11–20 of 44 posts
With the "open in app" banner on top, the "never miss a post" banner in the middle and the cookie banner at the bottom, I can see exactly 4 lines of text on my smartphone screen. Lucky for me, I have the Firefox reader mode. But to every regular person, this presentation screams "the actual text is not important".
My favorite part. The ideal scenario is running a tight, targeted and short process for a hot deal...but don't be surprised if that doesn't happen.
Having discussed with VC a long time ago , it was very HARD to raise money without a very strong traction.
Very often VC were convinced with my pitch , and my product but would not invest either because they had stuff somewhat similar in their portfolio and often because I didn’t have a “track records” to proof my capability.
If I can recommend one thing to technical founder : don’t listen to this and build slowly while creating your own community ( users , customers etc...) and VC will come , don’t worry.
VCs are like dogs when they smell money they have the urge to come at you, you won’t need to call them.
For non-tech founder it’s the opposite : don’t make anything that is complicated or sophisticated, focus 100% on marketing and prototyping , I had friends raising 10M+€ for products that didn’t exist or couldn’t do a tenth of what was promised , but because they graduated from the most prestigious schools in Paris or London and had invested hundred of thousands in marketing ( 50K€ Website , Dozens of Articles in the Press claiming their idea was worth billions , Attending Conferences to reach out to executives in order to get corporates sponsors etc..)
VCs will prefer a strong team with a stupid idea that a Fortune 500 will be naive enough to acquire , rather than a good idea with an unproven team that would make money quickly after initial build phase.
For anyone interested in raising money soon, but not immediately, the best thing you can do is start an weekly update email. Start sending thing to all the people you interview for advice, supporters you know in the same space, and peers/coworkers. If you keep a regular email showing your progress, even though you may not have traction, potential investors will see the pace at which you are developing/iterating, and…
Why does that matter?
If things are going well, great - you'll have a much easier time fundraising. The potential investors on your list will see your progress and realize they have a chance to preempt.
If things are not going well, you're providing a continuous stream of proof that you haven't cracked the nut yet. Which there is no shame in. But broadcasting that can be harmful.
So what do you do? It's tempting to hype up your updates so it looks more positive. Or should you be honest (which your ACTUAL investors and advisors need to help you)? Hmmm. Or do you run 2 update emails, the insider one and outsider one?
OR do you just focus on growth, and realize that none of this matters if you're growing 300% YoY at non-trivial revenue? Imagine if the time you spent on a weekly email was spent on making 5 add'l client calls?
Final thing to be aware of. The most powerful force in fundraising is FOMO. Every VC or angel investors has an "oh shit" moment when a startup they kind of know (but had kind of written off) all of a sudden is doing a hot round, and you feel late to the party.
I'm not telling anyone to NOT do update emails like this. Just recognize the signal leakage and really evaluate if the time spent is worth it.
Look at the comments, it's gamed!
For anyone interested in raising money soon, but not immediately, the best thing you can do is start an weekly update email. Start sending thing to all the people you interview for advice, supporters you know in the same space, and peers/coworkers. If you keep a regular email showing your progress, even though you may not have traction, potential investors will see the pace at which you are developing/iterating, and…
It seems like fortnightly or monthly gets the same impact with 25-50% effort.
I'm looking forward to the pendulum swinging back around to 2022, bring on the slow-biz startups, the organic growth, gimme 2x and 3x, bootstrapped on shoestrings, companies run by people who created those companies.
I have this reflex every time I see something cool now where I can't enjoy new SaaS offerings because I'm always trying to imagine the ways in which this new cool thing can backfire and frustrate me once it takes funding or goes public. I don't think it's a problem in me, either, that model just sucks.
Author here - happy to answer any questions
Should European remote startups re-domicile in the US for fundraising (or other) purposes?
We have a London presence/HQ, the team works from 4 European countries, and we raised pre-seed during Covid.
Author here - happy to answer any questions