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Alpha Grove Advisors’ mission is

to help entrepreneurs improve

their business plans and investor presentations

by providing access to our partner’s expertise and neutral perspective

in order to sharpen proposals, secure investment and build successful ventures.


As an entrepreneur, it's impossible to step back and look at your business plan or investor deck from an objective and neutral mindset, without your prior knowledge or enthusiasm about your business. Yet that's exactly how you'll be judged by investors who will spend limited time reviewing your pitch materials before making a first impression, and ultimately a decision, that could determine the future of your business.

Alpha Grove Advisors was founded in December 2018 by long-time friends and ski buddies Aaron Forman and Owen Thal. Thanks to our helpful natures and industry experience, for years we both have been sought out as trusted advisors for input on business plans and investor decks. We realized we had the same goal, but divergent yet complimentary approaches:

  • Aaron focuses on messaging/positioning and the customer lifecycle, with a perspective from working directly with the founders of fast-growing startups.

  • Owen focuses on financial forecasting and industry/competitive analysis, with a perspective from working directly with VCs to evaluate seed and Series A investment rounds.

 

Naturally we decided to combine our efforts to give entrepreneurs the benefit of both mindsets.

Our services include critical reviews of business plans and investor decks, as well as custom consulting engagements on financial forecasting, messaging & positioning, and other topics.

We hope we can help you to step back and see the forest through the trees,

so you can present your business in the best light

and get the resources you need to grow.

"Alpha Grove quickly helped us improve our story and strengthen our pitch deck. They were able to deeply understand the business from the investor point of view, which helped me get a new perspective. They provided detailed suggestions about how we could improve the way we are communicating our business and market opportunity. "

-Shelby Stephens, Founder, Jolly

"Aaron and Owen provide valuable feedback to make your business more investable. They understand what investors really care about, and can give you an informed but impartial perspective to help you see your work with fresh eyes."

-Yohei Nakajima, Venture Partner, Scrum Ventures

"Aaron helped us refine our messaging so it's much more targeted to the needs of our audience. We're now more effective at reaching and engaging our global community of SaaS founders, executives, and investors."


-Alex Theuma, Founder & CEO, SaaStock

"Alpha Grove gave us some real gems around baseline expectations we hadn't considered, as well as ways to take us to the next level. They're to the point and full of insight."

-Ben Foden, Head of Growth,
Nota (Scrapbox, Gyazo, Helpfeel)

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Owen Thal
Founder and Principal
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Aaron Forman
Founder and Principal

Owen has experience working across early stage startups, investments teams and research firms. As a Product Manager for 451 Research, Owen manages financial research covering both technology M&A transactions and venture funding. Owen has worked extensively with active Angel groups, where he has been involved in a variety of early stage startups and funding discussions. Over the past decade, he has developed business plans, financial models, and go-to-market strategies for vastly different businesses including an encrypted messaging app, MMA gym franchise, Bitcoin casino and web-based services platforms.

In his current work with Alpha Grove Advisors, Owen helps businesses understand the specific drivers of investment in their business and develop robust, defendable financial projections. His work focuses on how to refine and hone ideas into a lean, agile concept that will focus execution and appeal to investors. He is also on the board of advisers of multiple early stage startups.

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Owen earned his MBA from WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University in both Finance and Supply Chain Management. He earned his BA in Economics from Claremont McKenna College. He now lives in San Francisco and enjoys skiing, scuba diving, making hand-made pasta and artisan cocktails.

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Aaron has a decade of experience building major B2B tech brands, from fast-growing startups Atlassian, Asana, and Intercom to established enterprises Dolby Laboratories and Qualcomm. He specializes in bringing stakeholders together to define vision and messaging, and finding the best way to tell complex stories. He has worked on many investor presentations and decks that have cumulatively raised over $100M.

In his current work both with Alpha Grove Advisors and as an independent consultant, Aaron helps businesses to understand and connect with their key audiences- customers, partners, employees, media and investors. His work always focuses on how tech enables customers to improve their lives and businesses, and his perspective spans the full customer journey from marketing to sales, success and support.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Aaron moved to California in 2005 to attend Claremont McKenna College where he earned his bachelors degree in Psychology and Economics. He now lives in San Francisco and is earning his doctorate in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Beyond helping clients grow, he enjoys disc golf, skiing, live music, and eating the best Japanese food he can find.

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© 2019 by Alpha Grove Advisors

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