85
When founders tell me they’re having a hard time raising, I ask about their process. How many funds have you pitched? What has the feedback been so far? How are you following up with folks?
Let’s be clear - fundraising isn’t easy. Sometimes we overlook the work that goes into a raise when we glorify massive rounds in tech publications. “Company A raises $100m Series A!” “It must have been easy for them, so why isn’t it easy for me?”
First, you can’t compare yourself to someone else’s journey. Who knows how much traction they had? Perhaps the founder has a ton of successful exits under their belt. When raising, you have to focus on you and your company. You have to put your head down and run a process. And you have to expect to hear no… a lot.
When raising my first million dollars, I pitched well over 100 funds, which ultimately resulted in about 85 funds progressing to the partner meeting and really digging in. 85 funds!
Raising is a two-way interview. Funds are trying to find the right investments for their portfolio and founders are looking to find the right partners for their growth. So by nature, it’s going to require pitching a lot of funds to get the best outcome.
My advice for founders who are about to raise is to saddle up and get ready for a difficult journey, and run a process so you can try to control that journey to the best of your ability. Essentially, treat it as a sales process. Focus on the funds who are likely to invest, increase top of funnel, manage communication, and get to the close.
Founder intangibles
I have been working with a large corporation on their internal innovation program. One of the things we recently worked through was the concept of founder mentality. What traits do great founders possess?
Founders have to have grit. They have to be incapable of complacency and somewhat irrationally confident in themselves. To build a successful venture scale business, founders have to see the picture of how the business grows so big that it can make a dent in the universe. And on top of that, they have to propel it forward across every hurdle to ensure it does just that.
Founders also need to have the ability to handle stress productively. You have to get comfortable running into brick walls on a daily basis and thrive in high-risk situations.
There is always a spectrum of how traits relate to each other. Take persistence and experimentation. If you’re persistent but not experimenting, you’re likely to be stubborn when it comes to choosing paths. If you’re experimenting but not persistent, you’re probably the person who never finishes projects. However, if you’re both persistent and experimenting, you might make a great founder.
It’s all about balance.
Music recommendations
I’m currently obsessed with Music League. It’s like fantasy football for music. We’re on round 4 at Artemis and it’s producing some awesome playlists. Case in point, here’s our One Hit Wonder playlist. I highly recommend. Enjoy!