Have you ever wondered what it takes to transition from a successful corporate career to a vibrant role in the world of angel investing and entrepreneurship? In this episode of "The Angel Next Door Podcast," we look into the captivating journey of Amy Jacobs, who took the bold step to leave the world of corporate banking and immerse herself in the dynamic environment of first, nonprofit organizations and now start-ups. Her story is both inspiring and a testament to the power of following one's passion and continuous learning. Amy Jacobs is no stranger to change. Growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, she journeyed south post-college to Charlotte, where she embarked on a notable career in corporate banking with giants like Bank of America and Ally Bank. However, driven by a yearning to explore new avenues, Amy shifted her focus to the nonprofit sector, taking on pivotal roles within organizations such as the Women's Impact Fund and Share Charlotte. Her dedication eventually led her to the role of Executive Director at Share Charlotte, where she played an instrumental part in linking nonprofits with the wider community through innovative tech solutions. Now, as a relatively new angel investor, she offers her unique insights and experience. Host Marcia Dawood explores Amy's professional evolution, from her tech and nonprofit ventures to her recent foray into angel investing. Amy shares her strategies for navigating the startup landscape, the importance of networking, and the crucial role of understanding both philanthropic and investment communities. This episode is a must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs and potential angel investors alike, offering valuable lessons on risk-taking, community impact, and the boundless opportunities in the startup world.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to transition from a successful corporate career to a vibrant role in the world of angel investing and entrepreneurship? In this episode of "The Angel Next Door Podcast," we look into the captivating journey of Amy Jacobs, who took the bold step to leave the world of corporate banking and immerse herself in the dynamic environment of first, nonprofit organizations and now start-ups. Her story is both inspiring and a testament to the power of following one's passion and continuous learning.
Amy Jacobs is no stranger to change. Growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, she journeyed south post-college to Charlotte, where she embarked on a notable career in corporate banking with giants like Bank of America and Ally Bank. However, driven by a yearning to explore new avenues, Amy shifted her focus to the nonprofit sector, taking on pivotal roles within organizations such as the Women's Impact Fund and Share Charlotte. Her dedication eventually led her to the role of Executive Director at Share Charlotte, where she played an instrumental part in linking nonprofits with the wider community through innovative tech solutions. Now, as a relatively new angel investor, she offers her unique insights and experience.
Host Marcia Dawood explores Amy's professional evolution, from her tech and nonprofit ventures to her recent foray into angel investing. Amy shares her strategies for navigating the startup landscape, the importance of networking, and the crucial role of understanding both philanthropic and investment communities. This episode is a must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs and potential angel investors alike, offering valuable lessons on risk-taking, community impact, and the boundless opportunities in the startup world.
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Marcia Dawood
Welcome to the show.
Amy Jacobs
Thank you, Marcia. I'm so excited to be here.
Marcia Dawood
Great. Well, I'm excited to have you here to tell us a little bit about your background, how you learned about angel investing, and why you wanted to get into angel investing.
Amy Jacobs
Yeah, I'm really excited to share all of the things. I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and went to college in southern Ohio and have. My degree is in management information systems, which is the old school version of computer science, if you remember the Cree computer science degree, and then marketing and sales. So I had a concentration in that as well. And I knew I wanted to move south after graduation for some sunny skies. So I came to Charlotte and started my career in corporate banking, in it and process design and operations and things like that. And so I spent a ton of time in the second largest banking town in the banking sector, working mostly for bank of America, with a hot stint at Ally bank as well, and loved every minute of it. But after about 15 years, just started to feel like there was something else I wanted to do.
