Ben Zises’ Post

5 fundraising mistakes that kill your raising potential: In the past few years, I’ve helped multiple startups raise from pre-seed to Series A. But guess what? Even if you’ve never raised you can still avoid mistakes others make: 1️⃣ Taking Meetings With The Wrong Investors Be relevant to your audience. Research an investors’ thesis (it’s on their website!). Don't take a meeting just because they're an investor. 2️⃣ Not Sending Enough Emails I know everyone talks about warm leads. But raising VC is a numbers game. Create specific email campaigns for each segment of targeted investor. 3️⃣ Only reaching out to Investors when they desperately need to raise. Meet your potential investors early. Tell them you’re not raising money yet but that you will be in the next 6 months or so. 4️⃣ Not Being Ambitious Enough Investors are looking for billion dollar opportunities, not ten million dollar opportunities. Understand Power law economics. 5️⃣ Forgetting The Due Diligence Process Make sure your house is in order! VCs audit company structure, shareholder agreements, and IP to ensure sound investment.

“There’s no substitute for having the right mindset and cultivating self-awareness while fundraising.” Learn how to nail the investor meetings from a VC-turned founder. #fundraising #investment #venturecapital #funding

Founder excited about closing the round after first meeting with a potential investor. Fundraising is hard, especially in the current environment where VC activity is about 65% smaller than a year ago. So if you are fundraising, remember that: 👉 the goal of your first contact with a potential investor (Linkedin, email, chat during a conference or demo day, etc) is to schedule a call/meeting 👉 the goal of the first meeting is to convince potential investors to engage in deeper analysis, such as reviewing your financial model, demo of your solution, etc 👉 probability that the investor with whom you had your first meeting will invest in you is around 1-3% (no matter what you will be told during that meeting) So don't get over-excited and make sure that you schedule a lot of first meetings to ensure that at least one of them will end down the road with a term sheet. ___________________________________ Did you like this post? Connect or Follow 🎯 Pawel Maj Want to see all my posts? Ring that 🔔 I don't own this video. Source unknown. All rights belong to the owner. Please DM for credit and removal. #venturecapital #startup #founders #fundraising

I’ve been pitched to by more than 100 founders in the last year alone. This is the one thing that stops me from investing immediately👇🏻 A founder with an ego. As an investor, I see a lot of naivety with founders. And not in the sense of “I don’t know what to do next and need some help”, but around just how hard this next step is going to be. Are you starting a business to fuel your ego or to genuinely propel a sector forward? Whilst announcing a fundraise is “sexy”, the reality is less than that. Post-investment is not all champagne and high-fives; it's about responsibility, execution, and delivering on promises. The pressure is real, and expectations are high. Are you ready for the 24/7 hustle, the strategic pivots, and the sleepless nights? If you want to raise money for ego or because someone told you it’s an easy route compared to bootstrapping - don’t. Raising investment isn’t just the end of a chapter, it’s the start of a whole new book.

Fundraising in new market environment: ‘Founders should be prepared for deeper diligence periods’ As the financing markets remain competitive, founders need to focus on metrics that matter and adapt their approach to fundraising. Read full story here https://bit.ly/3TXdr4P

I've had the pleasure of helping ~80 founders with fundraising over the years, both formally and informally, both successfully and unsuccessfully. Have also led a bunch of fundraises for my own companies. During a call with an A+ repeat founder yesterday (this company *is* going to be successful raising), I shared that the costliest mistake I've seen is telling investors what your price is. Maybe you don't say, "I want a $40M pre-money valuation", but if you're explicit that you want to raise $10M, and that you're looking to give up 20% ... I've seen this at the Seed (4+ term sheets, all at nearly identical $20m valuations). I've seen this at the B (4+ term sheets, all at nearly identical $160m valuations). That's not by chance. The problem isn't that saying a price makes it impossible to raise. The problem is that a fundraise is a seminal event to get the right people on your side. The money's nice too. If you list your price, you're almost definitionally wrong. Too high or too low. So you're not including all of the players who might be interested (if you price high), nor are you giving yourself the most resources (if you price low). If you're raising, and you want to get the best price (or my trade-off preference, get the best investor at a close-to-best price) (1) build a good business (2) tell your story (3) run a process. Don't tell people your price, don't create fake deadlines. Earn the interest from multiple parties, and optimize from there.

When negotiating with VCs, esp. at early stages, founders rarely get anywhere close to the best deal they could. The reason is obvious - founder is doing it probably for the first time, while its the 100th time for the investor. There is a clear difference in learning curve. Most investors have perfected this interaction - create power imbalance, magnify gap areas, create artificial time scarcity etc. Nothing evil (or personal) - they are just optimising for themself like you - but they are better at the art, hence do better. I have experienced it myself multiple times as a raising founder and hear it regularly from ones I work with. There are only two ways to optimise it. 1. Create alternative options - no other ‘logic’ works better in explaining why you are worth more. 2. Create awareness - pre-empt tricks that will be played on you and have a counter. Experience matters. This is where repeat founders and one with access to those who have done this before, do better. #Founders #Fundraising #AnshulG