How I Raised Six Figures in Startup Funding Before my 20th Birthday

And i didn’t give away even 1% of my company to investors in the process.

Published in

Harvard Ventures

7 min readApr 16, 2020

I’m a 19 year old student founder at Harvard University. Take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is my journey, and it is unique — just like any founder’s journey is. There is no cookie cutter way to fundraise for a startup. Any article which claims there’s a hack, some magic, or secret sauce to fundraising is lying. It’s a process, and it’s different for every founder and every company. And, most importantly, fundraising is not a means to an end. Raising money is in no way an indication of your startup’s success. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. And like everything in startupland, fundraising is often an uncertain process, but it is also full of learning opportunities.

Unfortunately, also like most thing in startupland, fundraising is historically elitist and exclusive. So I’m writing this post not to brag about my own accomplishments or glorify raising money. As noted, I strongly believe that a founder’s success should never be quantified by how much funding they’ve come by. I am, however, writing this post to hopefully educate other founders, especially young female founders of color like myself.

Because the reality stands that female founders of color are raising less than 1% of the total capital that exists in the world.

So, despite the statistical odds stacked against me, here’s how I raised six figures in startup funding before I celebrated my 20th birthday. And I didn’t give away even 1% of my company to investors in the process.

Step 1: The Idea

Here’s the thing. Fundraising is difficult….

But if you have an idea that you love 1) that’ll translate to how other people perceive it, and 2) all the hard work you put into it will feel worth it.

This won’t make the work any less difficult per say, but it might make it a little more fun.

You see, good ideas are easy to come by. All sorts of entrepreneurs call themselves “idea people”, but what separates an idea from a billion dollar company is the work. Balance longterm vision for your idea with short term, laser focused executions.

Big ideas lead to big problems. That can be scary. So you need to get to know your idea very well — Who is your customer? What are their pain points? What existing solutions are there? What gaps remain in the market? Read every book, article, and interview. Listen to every podcast, TV show, and movie. Know your idea inside and out. Love your idea. Live your idea. Breathe your idea.

This way, you can break your big idea down into smaller ones. And so your big problems will also be broken down into smaller problems. After all, everyone can solve a small problem. But what separates the dreamers from the doers is stamina. Stamina to solve not just one but all the little problems (even the ones you had no idea even existed when you started). That way your big idea can become a big reality.

This may seem obvious. But I truly believe this is key to not only fundraising for a startup but just building a successful startup in general. Investors look for founders who think like this. You have to become an expert on your idea, and that means you have to be able to answer any question or solve any problem related to your startup.

Finally, you must simultaneously be willing to let your idea evolve. After you listen to every podcast, TV show, and movie, read every book, article, and interview and love your idea so much, be prepared to watch it crumble. And when it crumbles it will devolve into a million little pieces. Be prepared for people to tell you your idea will never work. Sometimes these people will be right. But all you need is one time for these people to be wrong. All it takes is one idea… But, of course, that one idea takes many iterations to land upon. Don’t give up. And if you love your idea, then trust me it will be impossible to give up on it.

And, amidst all the inevitable noise that you’ll hear about your idea, always remember why you created this startup and who this idea is for. At the end of the day, your customers and your users, the people living the problem you’re trying to solve, are who you’ll find your best ideas from. Listen to them.

Step 2: The Team

In my experience, having a team is what keeps me sane.

Once you’ve found that big idea that you love so much, but you’ve watched it fall apart more times than you can count, you’ll want to pull your hair out. This is where having a team comes in.

A team can take many shapes and forms — a co-founder, an advisor, a professor, an industry-expert, a fellow student, a researcher, an investor, a freelancer, a volunteer, and more. My startup’s team internally has my co-founder and I, our first employees, our board of advisors, select researchers, campus ambassadors, moderators, freelance developers, and content creators. The beauty of our team is everyone brings something unique to the table, and everyone is passionate about the problem we are solving.

While fundraising, having a team not only helps you build the best product you can, but it also helps you build a compelling story to relay to investors. After all, when you’re first pitching a startup, it’s usually fiction. So you have to be an amazing storyteller. One of the first slides on your pitch deck (AKA your story) should be your team slide.

My team and I didn’t have a startup exit under our belt already or some previous, highly relevant leadership experience at a fortune 50 company. But we had skills that complemented each other and differenetiating credibility, access, and insight in our market. And we knew how to tell a story.

Step 3: The Pitch

A pitch is a story. And a story usually has a beginning, middle, and end. The difference with an investor pitch is you should put the end at the beginning, even though the end doesn’t even totally exist yet. Hear me out. Investors care about where you’re going to take them. So show an investor what a world will look like with your idea fully realized.

Once you draw an investor in with that vision, then break down how you’ll get there. No one knows your business better than you. So prove it. And exude confidence. Practice makes perfect. If you’re nervous about pitching, then that’s all the more reason to pitch as much as you can. Pitch to yourself in the mirror, pitch to your family and friends, pitch to whoever will listen to you!

Be specific and clear as to why you’re building what you’re building, who you’re building it for, and what you need from who you’re pitching to to make it happen. Cut the bullshit. Investors see through it. Be transparent with who you are, where you’re going, and what you need. It’s better to be upfront about your shortcomings (all startups have them). If you pretend like everything’s OK when it’s not, then that will eventually come out, and it will be worse for you. A pitch is a place where you can get feedback, and who knows someone might be listening to your pitch and be the exact right person you need to help with what your business is struggling on. And that could be more valuable than the money you were pitching to get.

So it’s also important to make sure you’re pitching to the right people at the right time. Find the niche pitch competitions you fit into. For me, I applied to pitch competitions for college students, for mental health solutions, for female founders, for mobile applications, and even some for people who were born in California. You’d be amazed how much is out there.

And treat every pitch competition as a learning experience. I certainly didn’t win money every time I pitched. But every time I pitched I did leave that event with a handful of business cards and feedback on what I did well and what I did poorly. Some of my greatest mentors now were judges who actually voted against an investment in my startup at the competition where we first met. Because the money was never what mattered. Of course, this might be different for every startup, but for us it was all about the relationships. We’d meet people through pitching that were then able to introduce us to a new person or group to pitch to, and the cycle would repeat.

The overarching theme here is that when pitching your startup you’re telling a story. And that doesn’t just apply to fundraising. It applies to customer acquisition, team building, or even just meeting a stranger and explaining your work to them. That also means you are the author. And you get to choose who you write into the story with you. If you are raising money from someone who will receive a stake in your company, make sure you trust that person. Verify what other companies they’ve invested in. Speak to founders in their portfolio. Ask people in your network on their reputation. Only include people in your story who fit in, who loves your idea as much as you do, and is willing to commit to you for the foreseeable future (the good and the bad).

Fundraising is difficult. But, if you’re passionate about your problem, build a team around you, and decide how you want to write the story, then you can regain control over the process. You got this.