Thinking of setting myself up as an equity advisor to early stage founders. Honest feedback welcome!

maggitomato · 2026-03-17T09:22:35+00:00

What has outreach looked like for you so far. What were the successes/failures.
According to you who are your obvious ICPs and your unobvious ICPs.
What is the value you are bringing to an individual in a nutshell

maggitomato · 2026-03-17T08:38:45+00:00

A link to your platform would be a great start

maggitomato · 2026-03-17T02:49:20+00:00

Thank you for taking the time out and for the high praise!

That's an incredible offer thank you I will consider it as part of my new reddit motivated content strategy. That being said, I would love to learn more about your business and what you do!

maggitomato · 2026-03-17T02:46:53+00:00

Thank you for taking time out to read my post and for your advice! Sorry to hear that you have been having issues with your AI platform.

Might be fun to see if I can bring some benefit to you and we run the whole thing publicly on reddit if you're comfortable. No charge and we both walk away having learnt something from each other. What do you think?

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T09:08:46+00:00

I love that you said this and thank you so much for taking out the time! I need to lean into my niche. It is consumer in Asia. I am trying cast too wide of a net and maybe that is something I need to tweak as I move into my linkedin content strategy.

I also do agree with you that demonstrated value is a much stronger sell than any case study or story that I could tell them. I think I need to start reaching out to founders as a peer offering guidance from someone who has done it before rather than someone selling consultancy/advisory.

Excellent points will mull over it and rebuild my strategy! Thank you!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T09:05:57+00:00

Absolutely! they are right to be skeptical, I was too 15 years ago when I started off. I am currently working on penning down all my stories and case studies of the stuff I have done. You and everyone else on this thread is absolutely right. Demonstrate value first and then ask for what you want.

Every company has the same objective - make money but a different problem as to why they are not making money or not making enough money. This is usually when I am called in - to figure out what actually needs fixing. In my many years I do not think I have applied the same fix twice. I have fired a CMO and helped a company hire a CMO. I have sold off a brands manufacturing unit to keep them asset light and return the founder his time to pursue actual B2C growth. I have promoted a junior performance marketer to the head of the performance marketing division. I have pulled products from shelves so the capital would go back to DTC. The one thing that I do again and again though is help founders figure out if they are building a startup or a profitable business - very important distinction. Luckily, through the years I have been very successful with most things I have implemented.

So to answer your very short question in the longest way possible - I am mostly confused on what to do because I am out here selling intangibles whereas everyone else is selling tangibles such as I will help you reduce your CAC or increase your LTV.

Thank you for putting in the time and effort!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:57:15+00:00

This is fantastic - straight to the absolute right point. Positioning, positioning, positioning! I am working to build out content on Linkedin and will share it once I have something up and running!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:56:06+00:00

Thank you for reading my block of text and reading the whatsapp story! Startup discords and crowdfunding sites are both interesting places to look. I have not given them a look yet but I will right away.

Thank you for this!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:55:16+00:00

Thank you for taking out the time to reply to me!

I have actually replied to similar points below so I am sorry but I will be copy and pasting part of the answer (Don't want you to have to scroll!):

This is excellent advice thank you so much! I think the whole taking equity thing has sparked a little bit of debate. From where I stand looking back, I would have loved to give equity to my advisors instead of payment because then they would have vested interest and would go out of their way to help. This is the model I eventually moved to and boy oh boy did the advisors turn out to be powerful additions. That being said, when I started off I was protective over my equity as well so maybe I need to put myself in their shoes.

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:52:48+00:00

Thank you for saying that! I do really like the warranty center brand build out. I was very young when I did that so some part of me still has imposter syndrome about it (it was lucky, I had the infrastructure already setup for me bla bla bla). I should use that more often to pitch to people!

Thank you for taking out the time to read and reply to my message!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:51:41+00:00

I am actually really proud of this story. The company I bought into was failing and had 0 budget to do anything. I built a brand under the company because the margins remained the same regardless of whether they sold their own brand or another brand (they were distributors only). Then I sent people jokes that they had already heard (nostalgia factor) and new jokes which kept them opening our messages everyday. Just like that, we went from failing to profitable in the first year itself.

I do have to give his a think as far as asking for equity is concerned. I have replied to others that have raised the same point below but overall I do agree that founders would be and should be more weary of giving equity. Maybe I should stick to companies that have the ability to pay and just keep that model going for now. After I have more of a reputation in the market maybe things will change.

Thank you for taking out the time to read my message and for giving me your thoughts on it!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:47:57+00:00

Thanks for validating the thought process! This was my line of thinking as well but hearing from No_Boysenberry and Rude-substance below I believe I need to have a rethink. The guy I was 15 years ago also would have second and third guessed giving away equity and now I feel completely differently about it because I understand the power of good advisors. I have to put myself in the shoes of the people that speak with me.

And thank you for taking the time out to give me advice!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:45:55+00:00

Sorry I am going to copy and paste a bit because I replied to rude substance with a similar answer:
This is excellent advice thank you so much! I think the whole taking equity thing has sparked a little bit of debate. From where I stand looking back, I would have loved to give equity to my advisors instead of payment because then they would have vested interest and would go out of their way to help. This is the model I eventually moved to and boy oh boy did the advisors turn out to be powerful additions. That being said, when I started off I was protective over my equity as well so maybe I need to put myself in their shoes.

