Ep162 - Dan Peters (Managing Director - Clearco Australia) on partnerships, benchmarks & data driven capital
Recently, I sat down with Dan Peters, the Managing Director of Clearco Australia for The Startup Playbook Podcast.
Clearco is the world’s largest Ecommerce investor, providing revenue based financing options for Ecommerce businesses.
Not only are they a pioneer in this space, but through their data driven approach to investing capital, they invest in 8x as many female founders as traditional VC funds and up to 25x as many founders who identify as POC.
In this episode not only do we talk about the process behind how Clearco makes investment decisions, but we also dive deep into Dan’s background and lessons as a founder and experienced operator.
He initially founded, grew and sold LegalTech startup, Cleardocs, in the early 2000s as well as most recently being the co-founder of white label BNPL platform, Limepay.
Here’s a little preview of some of the topics we discussed;
1. The benefits of launching in “white space”
2. Whether working in a constrained environment (i.e. less capital) is beneficial or hinders startups
3. The key ingredient in successful partnerships
4. Building effective and high performing teams
5. Clearco’s data driven approach to investment
& much more!
You can find the full interview on all of your favourite podcasting apps!
Timestamps
3:15: Dan’s background
5:24: lessons from early days at Google
8:28: how to navigate and negotiate for effective partnerships
11:45: How to gauge interest and make partnerships effective once active
15:14: Dan’s experience as a founder
27:58: Whether the constraints in the funding environment in early 00s was a benefit or a hindrance
30:12: What is clearCO?
34:51: How ClearCo makes investment decisions
38:10: Key metrics ClearCo looks for
40:45: How ClearCo helps companies that aren’t performing to benchmark performances
44:42: How to build high performing teams
50:46: Effective hiring processes from his time at Google
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Our partners
A big thank you to our partners for this episode.
Lawpath
Lawpath’s Legal Advice Plan gives you access to lawyers on demand for one low monthly fee. Create legal documents, sign online and have a lawyer on-call to help you through any legal need for a fraction of the cost. Lawpath has helped Australian businesses save over $100 million in legal fees, and are offering Startup Playbook listeners up to 20% off their most popular legal plans. Visit lawpath.com/playbook for your exclusive discount and discover an easier way to get your legals sorted.
Scendar
We’re Scendar, an accounting and advisory practice better described as Finance as a Service (FaaS). We’re focused on founders, funders and startups. Clients that are ever-changing and adapting. We like fast movers. And as you might have guessed, we’re not your basic accountancy. We can take care of tax and the books whilst building a syndicate fund and a multimillion dollar exit strategy. At Scendar, we’re empowered by our client’s potential. Find out more at Scendar.com
Dovetail Studios
Dovetail Studios operates a venture studio and VC to transform ambitious ideas into unstoppable businesses. On top of being a renowned product development partner for startups like Afterpay, they also operate a VC fund to invest in early-stage companies that go through their venture studio program. So if you’re a non-technical, early-stage founder looking for a talented team to help supercharge your success, check out dovetailstudios.com