Learnings from raising #1 Million € with Angels in Germany
This article is about what I’d wish to known before raising the #1 million €. My aim is to enable you as an early stage founder to fundraise more efficiently with Angels.
While / after raising capital from Angels in a currently tough environment, many founders asked me for best practices and learnings — I tried to find something at Medium to refer to, but was barely successful, at least for the founder side.
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
— Toni Morrison
Imagine me writing this not on one day, focussed on creating a paper, but in several “5 Minute free slots”, like waiting in line, sitting in a train or after a great/bad investor call to recap what makes it extraordinary.
Hoping this finds you well and our learnings are a tiny piece in your own success story on the road to become a great entrepreneur, as you and me try.
Intro
I‘m Flo, first time B2B SaaS founder of Syntinels.com, barely done anything that is not correlated to B2B Sales – that was my biggest asset in raising with angels.
I used to see Fundraising as the only thing I trained for years,
make people buy — not a peace of software but of the company behind it.
So like Sales, I learned Fundraising boils down to 3 things:
- Process what you do — to be efficient, binding and learn based on data. You use a CRM structure for sales, build it for Fundraising.
It’s likely your first round / deal process won’t be your last. - Make it feel good — people love to buy and hate to get sold, let them enjoy spending time in your intuitive process. Let them smile once they think about you and your project / product / purpose.
- Make it easy — help your customers / investors to make the deal if you're confident, you can provide value to each other.
The more I heeded these principles, the better we converted without changing something else like Terms, Traction or Story.
At least, I’m not the magic fundraiser, getting millions on a two-pager or calls everyday by VCs asking us to send a term sheet.
Our round was hard work, and we had a lot to learn
— hopefully this is what will help you to go through your process smoother.
Beforehand: Forgive me the pathetic quotes and the fruits
— just imagine me laughing while copy-pasting them.
Raising
Before the process: Do sparrings.
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
— Isaac Newton
We’ve bootstrapped a while before we considered getting funding— highly recommended for several reasons, but another topic.
Being part of the startUp bubble for a while makes it easier to fundraise, I think.
Several Founders already raised with Angels and VC before we did.
Many people took time to do sparring with me about their fundraising experiences — and through the whole process.
On the one hand, sparring on their learnings and experiences helped a lot to understand fundraising — I started as a raising-rookie and learned a lot.
On the other hand, my pressure increased with each sparring session.
It’s natural to see only the impressive, shiny things in others’ projects – this is what founders are used to show, right? – but the crap in your own.
Imposter syndrome kicked in.
🥑 Core learning: Talking to many people helps.
The best talks about fundraising were those with founders who are further, but still available, raised a 2M seed round lately e.g.
Sparring with the giants like Series B Founders is awesome
— they can teach you how to scale a company and raise >20M from a VC.
On the other hand, convincing the first angel to make a 25k check in them is far away from what they did last 5 years normally…
But: Some of them have done secondaries and can become your first angel now.
To building the process: Get prepared.
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
― Benjamin Franklin
Imagine you have a sales cold call ahead.
Your hands get wet, your hearth pulsing, you want to write a mail instead. But you know you need to call this C-Level, who didn’t reply to mails.
What helps before dialling his number is preparation.
Thanks to my more fundraising experienced friend Max 🍋 we created a deck on his template with 20 slides, first.
Clear story line, visionary and fancy designed.
Your deck is your first impression, make it a hit – ours was raved by 7 of the first 10 Investors we talked to, which gave me confidence.
Imagine you cold call 10 people and 7 welcome you with
“good intro, continue please.”
practice tip: if someone raves you deck / process, e.g. answer with a kudos to your Co-founder / team member / someone who helped you.
Beside the deck we prepared a lot — maybe a bit over-engineered:
- A list of DACH 200 Angels – including 20 more Sr. founders / managers that can make an intro, former invests matching our area, location of the investor to meet in person if feasible and so on.
- A Financial Modell 1 year back, 3 ahead (5 are better). First we tried something special here – no one understood it without me explaining it. With a common one we were faster and more clear for investors.
- A data room including strategy paper, GTM strategy, customer deck and a ROI case, a product demo, pipeline numbers, financials of the last 6 months in detail – and the most important, a video of me presenting all of that within 5 minutes. Clicked by 87% of investors, compared to other documents 20–30%. Seems like our Angels are more into Netflix than books from boxes (listening Maximopark while writing this) 🎸.
🥑 Core learning: Being prepared makes the process smoother for both sides.
The positive side effect is, if you are prepared with investors you seem to be prepared to build a company and succeed more likely.
To start the process: Do networking.
„Know where you want to go and make sure the right people know about it.“
- Meredith Mahoney
At least, we took the decision to go out, despite my imposter Syndrome, not the traction we wished and a case “mit Ecken und Kanten” — but prepared.
And realised, nothing else is expected on the other side.
With the best Angel investors – we talked to 72% (former) founder / serial entrepreneurs – you don’t rave about the 20% of things that work, you get advice on how to fix the 80% that don’t.
