Can a Weekend Project Built During the Army Turn into a Sustainable Startup?

Mapme is proof that the next big idea can come from anywhere at anytime. One of the three co-founders of Mapme, Ben Lang, shared this great beginning story with me as we sat down for an interview recently. Here’s how they got started, found investors, and secured funding. How did you get started on this idea? Mapme started as a side project while I was serving in the Israeli army. Originally it was a simple project mapping the Israeli tech scene called, “Mapped,” in Israel. More and more people started using the site to search for jobs and explore the local tech scene. Then, people from around the world started reaching out and asking if I could help them create similar maps. Some wanted to map startups in their own cities. Can you map a vegan restaurant? Yes, we could. How about 3D printers? We found that Mapme worked in all types of places. I realized that there must be a real opportunity here, so we started building out Mapme. How did you approach investors? We approached investors in Israel with Mapped In Israel as a POC, (proof of concept), with a few trials in other verticals. Looking back, I feel we definitely started too early. Although we had the right numbers to show and had a lot of demand, our product and vision were still too under-developed for investors to really be able to understand the concept and get their minds around it. How did you secure the first investor? We had a few commitments from several investors early on. Most of them wanted to provide smaller amounts as part of a larger round - so it took us time to get enough investors to complete the round. What are some key things you had in your pitch deck? The most valuable things we had in our pitch deck included great traction for our proof of concept, which was Mapped In Israel, two co-founders who had more experience with building companies than I had, and a lot of demand for our product. In the pitch deck, we had quantifiable proof that there were hundreds of people and organizations whom were reaching out to us with requests to use our product. How many rejections did you receive from investors? There are always rejections. I’d say close to 20 rejections as we pursued funding from various investors. How did you finally close a round? We found enough investors who were excited about our product and we combined them all together. Instead of getting one main investor, we decided to take advice and investments from a few differing entities. Obtaining funding in this way is definitely more of a headache in terms of closing the round because there is significantly more paperwork. However, there are also benefits, like having access to more connections, and building out your network. What tips do you have for other people who have startups? First, wait as long as you can to raise money. The more you come with, the better position you’ll be in with investors. Holding off gives you more bargaining power, which ensures that you'll have more favorable terms and more control over your product and company in the long run.