. And the next is why are they doing it? Could they get institutional money? Why are they not getting institutional money, and then I saved the most important one for last, which is who will really care about this enough and get it and understand it, so that we can do the math. The math is you’re raising 75 million or whatever the number is, what we believe the median investment will be that then equals to five. You divide those two. How many investors will it be? Is there a large enough audience out there that if a tiny percentage of them invest, that we can fill the entire offering? Because if we agree to 75, we don’t want to raise 68. That is not considered success at my shop. And anyway, so all these things have to come together. We’re well known for saying no, but we’d love to say yes. And when we say yes, we’re all in which I know, my co panelists are all in as well. So

 

Scott Pantel 25:35

that’s great. Thank you. I think we have a question from the audience if our host could screenshot that. Okay. Marketing teams to critical set. Anybody want to jump on this one?

 

Andrew Corn 25:54

I’m happy to, you know, the old expression, PPP, PPP, proper planning prevents poor performance, you need to know, and it goes right back to that most important thing that I said is how large a potential audience and then something I said earlier, have they ever invested in a private deal before they this is going to be the very first one they’ve done. And then I’m going to add in many of the deals that we’ve worked on have had an institutional component, sometimes by chance, some times by targeting. Using Scott’s heart deal as an example, we have found that even institutional investors do have a heart. And they may know someone who’s had an unwell heart. So we may end up targeting a group of institutions as well, knowing that the institution may not invest, but maybe they will, as an individual. And then last, there are a lot of mission driven institutional investors out there, endowments and foundations, as if, for instance, parts of family offices where they will be very interested in something that has affected their lives or changed the course of their lives. So it comes down to you have this massive audience because you want to predict fatigue, you don’t want to run into fatigue. Sorry, for such a long answer.

 

Scott Pantel 27:23

Alright, I’ll just make I’ll make an I think that’s a great, great response to it, though the guys want to weigh in. But one of the beauties of the Jobs Act is that we open up the investment pool from a limited number of accredited investors to many, many more investors. And I know one of you guys have to have the number, what’s the ballpark number of accredited investors? Versus unaccredited? Investors in the US? I’m going to put one you guys on the spot.

 

Andrew Corn 27:54

Yeah, accredited is 11 to 12 million.

 

Scott Pantel 27:57

12 million. So I have a feeling the pool of unaccredited is massive compared to that, yes.

 

Andrew Corn 28:04

Put two zeros on it even?

 

Scott Pantel 28:09

I would think so. Okay, somebody got something there? I interrupted. No, okay. Let’s keep moving along. Platforms. There, there are platforms out there. And we’re seeing, I’m seeing an increasing number of self-hosted campaigns. And in fact, some of my data suggests that there’s been a shift from platforms to self-hosted, I’d love some opinions, what are the benefits of listing on a platform versus self-hosted? Who wants to go first?

 

Andy Angelos 28:49

I can start. So there’s a few things, I think the size of the raise has something to do with the consideration if you are going for a smaller amounts. And especially if you’re doing a CF and you don’t want to spend money, the platform does provide some of the infrastructure that you would need just out of the gate, which is great, and makes it faster to get set up faster to start taking investments, all that good stuff. The opposite of that would be that you do lose visibility into some of the data. So to run an effective marketing campaign, we’ve talked about data, understanding the investor, and being able to reverse engineer your audience. So when you’re, you know, you’re missing key parts of that, whether that’s contact information or different steps of the process that an investor might have left in, you are a little bit hindered as a marketer. So if you’re going for a larger amount, and you own all of your data, the chances of success I think, can increase and that would be you know, going you’re up rolling your own path. There is this kind of. I think it’s mostly a myth except for a handful of companies that the network effects of the platform are worth going to the flip platform. In my experience, that happens usually happens to things that would have had network effects anyway. So if you’re a company like Apple, for example, the Elon Musk tweet pushes you over the edge to where you gain that tremendous momentum as the start engine or wherever you’re hosting, that’s probably not going to give you that same push. So it’s typically external events that will give you those windfalls or those things that really create breakthrough campaigns, as opposed to just being on a platform. That’s been my experience. It’s not to say that it doesn’t work. But I think it is a consideration on how much money and how much money you’re trying to raise, and then how much control ultimately you want to have over your campaign.

 

Scott Pantel 30:50

John, Andrew, you want to add anything to that? You’re on mute John.

