On the TechVancouver stage ×1
First seen on the TechVancouver stage in 2019. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Katherine ↗
In their words
I sing in a band, and to me the creative process is quite similar to making music: coming together with people, you have a little seed of an idea, it's messy, but you refine it over time and you have to practice, and then it comes together. Same with building a company.
Before we did this seed round we had actually done another seed round, and we gave the money back — which is obviously not a very common thing. Kristine and I were not comfortable anymore accepting that money. At that point we realized just how important values are.
The advice we got was: repeat the success you've had with a type of customer profile, repeat it ten times, and then go out and get the funding — because then you have a proof point, something systematized you can go out with as your story. That is what we did, and I wouldn't do it any differently.
Around the web ×1
Quick answers
Who is Katherine Berry?
A Vancouver product leader who co-founded Allocadia with her identical twin sister, Kristine Steuart, and served as its chief product officer. Allocadia's software plans marketing budgets and measures the return on that spend; Uptempo acquired it in 2022, merging it with BrandMaker and Hive9. What she does today is not stated in any public source, so nothing is claimed here.
Why did Allocadia give a seed round back?
Because the fit was wrong. She told the TechVancouver stage in October 2019 that the company had closed a seed round before the one it kept, and returned the money when she and her sister were no longer comfortable taking it. Her read on it afterwards was that shared values with an investor matter more than founders expect early on.
When did she say a company should raise?
After it can repeat itself. The advice she followed was to land the same customer profile ten times over, so that the raise is backed by a proof point rather than a plan. Allocadia bootstrapped to about a million in revenue on that basis before taking outside money, and she said she would not do it differently.