How to seal deals and raise money while working remotely

Both 2020 and 2021 have been full of surprises. As a country we’ve lived through the devastating bushfires and, of course, a global pandemic. However, something else came along that took everyone by surprise — the worldwide pivot to doing (and growing) business from our homes. 

As the pandemic spread, founders, CEOs and SMEs moved their organisations online and sent their teams home and onto Zoom. 

This pivot to remote working has become a case of business as usual (kind of) ever since. 

We asked three Australian founders and entrepreneurs what they’d learnt about keeping business moving over the last 18 months.

Justin Wastnage, founder, Vloggi

Justin Wastnage of Sydney video startup Vloggi found that while the team much prefer being in the same space, nothing much has changed in the way they do day-to-day business. 

Justin Wastnage, Vloggi. Source: supplied

But finalising its recent $500,000 raise did come with a few challenges. 

“Investor relations rely on investors getting a sense of the founder, which relies on face-to-face meetings,” says Wastnage. 

“At the start of the pandemic most investors just shut up shop and said they’d wait until it was all over. It meant we had to put a pause on the raise, slim down the team, claim JobKeeper and use the time to rebuild the platform (from a MVP to a robust tech stack) and reposition it from a vertical tool to a horizontal one.” 

Vloggi also had to rework its business plan to move forward during the uncertainty brought on by lockdowns. 

“We had holes in the go-to-market plan, which we had to work hard to plug by making the right hires in growth marketing and UI,” says Wastnage. 

“I’ve spent months working with advisors (unpaid) to create a credible path to $1 million revenue by next year but we had to throw out a lot of assumptions.” 

Striking deals remotely isn’t easy, but it is doable, says Wastnage, using the example of an enterprise deal the company made with a major university in Sydney. 

“Thankfully we were able to go in person to meet the security team, to go through the 100-point data security checklist, but all other meetings over six months were held remotely via Zoom or Microsoft Teams,” he says.

“That small window of opportunity between lockdowns was crucial because our CTO had to map database schema and diagrams out on a whiteboard at the university, which would have been torturous over video conference.”

Wastnage’s five tips for doing business remotely

1. Have a timetable and timeblock your day so you can get everything done.

2. Throw out any assumptions of how a deal might go.

3. Have regular team meetings and one-on-ones with everyone just to keep checking in and communicating. It’s hard to pick up on little nuances as to how people are when you’re on Zoom or Slack, so checking in is important.

4. Pump your money into online marketing. It’s where the leads will come from in lieu of being able to get to trade shows and meeting people.

Pam Yip and Jenny Le, co-founders, Bubble Tea Club

Pam Yip and Jenny Le are no strangers to having to pivot. Bubble Tea Club was born after the co-founders both lost their jobs during Australia’s first lockdown in early 2020. 

Bubble Tea Club co-founders Jenny Le and Pam Yip. Source: supplied.

Since they started, they’ve grown from a team of five to a team of 20, raised $1.1 million through equity crowdfunding and taken the business international — all without being able to leave the country or network face-to-face. 

Yip and Le tell SmartCompany Plus they worked with online platform Birchal on Bubble Tea Club’s raise.

“We were in a Melbourne lockdown at the time, which just gave us more time to work on Birchal after work and in the evenings,” Yips says. 

“Birchal hosted everything online, so [doing it remotely] didn’t affect us. We just got less media, as photographers and videographers couldn’t get content from us.” 

For the team at Bubble Tea Club, the biggest challenge over the last 18 months has been the continued inability to travel. 

With the business getting ready to launch in the US at the end of 2021 and no one being able to get into the country to oversee the process, it’s been difficult to get deals done face-to-face. 

Their solution was to rely on a third-party distributor. 

The same problem applied to a prearranged trip to Taiwan to visit the factories, oversee new contract packing and learn more about bubble tea. Instead, Yip and Le had to find someone else to do the work for them.

“Luckily, we knew someone in Taiwan who has been going to the factories for us, recording everything and sending it back to us to review.”  

When asked how Bubble Tea Club kept deals moving forward during the uncertainty of lockdowns, Yip says it’s been all about learning to compromise. 

“[We] breakdown the task and understand which items can still progress and then find alternatives to solutions, which might mean making compromises,” she says.

“[At this stage] everyone has experienced a lockdown, they know how to pivot and everyone understands that deals are going to take slightly longer to close.” 

Yip and Le have predominantly built Bubble Tea Club remotely and online. So, when asked what they think has taken the place of a good old deal-closing handshake, Yip says that they now send bubble tea to people’s homes. 

“They get to experience making their own bubble tea, and see for themselves why customers love us so much.” 

Yip’s tips for closing deals remotely

1. Find the easiest way to get something done and even if it’s not perfect, do it anyway.

2. Keep things moving and don’t let delays hold you back for too long.

3. Create project timelines and stay on top of them through constant communication with your teams. That way if you can see something is getting stuck, you’ve got a plan in place to progress with another area of the business.

4. If there are restrictions on travelling to meet potential business partners, use third parties to help.

Tate Stubbs, vice president Business Development and Partnerships, HealthMatch

Aussie clinical trials platform HealthMatch has thrived as a remote team, and while Australia battled through various lockdowns, the startup secured $18 million in Series B funding at the end of 2020. 

The round follows a $6 million Series A announced in November 2019.

Like most businesses, HealthMatch had to make the ‘office to home’ pivot last year, something Tate Stubbs, vice president of business development and partnerships, says is now the new normal for its team of 30.

Tate Stubbs, HealthMatch. Source: supplied

For Stubbs, the biggest lesson from having to find new partnerships and continue to grow the business remotely has been to take advantage of the situation. 

“We operate out of Australia but global research and development in clinical trials is a global business,” he says. 

“So rather than being focused on making sure we’re dealing with, and speaking to, people only in Australia we can now have a meeting with someone in Melbourne and then 30 minutes later be talking to someone in Beijing or Washington. There’s incredible efficiency to that and it gives us a key advantage.”

With the pharmaceutical industry already being geared towards virtual communication little changed from a process perspective for the HealthMatch team. Instead the focus has been on relationship development and keeping communication lines clear. 

“As a growing startup we’re very focused on developing real long-lasting relationships with the clinical trial sponsors that we deal with,” Stubbs says.

“From a communication perspective, we’ve focused on how we relay information outside of any meetings we have. We have big in-person meetings either over the phone or on Skype and it’s easy to miss an action [after the] meeting because you’re not getting the typical inputs and cadence from the usual one-on-one interactions.”

With strong expansion happening continuously, Stubbs says its been the growing of the business during a pandemic that’s been more difficult than ‘doing deals’.

“It’s hard to replicate culture when you’re not in the same space,” he says.  

“Things you pick up on really effectively from interpersonal interactions, whether doing a deal or a personal meeting, are easier when you can read the room.

“We’re also onboarding new people all the time, and so working really hard to make sure they have a sense of community and support.”

Stubb’s tips for remote work

1. Check for clarification that you’re answering the question being asked. It’s sometimes harder over video calls to pick up on body language that might let you know something has been misinterpreted or not understood.

2. Remember that you’re not just developing a business relationship but a personal relationship there, too. Everyone is human and if you’re both aligned with your business goals then a deal will get done because there’s a mutual benefit.

3. Focus on the efficiency that video conferencing brings. You can go from a meeting in Australia to a conference call in Beijing or Washington; it’s opened up the world so use that to your advantage.