Welcome to the Stage: Mickey Millsap
Partner, Redhawk VC and Investments Manager of the Alabama Futures Fund (AFF)
Venture Fund Spotlight: Alabama Futures Fund (AFF):
AFF is a Birmingham-based venture capital fund managed by Redhawk Ventures that seeks to make seed and early-stage investments in Alabama-based operating companies, as well as companies willing to relocate their headquarters and principal business operations to Alabama.
AFF targets portfolio investments that demonstrate high-growth potential, are led by coachable and adaptable founding teams and are focused on large total addressable markets. AFF raised money from the likes of notable business people such as Raymond Harbert, Ruffner Page, former NBA great Charles Barkley, and corporations like Protective Life and HOAR Construction.
Meet Mickey: Co-Founder and Partner:
Mickey Millsap isn’t just a venture capitalist. He’s also a former Teach for America teacher and Professor of Entrepreneurship at UAB, a community advocate and board member of the Birmingham Board of Education, and the founder of UShip, a venture-backed online marketplace for shipping services that raised money from Benchmark Capital.
Mickey may serve many roles, but all-in-all, Mickey and his AFF partner Matt Hottle can be summed up as passionate supporters and catalysts for growing the tech ecosystem in Birmingham and the greater Southeast. They are passionate about proving to entrepreneurs across the country that they can succeed outside of Silicon Valley, while also providing economic opportunity to people across Alabama and the Southeast.
I was very fortunate to sit down with Mickey and garner some of his insights on what excites him as an investor and what he looks for in entrepreneurs. I’m excited to share his knowledge and his story with you all.
1. What categories excite you the most as an investor? Which ones do you believe are best suited to thrive in the Southeast?
Interesting question. AFF is industry agnostic; we have made investments across a few different categories like health tech, HR Tech, and Fintech. We try to gravitate towards industries where Matt and I can be helpful to the company because of our prior experiences and domain knowledge in certain categories.
When we first started out, people down here really wanted us to focus on Fintech, which makes sense because of the presence of Regions Bank and BBVA Compass. We said, “Look, Birmingham’s ecosystem hasn’t really honed in on one single category. Birmingham doesn’t know what they’re good at yet, we’re still developing and eventually, we will find it.” We need to let entrepreneurs be entrepreneurs and let them figure it out... and they will.
We said from the get-go we wanted to be industry agnostic when it came to our investment approach to give Birmingham a solid and diversified economic base.
Personally, I am most excited about legal tech and HR tech. The legal space has been a space for a long time didn’t embrace technology as much as other professional service industries had but recently we have started to see more and more lawyers gravitate towards wanting to use tech. With HR Tech, we’re seeing now a lot of issues around diversity and culture and help solve problems we have dealt with for a long time.
*Check out AFF’s investment in a legal tech company called Case Status and HR tech company Joonko.
2. The world is full of founders these days. What do you believe separates successful founders from unsuccessful founders?
There are a lot of things that differentiate successful from unsuccessful founders. At the stage we invest in, the founder is a huge part of our investment criteria and we evaluate a founder on a few things.
I like founders who have a bias for data and the ability to tell a story with data. We like founders who know when they build a product, they have to measure its performance and understand the data. Secondly, we want founders that are coachable. We evaluate founders’ coachability during a pitch when asking them questions. You have to be able to invest in coachable people because that is the one variable we have control over in terms of who we invest in.
Finally, we want doers -- people who want to put execution first. Having a bias for action tells me you’re in it for the right reasons. You’re there to focus on building a great company and you check your ego at the door. That to me says “It’s not all about me it’s about the company and building something great”.
3. How has being a founder in the past shaped who you are as an investor?
Really good question. I was recently talking to Dave Payne of Techstars Atlanta, a former founder himself, and we said that one of the things you don’t realize as a founder is all the mistakes you are making as you’re building your business.
Now that I’m on the investor side, I’ve had time to acknowledge those mistakes I made as a founder and I can realize them before they’re about to happen. I can then offer that insight to the founders we partner with on how to best approach different situations so they don’t make the same mistakes that I did.
4. The biggest piece of advice for first-time founders in the Southeast?
You have to be willing to accept rejection as a founder because it is going to happen a lot. That rejection happens in a multitude of ways, but it’ll be common when you start raising money for the first time especially in the Southeast.
In the Southeast, there are fewer options for raising money. If they say no, you can’t take that as a negative; you have to be able to look outside of the region. Make sure you do the homework on the funds that you want to raise money from. Don’t take no as a negative you have to keep casting a wider net.
I will say in the Southeast, another thing that differentiates us from other markets is that it’s not as cutthroat, many funds and entrepreneurs down here genuinely want other startups to succeed. Every success we have in the Southeast will always help other founders in other cities around the Southeast. Support other founders and celebrate their success.
Takeaways
Let entrepreneurs be entrepreneurs.
Be coachable and check your ego at the door.
Reflecting on your mistakes gives you a different perspective.
Don’t take no as a negative.
Want to learn more? Check out the Alabama Future’s Fund Website
Happy learning,
-Sean