Overview
The campaign: Close the current round for Carhart Industries as fast as possible without terms that bend the founders over. Tactic: cold LinkedIn outreach to targeted investors, mirroring the playbook that's been converting for JC's More Streams business.
What's already done: Your LinkedIn profile has been rebuilt — new banner, new headline, new About section, new Experience descriptions, new skills, USMC service restructured to surface the Wounded Warriors arc. The six-step outreach sequence is drafted, mirroring the proven More Streams playbook. The investor target strategy is set.
What's blocking launch: Your 5 tasks below. Once you clear them, we load the investor list into the automation tool and start sending.
Your Tasks
Why this matters
The blue verification badge is the single cheapest trust signal on LinkedIn. VCs scanning your profile in 30 seconds from a connection request use it as a proxy for "this is a real, verified person." Without it, the profile reads as thinner than it is.
How to do it
- Click the button below to go straight to the Verifications settings page
- LinkedIn will walk you through an ID verification flow (driver's license or passport)
- Approval is typically immediate
Why this matters
When you send a cold outreach message, the very first thing the recipient looks at is "do we have mutual connections?" Every mutual connection dramatically lifts your accept rate. LinkedIn also displays "500+" instead of an exact count once you clear 500 — which subtly makes the profile read as an established operator, not a new account.
Who to target
- USMC peers — everyone you served with or know through the Corps
- Wounded Warriors Company alumni — former teammates, officers, support staff
- JKL Capital — former colleagues and contacts from your VP role
- C&G Capital — partners, clients, advisors from that venture
- Avrio Solutions — everyone from the 2018–2021 portfolio
- San José State University — alumni network, especially Political Science
- Leadership San Ramon Valley — your cohort
Pacing
LinkedIn caps invitations at ~100 per week. Aim for 20–25 per day of targeted requests (not random). Goal: clear 500 within 7–10 days.
Open My Network →What's changed
- Banner — replaced with a brand-matched header using the deck's navy/gold palette
- Headline — leads with Founder & Chairman, Carhart Industries, mirrors the deck tagline, includes USMC + Wounded Warriors + NOW Ministries
- About section — new. Opens with the industry problem, pivots to your personal arc through Wounded Warriors Company, closes with a selective-positioning CTA
- Experience entries — descriptions added to every current role
- USMC service — split into two entries (Infantryman → Administrative Chief at Wounded Warriors Co) to surface the progression
- Skills — pruned and rebuilt around defense industry / advanced materials / executive leadership
- "Open to Work" badge — removed
What to do
Open your profile, scroll through once, and flag anything you want tuned. Specific things to look at:
- Is the Wounded Warriors framing in the About section sitting right with you?
- USMC dates: I estimated the transition month from Infantryman → Admin Chief. Please correct the exact date
- Any role descriptions that overstate or understate what you actually did
Why we need this live before outreach
When a cold prospect gets your connection request and hovers over your profile, they'll see "Activity" with however many followers and however many recent posts. Right now that's zero. A single substantive post — written in your voice, grounded in your Wounded Warriors arc — establishes that the profile is real, live, and thoughtful. It doubles or triples accept rates.
What's in it
The post uses only publicly-safe content — your Wounded Warriors Company service, a public DoD casualty statistic, and product claims that appear on the public deck cover slide (LOI 45–60, FAA DC-10 burn test, OEKO-TEX Class I). Anything under NDA is deliberately excluded.
The draft
What to do
Read through once. Reply to JC with approval as-is, or flag specific lines you want changed. Once approved, JC will post it from your profile and mark this task complete.
Why this matters
Your seed round is almost certainly filed under SEC Regulation D — the question is which subsection. The two options have different rules about cold outreach:
| Exemption | Rule |
|---|---|
| 506(b) Most common |
No general solicitation allowed. You must have a pre-existing substantive relationship with investors before discussing the raise. Cold LinkedIn DMs that mention raise specifics could technically void the exemption. |
| 506(c) | General solicitation is permitted. You can advertise the raise publicly — but every investor must be verified-accredited (third-party verification required). |
How we've hedged
All three outreach messages below (connection request, 48-hour follow-up, 5–7 day follow-up) are deliberately written to be relationship-first — no raise amount, no valuation, no projections, no investment specifics. This is safe under either exemption, and it's better cold-outreach hygiene regardless. Raise conversations happen only after a live call establishes a substantive relationship.
What to do
Ask Chris Bourne or your securities counsel: "Are we filing the current round under Reg D 506(b) or 506(c)?" Reply with the answer.
While you're at it — send your Calendly link
Step 5 of the outreach sequence offers prospects the option to grab 20 minutes directly on your calendar. Send JC the Calendly URL you want to use (or set one up if you don't have one — free tier at calendly.com). We'll plug it into the automation tool as a single static value across all outgoing messages.
Target Strategy
Tier 1 — Family Offices (Lead Focus)
Especially values-aligned, defense-friendly offices — often concentrated across Texas, Florida, and the Southeast. Single decision-maker speed. Will write $1–5M checks. Don't require a 100x fund-return story. Actively prefer "American manufacturing + defense mission" narratives. SAFE/convertible-friendly. Best fit for the actual deal you're running.
Tier 2 — Strategic / Corporate Investors
Materials companies, defense primes, and FR/textile OEMs. A small check + LOI from a strategic anchor validates the round and accelerates VC interest without you giving up much equity. Potential customer-investor crossover.
Tier 3 — Selective Defense-Tech VCs
Shield Capital, a16z American Dynamism, Lux, 8VC, Founders Fund Defense. Fast decisions, but their terms will be the most dilutive in the stack. Target for 2–3 check slots, not for filling the round.
Skip
Classic generalist VCs. They'll chew on the entity structure, the business model, and the hard-tech capex profile. Wrong fit for speed.
Outreach Sequence
We're importing the exact sequence structure Thomas has been running for More Streams — a proven 6-step cadence with two passive warmup moves (profile view + post-like) flanking the active messages. Copy is tuned up slightly for family offices, defense VCs, and strategic corporates, but the structural DNA is the same.
{{firstName}}, {{company}}, and {{space}} are filled per prospect by the automation tool. {{calendlyLink}} in Step 5 is a single value — Matthew to share his Calendly URL so we can set it in the sequence config.
One-Pager Plan
The final outreach message offers to send a "one-pager" — a single-page, public-safe teaser that can be freely shared without an NDA. The exec summary and pitch deck are both NDA-gated, so this becomes the permissioned bridge between a warm prospect and the confidential materials.
You know better than we do what belongs on the page — which claims have been pre-cleared for public use, which validation stories are in or out of NDA, and which team members, customers, or traction items are fair game.