How to Be Your Own VC with James Layfield of Clearfind
published September 15, 2021Episode #226
Today I'm talking to James Layfield (@layfield) a founder who put $3M of his own money into his company Clearfind. I want to find out how he pulled that off and how he's outsmarting the what he calls the "rigged-game" of Venture Capital.
• Check out Clearfind: https://home.clearfind.com/
• Follow James on Twitter: https://twitter.com/layfield
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It's easy to look at the headline of investing the $3M into the business and disregard the gems from this episode.
The ability to actually listen and hear the true painpoint is an invaluable skill to develop (and is one that we technical folks consistently overlook). In this case, the prospect saying "yeah, that thing is great but I need to use what I've got already before I spend even more money" turned out to be gold. Opportunities are oftentimes presented this way.
Most people voice their problems at the root level. It takes practice to get good at finding actual root cause issues (aside: which are generally about people and processes, so should come before building too much product). A good place to start if you're unfamiliar is by asking 5 Whys, a common tool in the Lean/Six Sigma toolbelt.
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