Our speaker series opened tonight with John Loftus, former Gestalt co-founder and Safeguard CTO. John’s rich and storied past served well as an introduction to his topic for the night, "Make It Happen." As both a serial entrepreneur and investor, John used his diverse array of past and current investments in the tech space to share stories with the teams. His detailed presentation identified themes he found very helpful including focus, simplicity, self confidence, and speed; with each accompanied by commentary to put the highlighted points into context. Later in the presentation, John posed the question, “What are the investors going to ask about?” His answer came in to the form of what he calls The 5 M’s: Market (opportunity), Management (Team DNA), Model (Business), Momentum and Moat (Competitive advantage). John spent considerable time walking through these points and then opened up the discussion to questions.
The companies enjoyed John’s straightforward style and delivery, and many stayed after in order to speak with him. We thank John for his time and insight as well as for being our first weekly speaker!