Amy Jacobs
And I was really interested in the nonprofit community. And this is 2015, and so I didn't know anybody in the nonprofit community. I had volunteered with a couple of organizations through my church, but I knew that if I was going to make a career jump from corporate to nonprofit, I probably need to know some people and have a better idea of the landscape in the nonprofit community in Charlotte. And so I joined an organization called Women's Impact Fund, which is a collecting, collective giving organization where we pool our resources annually to make five larger grants to nonprofits a year. And I've been a member of that organization for about ten years. And that exposed me to 500 women who were highly connected to the nonprofit sector and also hundreds of nonprofits here in our community. And my eyes were really open as to the particular needs of the Charlotte Mecklenburg area. And then I met Kelly Brooks, who is the founder of an organization called Share Charlotte.
Amy Jacobs
It was essentially a tech startup that was a nonprofit founded in late 2012. I met her in 2015. She said, I'm starting this thing. It's a one stop shop to connect all of the nonprofits in McLemore county on one website. So it's easy for people who want to volunteer, who want to just learn the landscape, navigate the nonprofit community to do so in one place. As you can imagine, Google gives reference to the large nonprofits to the nonprofits. You can pay for space when you Google, how can I help homeless children in Charlotte? And so the idea of the share Charlotte platform was make a level playing field for every nonprofit in Charlotte so that the donor could choose to navigate through the nonprofit organizations for what they cared about specifically, without kind of the noise, right, that Google brings. And so it was a really fun organization.
Amy Jacobs
I was there for almost seven years. I succeeded her as the executive director. So I got to be an executive director of a nonprofit for three years through the pandemic, which was a twist I wasn't expecting. But we were uniquely positioned when the pandemic hit to help the community react to how can we help nonprofits in Charlotte? And so I think we really, it really blew up our branding and a knowledge of our website and our awareness of our community. And so that was super fun. And then, as a previous banker, recovering banker, as I always say, I ended up after my time at Share Charlotte, I went to a financial literacy nonprofit called Commonwealth Charlotte, and that is where I'm still on the board. But I actually just recently left that position, and I am ready to go work as a maybe founder or with a founder, or I'm really interested in the startup community, and that's how I got to the angel investing portion of my current step.
Marcia Dawood
So, Cher Charlotte, are there platforms like that in other cities that connect nonprofits? Because I haven't really heard about.
Amy Jacobs
So, not really. But when Kelly stepped down to so in 2018, when I became the executive director, the founder actually took the platform to seven other communities in the country, so there are more shares around the states. And then she ended up selling the platform to an organization in Omaha, Nebraska, and they are making it even larger. And so I did get to be part of a tech startup that had an opportunity to scale to different communities, but it's a nonprofit. And so it's funny in this space how nonprofits are treated different for some reason, even though they're just businesses, that the tax status, that's different than for profit. But I have learned a lot about in this last year, learning more about the startup community and entrepreneurs and really how they are uniquely positioned as for profit companies to be able to tackle some of the world's biggest challenges without as many constraints, I'll say, as nonprofits typically have to face. And so that was one exciting part of getting to work for that small nonprofit was that I got to work for a tech startup that had an opportunity to scale, didn't have an opportunity to make any money, right, because it's nonprofit, but it still is doing a lot of good in the communities that it is in and will do in the other communities as it expands across the nation.
Marcia Dawood
Wow. That's incredible. So then how. Because you had this platform built out with all of the nonprofits all in one place, it sounds like when Covid hit, you were actually able to make a bigger impact, maybe faster.
Amy Jacobs
Absolutely. So what happened was the media stations started blowing up our phones, and some of the larger nonprofits in Charlotte started to ask questions about how can the Charlotte nonprofit community come together to communicate to the public what the highest needs were during that time? And so we were perfectly positioned. We had already brought the nonprofit community together, and so we had spent almost, at that point, almost seven years hosting events for nonprofits, bringing resources to the nonprofit community. We launched the platform in 2013 with 83 nonprofits, and today, there are 750 Mecklenburg county nonprofits on the platform and had become the only unbiased resource. Right. So we didn't care who you support. Marcia might really care about animals, and someone else cares about feeding hungry children and whatever. The thing is, there is not a cause that should be or is more important to you than to anybody else.