Practical advice: Getting the first 10 intros / meetings with angels is the first milestone — this is what worked out for us:
- To get the first intros, I used to ask all founders I sparred with „who is your favourite investor and why?“. If I liked the why I prepared an individual intro template including „founder X said you are his favourite investor because Y – that makes me curious to get your feedback on Z…“
→ people love to make // get individual compliments. - To start conversations with the angels, we talked about the person that brought us together. Nice, because raving about others is a much more sympatric small talk than your self introduction and more interesting than “weather”.
Bonus: Seeing how an investor talks about his portfolio founder tells you how he’ll do it later about you
→ this is a two sided due-diligence , not only the investor checks you. - To build a network fast, I saw every call as an opportunity to get to know angels — beside founder sparrings I used to ask about e.g. interested angels in the end of our session: “who do you know that could be passionate about this topic?”
→ Founders know founders // investors know investors.
Once you chatted with 10 angels you know two important things:
- “What is missing” in your preparation to get from 80 to 100%.
- “How hot” are you as in invest. If not one wants a 2nd call or introduces you to others I would consider to change the 80%.
Normally the stone rolls, now it’s about controlling the process.
🥑 Core learning: It will never feel perfect to go out there, just starting to build your network of investors helps. Like all things in building a company from scratch for the first time, your learning curve from 0–1–10–100 investor calls is insanely stimulating.
To control the process: Inspire them.
“To survive, you must tell stories.”
— Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
Once the stone rolls, you have to keep it rolling.
Please think for a minute about the best buying experience you’ve ever had.
On my side it was on a weekly market back when I was 18:
Hot Summer, June 30+ degree, finished my A-levels recently,
50€ — a lot back then! — in my wallet and willing to buy some fruits for BBQ after dishes in my new neighborhood.
Trying to be the healthy and generous new guy…
After 10 Minutes waiting in line, the owner Josef (48) welcomed me smiling. Looking at me, he gave me the feeling he is only with me within the next 5 Minutes.
After telling him what I’m looking for and for whom, I asked for his recommendation.
He gave me 1/2 Apricot 🍑 to taste — the best I had eaten since.
30 Cent CAC on his side and 5 minutes later
my bag was full of great stuff and my wallet empty.
I did not ask for one single price — no one did at Josef‘s booth.
The afternoon at BBQ I told my new neighbours about Josef,
— some of them knew him before, others became his customers later on.
For me, Josef ended up as my first boss and sales leader for a student job
— showing me how to make people buy joyfully.
I learned that offering a great product (your company and you are the product in fundraising) is not only about the price, it’s the full experience.
Angels leaving the call with you more energised are your best fundraisers
— >50% of our angels introduced each other, most proactively.
Additionally, to make the Apricot 🍑 tasty, manage your process with the basics as Josef does since 30+ years selling vegetables & fruits:
- Prepare and recap each call — we use Notion for that, Josef uses his brain — but in fundraising we ask for more than 50€ right?
→ Taking notes helps, your investors know that. - Individualise to make the customer / investor feel valued — for each investor, we created an own folder and recorded a 5 Min walk-through video.
→ 20 Min time invest extra, but 37% conversion from #1 call to deal. - Keep your inbox clean — follow up fast and reply even faster,
this is your fundraising inbox before going to bed every night:
🥑 Core learning: Josef is a great seller because he cares, inspires and makes people feel great — not because he is cheaper, smarter or more submissive than others. Investing = Buying is experience driven and not only rational.
To close the Process: Lead them.
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
— Francis Bacon
This is a tough one.
Urgency is hard to create if the other side knows you need their „yes“.
At least for us it was helpful to communicate a “date we close the round” but we could not hold it in the end and lost some investors in this final step. We will do it different next round.
The best approach I saw in closing was from a friend, asking his investors directly and smart: “what do you need to make your investment decision?”
- If the investor answered something like “time”
— he asked politely “why and how long?” - If the investor answered something like“trust”
— he offered a reference to a customer or his co-founder — for us, >50% did not talk to all founders before investing - If the investor answered something like “other terms”
— he replied polite but determined “we already set the terms, there will be another round next year, with other terms, but unlikely with lower terms.”
→ We’ve lost >10% potential Angels because the terms were not right for them. - If the investor answered something like “nothing”
— he said “great can you send me your committed amount by tomorrow please? So I can make sure to plan with your invest.”
Sure, the best case is investors asking you to become part of the round, no matter the terms — but if they do, you don’t need this article.
At least we did it differently to what many founders advise, we closed angels step by step — on convertible notes, I would recommend that.
⚠️ An early fundraising-learning for me is, as in B2B sales, a prospect / Angel who is not qualified and convinced totally, will not be closed / invest fast.
So pushing an investor who doesn’t want to invest through your process after a 1st, not intuitive call, will mostly lead in a time-invest from both sides but not convert.
=> Worst outcome in fundraising / sales.