 

John Hayes 31:02

I always say the best stuff on mute so profound, you know, you guys miss so much. But, you know, I’ve worked with so many different platforms. And I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. And being able to manage your data. And being able to, you know, push this funnel past, just driving traffic to a page is essential because you’re, you know, you’re attaining tangible results with the data, and you’re able to continue a proper marketing campaign. You know, in 2012, when the JOBS Act first passed, I was working for Zacks investment research. And some of you people probably heard of Zacks and lens acts and his infinite wisdom came up with Zach’s Direct and was before the Jobs Act was even passed. But all he wanted to do was get a phone number, give it to a broker. And that was it, there was no marketing plan. So, you know, moving forward now, you know, knowing what I know from the past, seeing what other people have done before me, putting an actual funnel behind it. And driving traffic consistently back to the platform is, you know, it’s a game-changer.

 

Andrew Corn 32:25

All right. So I just want to add a couple of quick things on platform. The big four platforms don’t allow marketing companies to do separate add tags. They don’t provide us data on a real-time basis. And it makes it near impossible for us to really do our job. If you’re working with one of the big four. There are CF platforms that are wide open. My firm doesn’t do CF, but there are CF platforms we’re aware of that are wide open. And then last is kind of their business model. Their business model is they get you to sign up. They get a fee, you bring the first 50 to 100 investors, the only way they can invest is by registering times that by a couple of 1000 offerings and bam, that is that huge number of investors and free registrants that they’re able to advertise continuing their model. And I think that’s all well and good. I just think historically, what we’ve seen Data Wise is that they’re not converting them into other deals at very large percentages. And also, they don’t have the experience raising large doing larger raises, you know, they’ve been mostly in the CIF world. So, and unfortunately, not every race can get an Elon Musk tweet, which I did notice that for Boxful, too. So, you know, that is something that can put things over the edge. But anyway, that’s kind of where my view is on platforms.

 

Scott Pantel 33:56

Okay. All right. Let’s shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about investor incentives. I’ve seen all kinds of investor incentives. I’ve seen, you know, get an autograph with the CEOs. I’ve seen discounted opportunities. And I’d like to get the opinion of the group here on what you think about investor incentives. The easy answer is, if it works, then it was a great idea, but just generally speaking, what are your opinions? Do companies need to be open to it? What’s your experience? And I’d like to start let’s start with John Hayes on this one.

 

John Hayes 34:33

You know, I think, you know, it’s up to the company to really want to push it. I had a company that we were doing a raise for that offered an NFT for, you know, if you did more than $10,000 invested, and it worked, it worked like a charm. I mean, it’s know your audience and know what’s going to you know incentivizes them to want to be involved. And I’ve seen it kind of more toward the close of the raise, when it’s that final push is when something like that really works.

 

Scott Pantel 35:16

Okay, and I just got to note that we got to wrap it up. So I’m going to get into rapid fire Andy Angeles, and then Andrew Corn, please reply that I’m gonna give you one final question. And we’ll be, we’ll be booted out of here.

 

Andy Angelos 35:27

Sure, on the same topic, I think it’s too much information to process feels too much like Kickstarter. But in that end of the campaign, or trying to reach a milestone, or if you’re, you know, upping the share price, if you’re doing a paused up the share price, then you do some kind of special or bonus shares before. Then I think that in those limited situations, the incentive can work best with existing investors or people who already know about the offering, not to a cold audience. I haven’t seen any evidence that because people are getting an NFT, or they’re getting an autograph or a tchotchke, that it makes them more likely to pick one deal over the next.

 

Andrew Corn 36:14

So just quickly, our view is incentives can be good as long as they’re clever. And as long as they’re real and have benefits and they don’t alienate existing investors. All that said, the purpose of it is to create a sense of urgency. If you’re doing something over a 12-month period, a lot of issuers think you raise the same amount every month, the bulk of the money is usually raised towards the end, unless you can create that sense of urgency, using different incentives during the course of the raise. So coming up with them and communicating them well is very important. So that, you know you’re not raising too much at the end.

 

Scott Pantel 36:58

All right. Thank you, gents. Well, we’re up on time. I think we could continue for easily another couple of hours. I want to encourage everybody on this call to reach out to John, Andrew and Andy if they have more questions. Very exciting time for the med-tech industry. Thanks, everybody for being a part of it. And appreciate the wisdom shared here, and I hope that we can support as many companies as possible. And with that, I’m going to turn it back over to our hosts. Thank you

 

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