Amy Jacobs
And so we wanted to make sure that we weren't. We were Switzerland in creating this platform. Our goal was to get people to care about the nonprofit community, to know what the important social issues of our. Of Charlotte, what we face in this community, and then to connect in whatever way worked for them, whether it's money, volunteer time, or et cetera. And so the. The nonprofits were telling us, we had hundreds of nonprofits, right, on a. Basically on a Facebook group, telling us what the most important thing that was that they needed while the world was shut down, and then in the immediate aftermath. And so we could collect that information and begin throughout the community, instead of the nonprofits being on their own, especially the small ones.
Amy Jacobs
Right. The humane society, the United Way, they don't need a share of Charlotte to communicate the needs that they have during a crisis. But some of these smaller organizations that don't have a platform, don't have a megaphone, don't have google search results, had no way to communicate what they needed. And so we were able to be that platform for them, and that was just a really great opportunity to demonstrate the power of bringing a community together.
Marcia Dawood
I love that. So, then, how did you learn about angel investors?
Amy Jacobs
So, through women's impact fund, I met a woman who left her corporate job to start a small business, and she also became an angel investor. That was the first time I had ever heard that term, but I didn't know much about it at the time, and it was ten years ago. So I was just starting my nonprofit career, and I figured the word angel investor had nothing to do with the journey I was about to endeavor, right? To be paid kind of pennies to go save the world in the nonprofit sector. And then now that I have decided to pursue an entrepreneurial career, whether thats to start my own business or join a startup, I began to research the ways that startups get money. How do they get funded? If I dont have millions of dollars to start my own startup, which I do not, then how would I go about raising money to fund whatever idea I might have? And that term, angel investing, came back into focus. I read a bunch of books, I listened to podcasts through the pandemic. I was addicted to how I built this. I read the book angel by Jason Calkenis, which really opened my eyes to a lot of things.
Amy Jacobs
Mike Evans Grubhub. His book about Grubhub, it's called Hangry, was incredible. Just learning all of the different challenges people face and how an idea with leveraging the talents that you have can literally start in your apartment. And I think he lived in Chicago. And I started to listen to, like I said, podcasts. And then I met you and I read your book and listened to your podcasts as well. And so I just started to find all of the resources I could to learn about this thing called angel investing. Why it's even called that was really interesting to me, and I really think that now that I understand better what it is and who can be an angel investor, I'm excited about it.
Amy Jacobs
It's really interesting. And I know hundreds of women, not just in my circle, in my network, but my neighbors, friends, et cetera, who would also be interested in at least exploring being an angel investor. They just don't have the resources, the knowledge, the people to connect with that could tell them about that. And in January, I joined venture south. So that was the first formal step forward that my husband and I took to become to begin actively investing in startups. And so that's where we are. I have, we're a good balance. He is much more bullish in investing, and I'm a little bit more conservative.
Amy Jacobs
And so I am. I want to learn all of the things as much as possible before I make some investments. But I also already made one. I just felt compelled after one pitch, on particular pitch. It wasn't a large amount of money, but I, I was really excited about it. And I was just like, you know, what the heck, let's get started somewhere. And so those are some of my things that I've learned is that you just have to dive in at some point, but be careful. Right.
Amy Jacobs
Because it can feel a little bit risky to invest in startups and I definitely don't want to send my family into bankruptcy.
Marcia Dawood
Right, right, right. Which is why we always say don't invest, first of all, don't invest money that you absolutely could not lose. So don't use your like rent payment, mortgage payments, anything like that. Don't use your college tuition fund, don't do that. But it's great how to see how all of this has come around and to see how the angel community really is a small world. You and I met because we both live in Charlotte and we got introduced through people that we both know at the Women's Impact Fund. And then I know a lot of the people at venture south because I sat on the board of the Angel Capital association with Matt Dunbar, who's one of the founders of Venture south. So it's just, it's so cool to see how this all comes together.