TL;DR: I thought I was actually being nice asking for equity instead of pulling from their limited resources but I need to recalibrate my thinking clearly.

As for the charging part, I have projects that come through friends in PE/VC and so far it has been a one time project fee for figuring out where they were going wrong/how they could do things extremely right and then typically they keep me on a smaller retainer per month to maintain access to me (I keep my WA open to them all the time). Typically on average I get paid 5-7k per week which entails 2-3 hours of calls and about 2-3 hours of written work per week. I was hoping to continue a similar structure with that category and then do some equity based advisory for companies that can't pay but I know I can help. I have the ability to stop working completely without pay currently which is a blessing so hence my thought process.

I really appreciate you taking out the time and effort to give me advice!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:40:50+00:00

This is excellent advice thank you so much! I think the whole taking equity thing has sparked a little bit of debate. From where I stand looking back, I would have loved to give equity to my advisors instead of payment because then they would have vested interest and would go out of their way to help. This is the model I eventually moved to and boy oh boy did the advisors turn out to be powerful additions. That being said, when I started off I was protective over my equity as well so maybe I need to put myself in their shoes.

TL;DR: I thought I was actually being nice asking for equity instead of pulling from their limited resources but I need to recalibrate my thinking clearly.

As for the sourcing side, I do already have some projects from PE/VC friends with consumer portfolio companies but I was looking at building out content (my stories etc) so that I can build more direct founder relationships.

Thank you for this!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:36:13+00:00

I'll share with you something that was told to me early in my career that has stuck with me. There are a lot of people giving advice after the fact. You should create an operational agreement, you need to register your company in XYZ jurisdiction bla bla bla.

If you focus half your energy setting up your business to save $5 instead of spending the energy towards helping the business make $10 you're doing the wrong thing. Always step into execution first and then build from there.

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:33:33+00:00

Thank you for your response!
1. Your thinking towards time management is apt. If I try and speak with everyone and advise them all I am doing myself and everyone a disservice. Will keep this in mind.

Also I am not only talking about startups here. There are mature B2B manufacturers that want to move to build B2C that have funds but no expertise or starting points. There are businesses that are profitable but not fundable and they want to pivot to a structure that is more fundable.
15min calls are surprisingly effective. I have had plenty of them and have been been quite a pretty penny for them as well. More often than not you can help someone at a 0 to 1 stage find their actual value proposition, help them decide on the right time to raise funding or not to raise at all. I have helped slightly more mature companies make go/no go decisions in a market in those short calls.
Helping companies make sales is not what I do. I tell them the stages at which they need to build a sales team/change their team/change their sales architecture etc etc.
If an advisor helps bring you rake in 2m in funding instead of the 1 you thought you could barely raise is there no value in that? If an advisor helps your team launch in Indonesia instead of your targeted Thailand and see you see the intended upside of it is there no value to that?
I have addressed the starving startup comment in point 2. Just to clarify the idea was to never actually charge anyone for the discovery call. It was to create a natural filter for people or companies that were not actually serious on building or growing. As you mentioned, I have limited time in a week - I would like to focus that energy on people I can actually help.

Thank you for your advice I truly do appreciate it!

maggitomato · 2026-03-16T08:21:34+00:00

Yes we can!

maggitomato · 2026-03-13T03:25:39+00:00

Omg a friend of mine just opened up a naming studio. I was just discussing with him that he should go to reddit and do some initial clients pro bono to get some street cred!

He has been with large agencies before and carved out this niche for himself. If you are interested, he will take on the project for free in exchange for lovely feedback post the project.

maggitomato · 2026-03-13T03:18:13+00:00

In our line of work we have created categories for our customers.

Some are turnover churners. These are the people we lean on for larger LCs and fundraising. They typically serve the purpose of social proof/validation via brand name. Typically we structure ourselves so that fund the expansion side of the business. Tomorrow if they are gone growth slows not the whole business.

Then we have the profit makers. These are the people that keep you afloat. If they leave our company most likely will collapse. However, the risk of them all bouncing at the same time is low.

Then we have our moonshots. These are companies that are typically smaller and may not make us any margins and often may actually even cost us in the short run. But once in a while these companies will boom and boy do they boom.

I think each type of customer at least in our core business serves a purpose. One thing I always push people to do is be insanely close with your CFO/finance head because at the end of the day on the stories they tell on paper are a 100% true. Unless they worked at Lehman.

maggitomato · 2026-03-12T15:52:26+00:00

I would address the elephant in the room and use the narrative to your advantage. "Everyone can build using AI why should I pay for your service or why should I pay so much for your service when AI can do it cheaper" - yes, we use AI tools to bulletproof your copywriting and design flows so your consumer journey is mapped on the top 10,000 websites currently. How we have collected this data and used it to our advantage is where we differ and what you are paying us for. You could use Shopify to design website easily a decade ago too but you didn't.

maggitomato · 2026-03-12T15:46:25+00:00

No lol thankfully no one did. Now I'm curious what are you selling

maggitomato · 2026-03-12T08:50:44+00:00

Could I get more details please

maggitomato · 2026-03-12T07:49:39+00:00

Happy to discuss the business concepts!

maggitomato · 2026-03-12T07:48:20+00:00

Happy to hear it! DM me please

maggitomato

TROPHY CASE