Our mission is mission.
We invest in Angel & Seed stage Impact Focused ventures.
Investing in Impact
Head&Heart invests in innovative and transformational ventures with clear competitive advantage, tackling the most critical challenges facing humanity.
We don’t believe financial returns come at the expense of positive impact - we believe in Impact as Competitive Advantage.
Companies with a clear mission incorporating impact generally:
Address clear and well understood pains
Are more aligned in their corporate direction
Realize a clear marketing advantage
Can galvanize community support
Realize a hiring advantage
Realize a fundraising advantage
When coupled with strategic and operational excellence focused on tackling real needs, impact focused ventures outperform.
Yet the true value of these ventures lies beyond their performance; these mission driven companies help build a more beautiful, equitable, secure, and healthy world to live in.
Below please find a sampling of research on impact as competitive advantage:
Competitive Advantage of Social Enterprises - SSIR
How we help
Head&Heart uses our breadth and depth of experience and network to support early stage ventures across three dimensions:
Product Market Fit
The primary focus of early stage ventures is finding product market fit. Product-Market-Fit comprises two salient components that Head&Heart provides guidance and support for
I. Developing a clearly defined product or service meeting the needs of a specific demographic or market segment, such that they’re willing to pay for it.
II. Understanding the customer persona, habits, and environment such that you can communicate and sell them your product or service effectively and repeatably.
Operational Support
The most challenging and time consuming tasks, especially for first-time founders, are often not the core of the company, but rather, “everything else”. From choosing accounting software or a CMS, to building an HR function, to defining your corporate culture, to paying bills; there will always be a thousand decisions to make. Head&Heart is there at each turn, providing guidance and support so you can focus on the critical components of building and running your venture.
Go-to-Market Strategy
Having an incredible product and understanding your customers is necessary but not sufficient. Building and executing an effective go-to-market strategy ultimately defines the success of a venture. This includes defining the go-to-market strategy, building a strong sales team and/or marketing engine, and defining the relevant market segments and channels to convert coupled with the optimal means to do so. Head&Heart will leverage our experience and network of experts to help ensure your success across each of these, as well as support onboarding an effective team for continued growth.
Fundraising
Head&Heart has assisted dozens of ventures with every aspect of fundraising; from drafting and optimizing their pitch deck for relevance and effectiveness, to rehearsing the presentation itself, to leveraging our broad network of investors to connect your venture with relevant and interested funds and individuals.
Head & Heart Philosophy
Head&Heart embodies a core philosophy combining the analytical mind with the empathetic heart. These two dimensions are critical to tackling any and every challenge - from corporate culture, to go to market strategy, to building the living organism that is a venture; a system for continuously generating value for all its stakeholders.
Organizations and market segments are comprised of people, and while the mind is invaluable in building and executing effective strategies, it is the heart that needs to understand and connect with those people authentically.
That authenticity and empathy underpins transformational organizations - be they Apple, Tesla, Robin Hood, Starbucks, Ben&Jerry's or Etsy. It’s similarly the core of the design thinking revolution; beginning with empathy, and employing process and analysis to iterate on effective, creative solutions.
We firmly believe leveraging both head and heart ensures alignment of direction with execution excellence, not only in venture, but also in our investment strategy.
We invest every bit as much in our founders as we do in their mission and business model. Your success and well-being is critical to an aligned, mission driven, venture, and your personal and professional growth is our priority.