⚔️ Knightley: Increasing Access to Entrepreneurship ⚔️
A write-up on a rad startup and an interview with an even radder founder.
I met Graham Gintz through a Twitter DM group called The 5k Club. He sent me the following short DM:
“Hey man, would love to chat about fundraising if you’re game. What’s your schedule like this week?”
I grabbed a time on his calendar for the next week and promptly forgot all about the call. At 8:34 am, on the morning of our meeting, I received a very polite DM from Graham:
“Good morning sir, we still on for a chat?”
Talk about a patient guy. Anyway, I show up late to the meeting and Graham proceeds to absolutely rock my world as he tells me all about his startup, Knightley. I left the conversation jazzed to tell all of my friends about what an incredible tool Graham is building–that leads us to here.
I’m so excited about what Graham and the crew at Knightley are building that I felt the need to do a write-up on them. I also wanted to give the readers of this newsletter a little glimpse into his brain and offer them the chance to learn directly from him. So, this newsletter is a “two-part-er.” Part One: Why Knightley Rocks, and Part Two: A Chat with the CEO of Knightley, Graham Gintz.
Part One: Why Knightley Rocks
To be totally honest, I had no idea what a data room was when I first started talking to Graham. After a few minutes of confusion, I soon realized what it was–a home for all of your data! Duh. But in more practical terms, here’s how Knightley explains it:
“Plain and simple, a data room is an online location for storing due diligence documents, the important evidence you show to investors to prove you have your sh*t together. Traditionally, this could be a google drive or dropbox folder that accumulates documents as your business grows. Depending on the needs of your business, this could include incorporation documents, property and assets, IP documentation and much more.”
With that understanding, the importance of Knightley began to click for me. The world of startups is starting to (slowly) change. We’re approaching the end of an era where the Stanford-graduate children of rich, white parents were the only people who could start startups. Waves of change are rolling in, making entrepreneurship, and venture capital funding more specifically, more accessible to everyone. We’re seeing data come out that shows that female founders provide better returns than their male counterparts. Regulatory changes have also led to increased access to capital via crowdfunding and more diverse fund managers. The world is changing for the better, and we need tools to help the entrepreneurs of tomorrow capitalize on these changes.
Knightley provides one of those tools.
Starting a company is hard enough when you only have one person to answer to–yourself. It becomes even harder when you have to start attracting, and answering to, investors. For a founder without any background in the world of venture capital, this can be a daunting task. I’ve personally watched a friend traverse down this path recently, and it has been hard for him to understand the many nuances of the industry, especially with all of the unspoken rules and quirks of early-stage investing. It can take years to gain a good understanding of the tech/VC/startup ecosystem.
But with Knightley, you have a guide in that journey. One of the words that Graham used in our interview that has stuck with me is breadcrumbs. Knightley gives you the breadcrumbs that you need to begin building your data room and begin building the foundation of documents that you will need to 1) gain funding and 2) avoid problems in the future.
Here’s a quote from Knightley that really explains the value of these breadcrumbs:
“There’s no one straightforward answer to what documents are absolutely necessary for a data room, as this can vary depending on your specific business and your investors’ needs. But the Knightley data room lays out for you all the documents you could possibly need custom to your specific business, including some that you might not even have thought to include but could be incredibly important down the line as your company grows.”
Knightley also offers entrepreneurs much more than “just” a data room. They also provide tools to help with investor updates, investor billboards, investor access, and traction dashboards. Knightley also boasts a community of entrepreneurs to help you in your journey. It’s a priceless resource for founders everywhere, but especially for first-time founders struggling to learn the ropes.
But, Knightley does have to put a price tag on their product, and the one that they chose is almost alarmingly low. For only $20 per month, you get access to all of Knightley’s tools.
You might be thinking, “Wait, $20 for a fancy version of Google Drive or Dropbox?”
If you think that, it’s because either 1) my writing is so incoherent that you couldn’t follow my thought process, or 2) you really have no idea how much documentation companies need and how difficult it can be for founders to stay on top of all of it.
Knightley is not a glorified Dropbox. It’s a company helping to increase access to entrepreneurship. A company that is helping founders learn how to properly build a data room and develop the, in my own words, “documentational foundation” (Graham, feel free to trademark this one 🤣) necessary to keep their startup running smoothly.
Anyway, Knightley rocks. Your startup will be better off for using it. And if you want to give it a try, you can get your first 30 days free if you use the following code: TRY30.
Now, on to part two!
Part Two: A Chat with the CEO of Knightley, Graham Gintz
Knightley is based in Atlanta; why is Atlanta a great place to build a startup?
With over 225,000 college students in Metro Atlanta, there is a steady flow of young talent that is experimenting more and more with entrepreneurship. Add a huge enterprise customer base and a successful string of VC-backed unicorns (5 new unicorns in 2021 already), and you have the fodder for awesome outcomes.
What problem do you think the world needs more people working on right now?
We need to be exploring more naturally existing food options. There are over 20,000 edible plants that exist naturally on Earth. Over 90% of Human consumption derives from 20 species of plants. Huge opportunity to figure out what we can grow more of that also tastes good and delivers great nutrition.
What’s a mistake you made as a first-time founder that you’ll never make again?
Paying a designer $800 to design my first logo.
5 or 10 years from now, which under the radar startup will be mainstream/huge?
I think my favorite under-the-radar startup is Hermeus. In 5-10 years they’re going to be the future of international business travel and the moat on Mach-5 jets is pretty secure.
How does a founder “hire well”?
A founder is hiring well when money is not a relevant factor in the hiring decision. This means that a talented person is excited to talk to a Hiring Manager / Founder because the brand and opportunity are both things that align with the goals of the potential employee. The early conversations should express expected short-term outcomes as a result of employment, and a clear path to milestoning mutual success in the long run.
What does the future of work look like?
The future of work in itself is the wrong way to be thinking about earning in the future. No way I could keep it to 100 words, but the future of earning is forever different. The jobs that you and I did as kids for allowance are totally different than kids now. This will ripple all the way through, because wealth knowledge is about to rapidly shift ala Wallstreet Bets and the use of platforms like Greenlight Financial. I think the future of work is some relationship between employed W2 and moonlighting solopreneur.
Who is one person that you would invest $100,000 into tomorrow (assuming you had $100k and you had to invest it) without even hearing what their startup was working on?
I first discovered Sam Blond when he was at Rainforest QA, a competitor at the time. I had the pleasure of hearing him give a presentation at HustleCon in Oakland in 2019, and was able to exchange a few DMs. I think his understanding of the selling process combined with his network as the CRO at Brex would make him a powerhouse founder. If I could be the first $100K check for anyone, I think he’d be a brilliant pick.
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I hope you enjoyed this write-up on Knightley and my brief chat with Graham. If you did, please share this with a friend.
You can also let Graham know that you enjoyed it by DM’ing him on Twitter, or signing up for Knightley.
Until next time,
Nate.