Amy Jacobs
It really is. And I really believe that networking is the single best way to learn about a new thing that you're interested in. And if you have a new, if you're looking for a career change or just want to learn about a new way to invest resources into the community, meeting the people who are already doing it and who are in space is really important. Innovate. Charlotte was a huge, great first resource for me here in Charlotte to lay out the landscape of what does the startup community in Charlotte look like? And then I was invited to be a mentor for Rev tech Labs. And so they pair business professionals with startups in their accelerator. So I was like, I've never led a startup, so I'm not entirely sure how I can be valuable. And then I started to realize I have all these business skills, right? 25 years of corporate and non profit, one of which is fundraising.
Amy Jacobs
So I've been fundraising for a decade. I like it, I'm good at it. And so I feel like it's a valuable resource, right. For a startup to have somebody that knows how to fundraise and so getting to getting involved in these organizations in this community and for others listening, right, who aren't in Charlotte, who can find, I think you talk about in your book, right? Just do the go on to Mister Google and look for resources in your area that are linked to a startup community and you'll be amazed at what you find. And if you don't find one, start one, right. I feel like, communities are really excited about becoming more entrepreneurial. And if there's not a single hub in one place that can start to unite the resources of the community, who are the startups, who are potential investors? Are there any private equity or venture capital firms or people who are interested in this community and start the thing? We're really fortunate in Charlotte that we already have some of those resources, and that has what has helped me navigate and get to the point where I'm comfortable with moving forward.
Marcia Dawood
And I'm so glad that you brought up about mentoring and how you thought, I don't know, what do I have to offer a startup? But you have so much to offer a startup. And everyone does in their own way, depending on their background and with the things that they've done in the past. And startups need a lot of different things, and people bring all kinds of expertise and experience. And definitely fundraising is a huge one that you have.
Amy Jacobs
Yeah. And I really, I keep forgetting that I did work for a tech startup, even though it was a nonprofit. So there are definitely some differences, right. That just the speed at which nonprofits can move is often not as quick. There's a lot less risk tolerance in the nonprofit community. Still, this misconception that you can't pay a nonprofit executive director a lot of money, and the nonprofits that do pay their executives what they're worth, right. Or a fair market value are often scrutinized in the media or by the boards of. Right.
Amy Jacobs
It's still this just play. Or for some reason, the best leaders aren't necessarily incented in the same capacity that they can be in the for profit space. And hopefully someday it will catch up. Because charities are critical to the success of our planet and our world, but they alone aren't going to be able to tackle all of the challenges that our planet faces. And if for profit entrepreneurs can be incented and funded to go tackle them while they make money, I think this world will be a much better place to live in.
Marcia Dawood
I completely agree. I love that. So most people don't necessarily think of Charlotte as a startup hub, but there is a lot going on here in Charlotte. I feel like certain cities get named for certain things. And of course, Charlotte is what is considered a banking town because we do have a lot of the big banks here. But tell me a little bit about the landscape that you've seen so far related to innovation that's happening here in Charlotte.
Amy Jacobs
Yeah. So what I do know from my decade of fundraising and meeting hundreds of nonprofits and their boards and leaders. There is a lot. First of all, there's a lot of money in Charlotte. There are a lot. There's a lot of wealth here and a lot of opportunity to invest. There's also a lot of interest in supporting our community. And so whether that's philanthropic, whether that is entrepreneurial, and so what I have experienced and what I have heard so far in meeting all of these new people in this space, the consensus seems to be that there's still a little bit, this is a little bit of the conservative south, maybe, where folks aren't white, as easily convinced to open up their wallets and invest in the startup community.
