If you want to go fast, go alone - if you want to go far, go together. Alongside the strength of your value proposition and sales numbers, most investors will also consider your startup's team composition as they decide whether to add it to their portfolio.

But what are investors looking for? Is it most important to highlight academic degrees, job experience, connections to your customer, or something else entirely? How do you show that by working together you create a team that is more than the sum of its parts? And does the answer change from pre-seed rounds to Series A and beyond?

Reed Robinson from Groove Capital and Brittany Clements from American Family Ventures are here to answer these questions and more. With experience from pre-seed funding to Series A, Reed and Brittany will help you understand how investors view the core ingredients of a credible team.

Reed Robinson is a founder, community builder, and investor. His direct startup experience ranges from co-founding a small consumer-tech company to an acquisition as an employee of a venture-backed startup. As a Co-founder of BETA and Twin Cities Startup Week, Reed has developed programming and channeled community investments into Minnesota's most promising early stage startups. With Groove Capital, Reed is providing first check investments to the area's top innovators whose products and services make the world a better place, starting in Minnesota.

Brittany Clements joined American Family Ventures as Managing Director in 2022 and is focused on investing and supporting startups shaping the future of the insurance industry. She was previously a Managing Director and founding member of Allianz Life Ventures and a Senior Vice President at Silicon Valley Bank where she was responsible for deploying venture capital and growth capital solutions to early-stage companies spanning the financial services, insurance and healthcare industries. Brittany is passionate about the Minnesota startup ecosystem and serves as an advisor to Tundra Ventures and a founding member of the Minnesota Fintech Collective. Brittany earned her BA in Business Administration from Creighton University and began her career as a CPA at Deloitte.

Demystifying Venture Capital - Building Your Team