fundraising

“If you can raise at decent terms i.e. A good enough valuation without giving away too much equity, it's probably a good idea to raise now, even if it's a little bit more than what you need.”

“Everyone's always looking for great opportunities, and if you're connecting someone with an opportunity that's going to be, you know, fulfilling for them you know, help them increase their investment portfolio and is a good match, you know, that feels great, a…”

“You never learn more about your business than going out and try to raise money.”

“There's, like An absolute conflict of interest in that stage when you're fundraising, because essentially you're telling your VC, in a way, you're trying to tell them what they want to hear, because you want to close the round. But the minute you close the rou…”

“Don't go out until you're ready. I think a lot of founders kind of take whatever, whatever piece of wisdom or truism they get about, you should be raising when you have six months runway left, or when you get your first or third customer, whatever it is, that'…”

“Many of the portfolio companies of investors, of potential investors, actually potential customers for us. It was kind of like, you know, fundraising for us was also business. It was also a way to reach out to new companies. And the best ever due diligence we …”

“Like, I think we have to change this attitude, thinking, oh, fundraising's a chore, it's a waste of time, it's not value-add, to thinking, actually, fundraising is really important, and we need to start accepting it as being Something that's, like, fun and ful…”

“So there's just so many subtleties to the whole, I would call it more of an art than a skill. I think, everybody's trying to teach people how to raise money, and I would say, hey, listen, not everybody can be an artist.”

“So again, I want to stress the goal is not getting the next level of fundraising. The goal is growing the business so that that next round of fundraising could even be plausible.”

“You can get to a point, at least in this funding environment, where fundraising isn't a problem, and it's just an optimization of who do you want to take money from, at what price, and which players are you getting involved, and you can get there if you build …”

“I don't think naturally I'm actually that good at fundraising, but when you can understand how the other person's thinking and what are red flags, what are gray flags, green flags, I think it kind of helps a lot because you just, you know, when someone asks a …”

“But it was just for us, our reality, and so we did it, and it ended up going really well, and you know, we got everything wrapped up, but I would just say in general, like fundraising, do it in the beginning of the year when people are super focused, do it in …”

“If you can get to profitability very early and you can keep your growth rate up, you're just in such a great position. Your business is just so healthy. It says that, you know, it's very hard to ever become unprofitable, and raising money becomes so easy if yo…”

“You are not raising money. You are selling a part of your company. That's what you're doing.”

“So many founders spend so much time engaged in the fundraising process. That is a huge mental and time investment that you have to commit to, and so for us, we never had to do any of that. That all Was founder energy poured right back into helping our customer…”

“When you're fundraising, what you want to convince people of is inevitability. That the company or the fundraising round, its conclusion, its positive conclusion is inevitable.”

“We had kind of a mantra, which is optimized for alignment, not outcomes. I think in many situations, people, companies can optimize for outcomes rather than alignment. And that over rotation ultimately over time leads to misalignment.”

“Something I didn't expect is that the way you raise Isn't so much dictated by your stage and your rounds. That's more dictated by the situation that you're in, in terms of traction, in terms of momentum, in terms of like achievements, right?”

“When you're fundraising, you have to present a big picture. When you're recruiting, you have to present a big picture. When, even, even when you're just trying to keep your mental health of why is this so hard? You have to believe in that big vision.”

“It's a little bit challenging because when you're fundraising, you're a prophet, not a missionary. You have the vision, and you're trying to get people who already get it. You're not trying to convert people to your religion.”

“I think most founders treat each fundraise like a dot rather than a trend line.”

“Realize that fundraising, especially fun ones, can take time, and you have to be patient. 12 to 18 months is fine. People not meeting with you for a couple months is fine. People taking, you know, months if not sometimes a half a year to reach a decision is fi…”

“Generally, yes, because if you can raise a lot of money, it increases your odds of doing well dramatically and allows you to make some mistakes.”

“I very much believe you should either be in fundraising mode or not.”

“Even layoffs are simpler, because layoffs is like computation. Cut, and you're just in two or three weeks, and you continue your work. But fundraising, it's like, just like, it's each day you're getting no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and you're starting to lo…”

“If you're in the market for a long time, it's a bad thing. And it's a bad thing. Maybe it's a good thing for your like valuation or for the amount of money you're raising or funds you're raising from, but I think it's a bad thing for the company because you st…”