🥑 Core Learning: As in Sales, hearing or saying “no” is an important part of the process and much better than an early “maybe, but…” resulting to a polite “not yet” in 90% of the cases.
To recap the Process: Write down.
“I write to discover what I know.”
— Flannery O’Connor
Early Stage Fundraising is intense and, for the most of us, a challenge
- you sell a piece of what you love, that is emotional no matter what.
As I learned it’s worth it to recap meetings, write followups for my customers, I started journaling for my private life to discover what I already know.
This is why I recapped our whole fundraising process which helps me today to not only write this article or give advice to other founders, but to optimize our next round preparation for good.
I will not share all private details, but some data insights from our recap,
that hopefully create benchmark value for you:
#3 overall investment insights
- Avg. time to invest (intro / #1 call to money in bank): 62 days — too long!
We never closed an angel investor >120 days after first #1 call. We haven’t closed an angel who initially said „No“ or „later, this is still missing“ yet. - Avg. amount of invest (intro to money in bank): 56.000€ — confident with this, too many angels with tiny tickets is not the best to handle later. I always tried to get the „yes“ for a higher ticket from an investor.
- Range amount of invest (lowest to highest invest): 5.000–250.000€ — and the 5.000€ still pays off in advice! Smart money is not necessarily a lot money. We chose wisely who makes the biggest ticket and who does the pool lead, not only regarding the signaling for following rounds. Chances are, the higher the ticket, the higher the „stick in the game“ for your investors beyond their invest.
#3 conversion drivers to invest (from 9 different we tracked)
— always track.
- >90% of Angels who invested finally — offered value proactively, e.g. intros to pot. clients, their portfolio founders or other angels after the first call.
- >80% of Angels who invested finally — asked for terms and conditions proactively within the first call.
- Intros led us to convert efficiently and more predictably — best conversion with >30% from intro to invest came from Angel-Portfolio-Founders (see above “Starting the process — network”).
#3 reason for no invest (from 11 different named)
— always ask “why not”.
- 34% Product Strategy / Competition — important learning to specify USP.
Today this provides value for us in GTM. - 21% Angel Investor Timing / No free liquidity — tough times, some angel investors have to handle with higher interest for their houses too.
-> Could be that this is a “polite no” to protect from bitterness 🍋. - 18% Financial Strategy / Commercial Stability — these where the angels who, due to lack of experience, did not trust us to mount the case commercial sided.
🥑 Core Learning: Writing fundraising recaps is part of the process and preserves your learnings. For me as a 80:20 Person it was not intuitive to work on the process after cash is in the bank. But it already paid off.
For more personal or specific learnings, please drop me a line. 📧
Conclusion
Fundraising got harder if you’re not the 1/100, a serial entrepreneur with an AI based sustainability SaaS who doesn’t need money at all.
But searching for the right initial investors is worth it.
I thought differently about fundraising before we decided to focus on product and needed investor cash. I didn’t like the approach of “getting funded” back then.
Now, after working with angels for a while, I see where the name “angel investor” is coming from.
Great investors actively supporting you:
- like Kai — calling you on a Sunday, to ask „how are you?“
in „shit hits the van“ times. - like Remy — sparring with you on how to make better enterprise deals.
- like Stephen, Michael M. and Marcel — helping you prepare your next round.
- like Jan — helping your co-founder learn product methods fast.
- like Michael J. — becoming your first sales partner.
The initial invest ist just the start of building together.
One last thing I recognised after writing about the process and it’s learnings today:
Being in good shape helps.
Sleeping 7+h, good food, a weekend with one day without work, sports – all paid off in the conversations.
The most important discussion with our lead investor I had on a Monday morning after a long weekend in Portugal 🇵🇹 – not talking about Startup for days and with good vibes in my bag.
Perspective from the other side:
Imagine a founder gives you the spirit of a sunny spring day,
motivated, smiling, spreading a good mood, maybe a bit sunburnt and super passionate and focussed about the project you could be part of
— I’d like to spend time with this person.
And this is what the first minutes of a meeting is about,
— creating good vibes before diving deep into the project.
Great Angels invest because they like you, what you are working on, your passion and because they like spending time and developing themselves with you.
These angels will convert to advisors, introducers, partners and create much more benefits for your company than a one-time bank transfer.
Sure, traction, terms and other facts have influence – but to be the „cheap but not a 10/10 deal“ doesn’t feel like the start of great, scalable company
— neither for the investor nor for you and your team.
And this is what you and your angels want to build, isn’t it? 🦄
Sources
Have fun and check out this sources before starting your fundrsising journey:
- Advice for entrepreneurs looking for funding from angels
— on LinkedIn and very extensive. - Good VCs, bad VCs
— an evergreen by Point9 and a lot is adaptable to good / bad angels. - This Unicorn Backery Podcast link leads to a early stage invest episode
— but the whole content by Fabian is premium. - Johannis & team share the angel investor content I follow
— to understand the other side of the desk better.
