Rich

The VC Minute is my segment on the Startup of the Year podcast where I share a quick snippet of advice related to startup fundraising.

Let’s talk about the amount you’re setting out to raise. 

This is top of mind because I saw it multiple times in the last two weeks. When you set out to start a round, you need to set the amount that you’re trying to raise. What you never, ever want to do is make that amount a range. 

If you say, “we’re raising between 1 and 1.5 million,” my next question will be, “well, which is it? Is it 1 million or 1.5 million? That’s a 50% variance!” Making the target a range creates more questions than it answers. And what I’m thinking but not saying is, “this person doesn’t know the amount of money they need, so they don’t even know what they’re going to do with it.” 

Could you spend another half a million dollars? Sure. But that’s not the point. The point is that you have a plan and that plan requires a set amount of money. Show that you have a plan by knowing the right amount of capital you need to to achieve the plan. 

And next time on the VC Minute I’ll share, in that example, whether the right amount is 1 million or 1.5 million. 

Listen to the whole episode here:
Startup of the Year Podcast Episode #0038 Powerful Black Founder Pitch Event – Startup of the Year Podcast

On this special episode of the Startup of the Year podcast, we recap the Startup of the Year online pitch event hosted in September. This pitch event celebrated Black founders and served as a Fast-Track competition for the Top 100 Summit!

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The VC Minute is my segment on the Startup of the Year podcast where I share a quick snippet of advice related to startup fundraising.

Let’s talk about building relationships before you raise. 

There’s a famous startup maxim, Lines not dots. Mark Suster wrote this on his blog in November 2010. That’s nearly 10 years ago, and it’s as true today as it was then. 

When you and I meet, I have one data point. A dot. The next time we meet and I get an update, I have two dots and I can now draw a line. Mark’s blog post, which we’ll link in the show notes, plots this on a simple graph with performance over time. The more dots, the more confident I feel in the direction of the line. 

As you meet potential investors, your goal with the first meeting isn’t to close the deal, it’s for both you and the investor to get a data point on each other. 

After this meeting, keep your potential investors updated with a regular email. I’ve received these updates as frequently as weekly (too frequent, by the way) to quarterly. At a minimum you should have four sections: the good, the bad, thank you’s and an ask.  

If you’re sending regular email updates, a potential investor has multiple dots to start drawing a line. When you have your next meeting, they can then confidently draw that line up in a positive direction. 

Listen to the whole episode here:
Startup of the Year Podcast Episode #0036 – Startup Wisdom From Stephanie Lampkin of Blendoor

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we hear some startup wisdom from the Founder and CEO of Blendoor, Stephanie Lampkin. Blendoor is inclusive recruiting and people analytics software that mitigates unconscious bias. Candidates are sourced from hundreds of strategic partners and universities and presented to recruiters without the candidate’s name, photo, or dates. Blendoor was also the winner of the Startup of the Year pitch competition in 2015.

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The VC Minute is my segment on the Startup of the Year podcast where I share a quick snippet of advice related to startup fundraising.

Let’s talk about finding investors to target. 

Fundraising needs to be treated like a sales process. You need to know who you’re going after, why them, and how to approach them. But it starts with knowing who you’re targeting.

Generally speaking, you want to cast a wide net and start with the lesser known investors first. If you’re going to go after a big name investor, it’s best to wait until you’ve honed your pitch on others. So let’s build that list!

Signal.NFX.com is where I send most startups. It’s a free online platform for VCs to list themselves and for startups to find them. While you’re at it, you should visit another NFX site, The Company Brief and make a company brief that you can forward along. 

Visible.vc is an investor relationship hub, so it’s only fitting they have a searchable database Head over to connect.visible.vc to search for free.

OmniValley.co is a great resource with a searchable database focused on investors outside of the Bay Area, but they have some Bay Area VCs as well.

FundBoard is a new, free search tool built by an experienced startup leadership team that knows the struggles of finding the right investor. They are regularly updating the product to include new features. [added Feb 2021]

 If you’d like access to our network of investors, then apply to Startup of the Year. We hold weekly office hours that are only open to applicants. There’s no cost and no catch, except to be part of the Startup of the Year program. 

Listen to the whole episode here:
Startup of the Year Podcast Episode #0034 – Cooper Harris of Klickly

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we catch up with Cooper Harris, the founder, and CEO of Klickly, an A.I. impulse-payments platform. Cooper invented a payment layer that leverages machine-learning to make purchasing directly within digital UIs possible. This significant innovation creates a huge efficiency in the market – the platform’s machine-learning identifies payment situations and uses sophisticated cross-origin calls to facilitate the transaction. 

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The VC Minute is my segment on the Startup of the Year podcast where I share a quick snippet of advice related to startup fundraising.

Let’s talk about asking for referrals to investors. The wrong way is to say, “please introduce me to investors.” There’s not a lot I can do with that. Which ones? Why would I intro you? What do I send them? 

Make it easy for your network to make referrals for you. 

First, You should have a target list of introductions you would like—researched in advance of course. 

Next, Forward along your list of prospective investors, attach an investor deck, and finally include an intro paragraph someone can copy/paste into their own email. 

I call this, “don’t make me think, don’t make me work.” When you make it as easy as possible for people to make connections for you, they will. 

If you’d like access to our network of investors, then apply to Startup of the Year. We hold weekly office hours that are only open to applicants. There’s no cost and no catch, except to be part of the Startup of the Year program.

Listen to the whole episode here:
Startup of the Year Podcast episode #0033 – Honoring U.S. Veteran Founders

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast we are featuring our virtual event that we hosted, Honoring U.S. Veteran Founders.

We had a great group of veteran-led companies presenting their pitches. The STARTUPS included: Govlia (Fort Lauderdale, FL); Milk Money Kitchens (New York, NY); Target Arm (Ridgefield, CT); TCare (St. Louis, MO); and TruGenomix (Rockville, MD).

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