Fundraising 101: Preparation
This is the first installment of five part series on tactical guidance for Seed fundraising. This series was originally written by me during my tenure at Entrepreneur First and can also be found here.
Photo by Марьян Блан | @marjanblan on Unsplash
Fundraising is a necessary evil with building a tech startup. It can be stressful, confusing and a complete blow to founder’s confidence. At the same time, if you’re lucky enough to have a hot round, fundraising can be an exhilarating ego boost. Both cases result in strong emotional reactions and with emotion comes the risk of making sub-optimal decisions. The best way to overcome that risk is to approach fundraising with a plan and a process.
There is already some great work on fundraising out there (here, here and here) but this is an area I feel I have unique experience that I wanted to share with the community. In my previous life at EF I advised founders through 85 Seed rounds which culminated in over £71 million in capital raised. This series (separated into five parts due to the volume of content) provide a tactical view on the metrics and methods used by my most successful founders. The first of which focuses on the foundational stuff that a founder must do before venturing into the wild.
The fundraising process
Practice makes perfect. Don’t start fundraising before you’re ready to start fundraising. The surge in entrepreneurship throughout society has created some amazing companies. It’s also created a lot of not great companies, which means noise for investors. Most VCs see thousands of companies per year and only make a handful of deals. Volume forces quick decision making and that means short attention spans (usually the first five minutes). You only get one chance to make a first impression and there’s a lot you can do to make those first five minutes count.
An investor deck is NOT a pitch deck
Every founder needs a high level deck that can be used as a supporting tool for a pitch competition, demo day or any other group presentation (“pitch” deck). These tend to be simple, visually pleasing and highlights the key message of whatever pre-rehearsed speech a founder may deliver. Many new founders make the mistake of tweaking a pre-existing “pitch” deck and adding a financial plan slide. You know what made your pitch deck so great? You! An investor deck needs to be a standalone document that can explain all the key points of your business without you ever being in the room. Many investors will ask for a deck before they ever take a meeting. This requires a difficult balance of high-level vision to inspire excitement while being detailed enough to calm initial concerns that might arise. If you have the time, read the Pyramid Principle. It’s a consulting classic (gross), but the lessons shared are very transferrable. As for the deck itself, it shouldn’t be any longer than 12–15 slides. You can always have appendices, but those should be a separate document, which you can share during or after a meeting. There are many template structures but I’ve always found this seven question framework very helpful:
What does your company do?
How big is your market?
What’s your traction (know your relevant metrics; not always revenue)
What’s your secret weapon? (what give your team the right to win)
How do you make money? (even if you’re pre-revenue, what’s your plan?)
What should I know about your team?
What are you looking for? (raise, use of funds, investor profile)
Have a full artillery
There’s more to create than just an investor deck. While not all of these are necessary it can make the difference between a second meeting and a pass. This is especially true if you’re outside the sweet-spot of an investor and face higher than normal market or technical risk. These can include:
Pitch/Demo Day recordings
Product demos
Teaser decks (1–3 slides with just enough to get them excited)
Research/white papers
Market research papers (McKinsey, Gallup, etc.)
Short of the teaser deck, I wouldn’t send these before a meeting. Rather have a tailored thank you email with some supporting info based on where your conversation went.
Build a robust pipeline
Fundraising is a numbers game. While you should only focus on qualified and relevant investors there is a critical mass that’s required; 40 contacts at a minimum. The makeup of this group will change depending on the size of your round and ideal cap table (i.e. VC vs. angels) but the aggregate number holds true. Securing warm intros to investors can be a challenge but building your target list is relatively straightforward as nearly all investors want to be discovered.
Crunchbase and AngelList are excellent free tools that can give you a decent amount of detail for a given investor. CBInsights, PitchBook and MatterMark are more robust analytics options, though they may be expensive if you’re very early stage. Still, they provide some great analysis, rankings, etc. for free on their respective blogs and newsletters.
Research your investors
Fundraising is selling and you shouldn’t take a sales call without understanding a customer’s needs. Many investors take great effort to build their brand so use that information to your advantage. Looking up their background, viewpoints and past investments will help you understand 1) if they’re a relevant investor for your business and 2) what they will likely gravitate towards during your meeting. Before any discussion I’d suggest spending 30 minutes on the following:
The firm’s website for investment strategy and recent investments
An investor’s social media for recent interest areas (Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium)
Prepare 3 – 5 insightful questions to ask at the end of the meeting. (I recommend this tweetstorm by John Henderson)
There’s no perfect amount of preparation and every founder will need to decide what’s right for them. With that said, it’s very easy to sort out which founders enter meetings cold and it never reflects well. Fundraising is part life for most early stage startups. If an investor doesn’t get the sense that you’re taking your fundraising seriously it’s nearly impossible to believe that you’re serious about building a business.