Imagine sitting down tonight for dinner with different investors to talk about the challenges of your venture.

• What might they want to know?  What would you ask them? What have they learned?  How could they help?
• What are key differences between investors at each stage?  Who is right for me right now?  Am I even ‘investable’?

Now you can. ‘Dinner with Investors’ is the show where you get the answers to all these questions and many more, just as if you were invited to dinner with them personally. It's as a weekly 'fly-on-the-wall' video show which explores the thoughts, views & opinions of a spread of active investors, influencers and leaders in the investor space, over a casual dinner conversation. 

Hosted by “That StartUp Guy” Daniel Mumby, each week we'll sit down with different investors that know and care (and put their money where their mouth is) about what's really happening in venture investment. Each episode is 22 minutes of real advice, from real investors, about helping you confront the major challenges of your business, from the perspective of people who've done it before.

Below are 3 highlight reels from the first 2 pilot episodes, to give you a taste of what's to come.

As a founder (15x), mentor & investor myself, I wanted to find a way to get the guidance, advice & support of real investors into the hands of aspiring founders in an entertaining & collaborative way.  Nothing beats video as a way of doing this, but it has to be done in an engaging & compelling format, and I'm not a fan of 'handy-cam' content.

And meeting investors is hard. Unless you are at pitching events every week, it’s difficult to find one to talk with that understands your ‘space’, let alone a spread of them with a range of expertise and portfolios. And if you don’t have a family member or close friend that can give you a personal introduction, getting to sit down with one is almost impossible. And because many investors receive often hundreds of ‘cold’ email approaches each week, that method rarely works either.

It’s not that investors aren’t approachable, but let’s be honest, they are busy working with the startups already in their portfolios, as well as meeting with as many possible investees as time will allow. So for them to attend the many evening startup events, or meeting with every “Tom, Dick & Jane” that asks, whilst still having a semblance of a life, can be an impossible task.

So perhaps we can ‘introduce’ you all in another way.

Not all investors are 'Sharks', but a couple of popular TV shows would lead you to think that the only way to find passionate experienced investors is to get great at pitching your idea (often over a 12-18 month 'roadshow'), and give over the lion's share of your equity for a small amount of investment. And as history has shown us, there are very few success stories from what we've seen on TV to date.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Here are 3 video (excerpts from our 2 pilot episodes) that show you what great investors really think.

For Entrepreneurs, it’s also an opportunity to find out what investors are interested in for their portfolio companies, as well as what they’d like to see more of in startups.

You’ll learn from the best real investors (the ‘equity’ kind) from right across the spectrum of the startup space, including:

• Accelerators
• Mentors & advisors
• Crowd /Grant funders
• Angel Investors, both private & groups
• VC & Corporate VC General Partners
• Private equity & Family office Investors
• Successful Overseas investors

And the good news is that (as you've seen from the 3 x 3.30 sec clips) we've already got 2 pilot episodes 'in the can', so you won't have to wait long to see the finished product.

We are looking to create & distribute the next 6-12 episiodes of the show, plus the 2 pilots already shot & edited, whilst we finalise sponsors for the final episodes to make up a 50 episode series.

Though our production values are high (professionally produced, shot, lit & edited), our production costs are ridiculously low, because we are using a 'lean production' method, without all the usual studio or production overhead. The first 2 pilot episodes cost us $5000 each to shoot, edit & produce. So with a little overhead for marketing & distribution, and delaying some other costs,  we should be able to get each of the next dozen episodes out for about $5000 each. 

And because we've been already talking with some people that are intersted in supporting the series, by the time the that money kicks in, we'll be able to guarantee that you'll have access to one continous series, and all the inspiring content & insights that comes from them.

By supporting this project, you'll guarantee getting 5 times the outcome - now that's what I call 'bang for your buck'. 

• For every $5000 over our target, we'll ensure that another episode gets shot, edited and released (whether sponsors come on board or not). 
• The content is designed to give you an 'inside edge', no matter whether you are a founder, mentor or investor.
• Each of the rewards are designed to help you on your startup journey, no matter where or who you are.
• Any support of $100 or above will get an onscreen credit.
• And what really inspires us, (and we hope, you too), is that this will form the basis for producing our next 4 other video formats - each one uniquely different - but with the same focus on high quality, inspiring and relevant content for the entire startup ecosystem. 

And they'll all be created and shared (obviously you'll get 'first look') within 12 months. 

And if you'd like to know how else we can help you on your startup journey, check out all that is on offer at 'The Starting Block'.

(BTW - the edits on the promos are my own doing, just to keep the costs down until we kick into production)

Building a Media Series is just like building a startup

Part of developing any venture is trying to understand the needs of your audience & how to reach them. You'll often hear me 'rabbiting on' about building a 'Minimum Lovabale product', so that's what we've tried to do here; create something that people can see the value from, which we can grow & scale to a larger audience. 

With the first 2 episodes of the series already shot, we now have 24 more investors already lined up to be on the show (thats enough for 12 more episodes), so it would seem that investors love the though of the show. But will you, the audience, love it? That's the point of the campaign, really. Build somentihing that some one loves, finds valuable & cares enough about, that they to want to share it with their 'tribe'.

Based on feedback from those we showed the first 2 episodes to, over 93% of our frontier audience of investors, mentors, founders and startup supporters said that they would most likely both watch and share more episodes. And I get calls weekly from people asking to get their hands on more episodes, so that's a resounding thumbs up for quality, content & value from our intial audiences.

Given that feedback, and early interest from sponsors, we are confident in being able to fund the series cost. However, it could take another 4-6 months to ensure the funds are in, to even start production. So we need to get more content onto camera, and get that vision to an audience hungry for the content - information that every aspiring founder wants to know (as well as a few investors).

Which means that every backer or supporter that helps us get to air, (our distribution will be free to our audience) will not only get access to some very valuable content, but we are going to make it worth their while, whether you are a mentor, founder, investor or aspiring entrepreneur. We've got training, events and content coming out all over the place, and those that help us, will get a sizable amount of value and help in return. - not inflated value - just good old fashioned advice, guidance and support for those that support us. And every one of our backers will receive a surprise valuable bonus - but I'll keep that one up my sleeve for now.

And to kick things along, we've put a sweetener for a couple of corpororate patrons that have indicated that they might also want to support the show.

So if you like what we've done so far, please do 2 things

1. Back the campaign, for a reward that suits your own startupneeds, and
2. Share the project with your audience or tribe.

And I promise that every one of you will be so delighted, informed and inspired by the value that we'll deliver, that you think it was cheap at twice the price.

"To Your Success"

(From & on behalf of the whole team)

Daniel Mumby, "That StartUp Guy"

Founder/ CEO - StartUp Foundation.