DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built

How Shondra Washington helps brands and underrepresented founders raise $100k+ on Clubhouse through live crowdfunding

Episode Summary

Shondra Washington, Co-Founder of TBC-Capital, joins the POD to talk about live crowdfunding and how she’s helping underrepresented founders raise. Shondra co-founded TBC-Capital, an education-first advisory and consulting firm, offering on-demand CFO, business development and strategy services for early-stage companies. Through her efforts her clients have raised over $1.8M in grants and startup capital. She’s currently based in New York and focuses her work in consumer tech, CPG and marketplaces. Stay tuned as Shondra offers some recommendations for crowdfunding, where she thinks live crowdfunding is headed, and how you can take advantage of this new form of funding. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. We Speak About: [01:15] About Shondra and her background [02:20] How Shondra ended up in the startup space [04:20] Shondra’s first take at community building for underrepresented founders [07:20] How Shondra built Pitch Practice on Clubhouse [09:40] Shondra’s plan on growing Pitch Practice and Crowdhouse [11:00] How Shondra’s experience in investment baking has impacted her current role [11:55] What Shondra is trying to accomplish with helping underrepresented founders [15:05] The future of crowdfunding [17:45] Is crowdfunding for every brand? The ingredients for success if you do it [20:15] What you need to do to crowdfund [21:50] Does crowdfunding have more potential than traditional fundraising? [23:45] How crowdfunding impacts revenue and customer growth [25:05] How Shondra helped 18.21 crowdfund over $100k [27:10] Participating in Shondra’s crowdfunding sessions [28:50] What’s next for Shondra?

Episode Notes

1. “One of the reasons why TBC-Capital is education first is because we're trying to democratize all the information that's stuck in these corporate boardrooms.” @shondradanielle #DTCPOD
2. “One of my goals in helping underrepresented founders is to help remove as many barriers as I can.” @shondradanielle #DTCPOD
3. “The whole point of live crowdfunding is really for the people in the audience to be able to democratize the investing process and doing that using crowdfunding.” @shondradanielle #DTCPOD
4. “Crowdfunding isn't just putting your company on to a platform to raise. There is a lot of PR and marketing you need to do in order to make it successful.” @shondradanielle #DTCPOD
5. “Crowdfunding is great because you can turn your customers, the people that love your brand, into investors and align incentives.” @shondradanielle #DTCPOD

We Speak About:

• [01:15] About Shondra and her background
• [02:20] How Shondra ended up in the startup space
• [04:20] Shondra’s first take at community building for underrepresented founders
• [07:20] How Shondra built Pitch Practice on Clubhouse
• [09:40] Shondra’s plan on growing Pitch Practice and Crowdhouse
• [11:00] How Shondra’s experience in investment baking has impacted her current role
• [11:55] What Shondra is trying to accomplish with helping underrepresented founders
• [15:05] The future of crowdfunding
• [17:45] Is crowdfunding for every brand? The ingredients for success if you do it
• [20:15] What you need to do to crowdfund
• [21:50] Does crowdfunding have more potential than traditional fundraising?
• [23:45] How crowdfunding impacts revenue and customer growth
• [25:05] How Shondra helped 18.21 crowdfund over $100k
• [27:10] Participating in Shondra’s crowdfunding sessions
• [28:50] What’s next for Shondra?

How Shondra Washington and Clubhouse are helping to democratize information about investing

Shondra Washington, Co-Founder of TBC-Capital, joins the POD to talk about live crowdfunding and how she’s helping underrepresented founders raise.

Shondra co-founded TBC-Capital, an education-first advisory and consulting firm, offering on-demand CFO, business development and strategy services for early-stage companies. 

Through her efforts her clients have raised over $1.8M in grants and startup capital. She’s currently based in New York and focuses her work in consumer tech, CPG and marketplaces.

Thanks to the rise in social platforms, more founders are able to share and learn about the investing space.

Not knowing investor jargon can put you at a disadvantage the space so Shondra really wants to make sure education in this space is available for all.

Part of doing that is through Shondra’s pitch practice and crowdhouse club on Clubhouse, a new social app that’s audio-only.

Crowdfunding allows founders to get closer to consumers and bring them on as investors.

Crowdfunding isn’t for everybody though

Even though it’s easier than ever to start a crowdfunding campaign, Shondra says that crowdfunding isn’t for everyone.

Crowdfunding is not as simple as launching a campaign on a website. You need to make a strong PR and marketing effort to be successful.

If you are successful though, you can bring in a lot of brand loyalists.

Stay tuned as Shondra offers some recommendations for crowdfunding, where she thinks live crowdfunding is headed, and how you can take advantage of this new form of funding.

If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Mentioned Links:

More about Shondra’s company, TBC-Captial: https://tbc-capital.com/

Connect with Shondra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shondradanielle