12 Fundraising Tips — Get Ready
Fundraising is a long daunting process but there are ways to make it faster. Get ready.
1. Money is King.
Running out of cash is never attractive to investors. It takes time to fundraise so figure out how to reduce your costs and ramp up revenues. Control your burn-rate from day one. Be forward-looking.
2. Get your documents in order.
Ensuring you’ve properly prepared due diligence materials, like financial reports, forecast models, inland revenue tax, audit, and IP will save you time later on. It will also show you are well organized and start to build the trust.
3. Present a beautiful pitch deck.
Your pitch deck reflects your product, your brand, and your work. Make it clear, concise and improve it continuously. It is the first and sometimes the last thing investors will judge you from. It is worth your time. Make it stand out.
4. Keep the pitch short and interesting.
You could talk about your business for hours but there are moments you need to keep it short. You don’t need to say everything about your business in your pitch. Keep it simple, concise and interesting.
5. Create a mobile-friendly pitch deck
95% of the time, people check their email on mobile and investors are not different. When your deck is full of small text it is just impossible to read. It’s best to stick to one slide, one key message and the minimum of text.
6. Tell a story.
We all love stories and we can identify to it. Make it personal, make it accessible. You have one minute to grab your audience attention. Storytelling differentiates you, giving you a competitive edge and connects you with what our audience needs.
7. Show your superpower.
Everybody is looking for the WOW effect. Nobody is interested to know how the flower in super Mario is built. Start talking about throwing fireballs and everyone is listening. Don’t talk about technology (especially Blockchain or AI) first, talk about the solution you built and how it revolutionizes your users.
8. Your team.
Investors invest in people, not ideas. They look for a strong and diverse team with relevant domain expertise. It is hard to build a successful business alone, show how your team has complementary skills, similar commitments and why you are working together.
Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, said: “We thought Airbnb was a bad idea. We funded it because we really liked the founders.”
9. Show how big it will be.
Present your big-picture vision and how far you want your business to go into the world. Don't focus on your product, take a step back, and share what you want to achieve with your business.
10. Show how you will make money.
How will you make me rich? Explain your revenue model in a simple, easy and efficient way. Identify which revenue model you apply to your business — subscription fees, licensing content to third parties, rent/lease, brokerage fees, advertising fees etc…
11. Be honest and face danger.
Challenges are part of building a business. Remember that if it was easy everyone would do it. Investors want to understand how you will lead your team through challenges and overcome them, one step at a time.
12. Why now.
Timing is key. You might have found the right solution but if you have to wait for a market for too long, you will run out of money. It’s one of the tougher questions to challenge a new business. Technology enables more and more solutions to come alive, sometimes without a clear problem. So why this and why now?
13. Startup passion.
We all know entrepreneurship is hard. Passion is the powerful force which overrides all the challenges you face along the way. It carrier you through the crazy roller coaster of entrepreneurship. Show how passionate you are, because passion is contagious.
