Nathan Beckord, founder of Foundersuite and podcast host, discusses the breakdown between pedigree and hustle in successful early-stage fundraising with host Pablo Srugo.
Insight
Beckord: Active fundraising is a 12-hour-a-day job requiring full devotion
“My preference and the thing I have seen work pretty well, I think when you're not, you know, I do like the concept of flip, this concept of flipping the switch. We're either fundraising or not, right? We're either on or not because you need to really devote, y…”
Insight
Beckord: Decline off-cycle VC meetings and send them email updates instead
“What I would do is kind of passively collect these investors, even the inbound ones that, you know, say they want to get to know you like, hey, we're not taking meetings right now, but I'd love to I'm going to add you to my CRM. If you're cool with that, I'm g…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Beckord: Isabel Kenyon limited investor technical diligence to three specific dates
“There's one, Isabel Kenyon, I believe her name was, that ran such a tight process That is really fascinating. Like, it was just surgical, right? The way she had lined up investors, had an extremely tight time, timeline, time frame, was able to get everyone mov…”
Disclosure
Beckord: Early-stage founders must target 200 to 300 prospective investors
“I usually counsel the founders like on our platform to, you know, have at least a hundred, probably more like two or even 300 target investors.”
Insight
Beckord: Pitch lower-tier investors before approaching your dream VCs
“Go and get some practice pitches in with your third tier, maybe even second tier and work your way to number one, because you know, those first few pitches are probably gonna be a little rough. You just might not anticipate some of the questions they're going …”
Insight
Beckord: The best VC intros come from founders who made them money
“Your best, best intro is someone that's made the money. Maybe second best is, is someone they've done deals with in the past, you know trade deals. Maybe it's an angel that's fed some deals to the, a VC or vice versa or whatever. Third best is I would say some…”