Amy Jacobs
And so therefore, right, we might not be attracting as many talented startup leaders as we possibly could, but there's also a ton of talent here. Young people by the droves are coming to Charlotte. And so if we could figure out how to connect all this wealth and this, and this interest in investing with all of this really bright and talented, these bright and talented individuals that are here, then I think we could become an Atlanta or Boston, or some of these other communities that aren't necessarily Silicon Valley, but that are burgeoning communities that have been able to find the money to start the companies and the people to start who want to be founders and make that happen. But that was just one of my observations here in Charlotte, and I think it's an exciting time. There's nothing but opportunity to grow the community. And we already have some great resources, we have some really great cheerleaders in this space. And to the extent that I can leverage my network and the folks that I have met so far to help cheerlead for this community to grow, I would love to do that. So that's what, as I think about what I'm going to do next, am I going to go work for a startup? Am I going to go help one of these forums that already sort of cheerleading for the startup community, help them make that organization louder or bigger, it's just an exciting place to be when you have a career switch.
Amy Jacobs
And so I'm looking forward to whoever opens a door that, that I can walk through that can, I can help really shed a spotlight on how unique and special Charlotte is.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, especially since so many people are living, or since so many people are moving here, since the pandemic and the cost of living is good, the weather's nice, there's lots of advantages to this area, for sure.
Amy Jacobs
And as I mentioned before, just some of the things I've learned along this journey. The best way to learn is just jump in, right? Read the things, meet the people. But I like that I read somewhere, give yourself permission to sit on the sidelines for a while. I am not a sideline type of person. I jump in 1000% to every single thing I do. And so to wait and learn is a little challenging for me. But when it comes to writing checks for startups, I feel like it's really important to have a strategy, to have an idea about what types of companies speak to me. How do they fit into our overall investment strategy as we get closer to our retirement? My husband and I and I heard a great slogan, great quote, somebody shared with me when they were trying to explain to me what I was getting myself into.
Amy Jacobs
And they're like basically making an angel investment is, and any investment, even in venture capital and things like that, it's a donation unless there's an exit of, essentially. And so that made sense for me because spending ten years in the nonprofit community, it's basically a donation unless there's an exit, right? So expect that you might never this money again, but you might see it three, 4510, whatever fold. But in the meantime, you are helping fuel a small business, you're helping employ people, you're helping research a thing, right? And even if this one particular startup maybe doesn't make it, then that founder might take what they learned and the information that they collected while they were funded by your dollars to the next startup, which might crush it and might solve whatever, some giant world problem. And so you never know. Your investment in one person or one idea might do, even down the line. And hopefully, of course, it comes back in some sort of financial capacity, but it doesn't always have to. I love the ideas about there's lots of ways to be an angel. So I am most comfortable with a fund because there are some people who are way smarter than me who have done this before, who are bringing vetted deals to us and saying, here are some options for you.
Amy Jacobs
To choose. To go out and do that on my own seems very daunting and too intimidating, at least at this point in my venture. But I really want to do some research, my kind of next steps. I want to learn more about the equity based crowdfunding and the revenue based crowdfunding. So I want to get on some of those platforms and put dollar 50 or dollar 100 in, or whatever that minimum is, and learn more about that. I've also been doing a ton of research on leveraging donor advised funds. I'm excited to use some of my IRA money to leverage that for an investment. So I feel like there's just so many ways to be an angel that don't require a $50,000.01 time check, which still is the.
Amy Jacobs
I think some of the perception is that you have to have unlimited stacks of cash, and you have to be real. Right. Huge checks in order to participate. And there's definitely, that's one way, but that's not most of America and probably not even most of angel investors. These other smaller ways to support companies have a lot to offer as well, and they're just, it's fun. It's really interesting. I'm getting to meet really smart, innovative people who are doing really cool stuff, and I got to do that in the nonprofit community, but it was just in a different capacity. And so I feel like this is that kind of next best step, moving away from that charitable frame set framework and mindset into this, like this limitless.
Amy Jacobs
If I can get enough money to raise this thing, I can tackle this problem and do this really cool stuff. And it's just. It's exciting.
Marcia Dawood
It is exciting. Well, Amy, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate all your insights, and I'm happy that you found angel investing.
Amy Jacobs
Me, too. Thank you so much for having me.