Keynote
Raising capital without a track record
How a first-time operator becomes fundable — what investors are actually underwriting when there's no history to point at.
The history
Twenty years
of raises
I didn't come up through Wall Street. I came up through operating businesses that had to make payroll, and I learned to raise money because I needed it.
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Before
A motorcycle dealership floor
My first real education came from a mentor on a sales floor, not a classroom. He taught me that every business runs on four variables — cash, people, inventory, and customers. Twenty years later I've never found a fifth.
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2006
The first raise
Started in real estate and raised outside money for the first time. I learned fast that a good deal and a fundable deal are not the same thing.
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2009
Manufacturing, retail, and one bankruptcy
I ran real operating businesses across manufacturing and retail. I exited some of them well. One went through bankruptcy. That one taught me more about capital structure than every deal that worked, and it's the reason I'm careful about the things most people gloss over.
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2014
SIMM Capital
Founded the firm and moved from raising deal by deal to running real structure — institutional discipline applied to private real estate and private equity. Over $400 million under management today, and more than $750 million in deal volume since that first raise in 2006.
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Now
Teaching the system
Published Become Scaleable, built The Capital Stack, and took it to the stage — putting the process in the hands of operators who are standing where I was in 2006.
