If you want to learn how to find investors for your startup, then this week's episode of the Circle Legal Business Fix-It Show is for you! During Episode 11, hosts Kelley Keller and Susan Gunelius interview Jody Rose, the new Executive Director of the New England Venture Capital Association (NEVCA).

Kelley and Susan ask Jody about her goal to increase funding for women-owned startups, and Jody shares some of the obstacles she sees that are holding women back from finding investors. She also highlights the hot startups she's seeing in the Boston area and answers three questions you don't want to miss:

What are the most important steps startups should take to secure funding?
When should startups start looking for investors?
How much money should startups ask for when they're pitching investors?

Some of the answers might surprise you, so listen and learn!

Scroll to the end of the article to listen now or read the full transcript below.
Transcript and Audio of Episode #11
Announcer: It’s time to LIFT your business and your life on the Circle Legal Business Fix-It Show with your hosts Kelley Keller and Susan Gunelius. Learn how to build a business you love on a solid foundation that delivers the future you want for you and your family. Here are your hosts, Kelley and Susan.

Kelley Keller: Innovative companies, business owners, and families. Welcome to the Circle Legal Business Fix-It Show where you will learn to LIFT your business and your life with help from recognized legal and business experts you can trust. I’m your host Kelley Keller coming to you from the iHeartRadio studios in Harrisburg and with me is my co-host Susan Gunelius joining us remotely via video conference. Hi Susan.

Susan Gunelius: Hi Kelley, how are you?

Kelley: I’m doing great. Well, as our listeners know, but it’s always good to remind them, the Circle Legal Business Fix-It Show is all about building and maintaining a solid LIFT foundation for your business. LIFT being the essential Legal, Insurance, Finance, and Tax building blocks of your business. Without a strong LIFT Foundation, even the most innovative companies will fail. Today, we have a fantastic guest who’s going to come in and talk to us about some of the early decisions that you have to make to build that foundation and all about getting money for your business.

Susan: We have a great guest today. I’m really excited about this. It’s a really timely topic. Today, Jody Rose is joining us. Jody is the new Executive Director of the New England Venture Capital Association, and she has a really deep background in a lot of areas of business. Let me give you a little bit of her bio.

Jody has held executive level roles with both enterprise corporations and lean startups, so she’s kind of done it all. She most recently served as the Senior Vice-President of Corporate Development and Digital Strategy at the New York City event production agency Blueprint, but before that, she led national mobile and brand partnerships for micro-location mobile marketing platform Swirl Networks.

She began her career in cable and telecommunications where she held multiple sales and marketing positions, and she quickly rose through the ranks at power houses like MTV Networks, the Food Network and HGTV. Before joining Swirl, Jody was with Rue La La where she launched Rue Local before heading national partnerships through the company’s acquisition. So she has done everything in business, and her experience also includes numerous board positions within the telecommunications and media industries.

And she previously served as a director for “My Sister’s Keeper” which if you haven’t heard of it, it’s a humanitarian organization focused on educating and financially empowering women in south Sudan. So her perspectives are going to be really interesting today.

If you haven’t guessed already, today’s show is going to focus a lot on startups,