Understanding the Fundraising "Process"

Understanding the Fundraising "Process"
Read time 1.9 minutes.

One of the phrases I like to tell my clients is this: “Fundraising is a process, not an action”.

For too many founders, they believe that fundraising is an act. It’s something you do when the time is right, and you need capital. The truth is that its a process; its something that you must be doing at all times to succeed.

The best fundraisers don’t just go around asking for money when required; they methodically plan their fundraise just like you’d plan the development of your product. I’d go as far as to say that fundraising should

How do you plan your fundraise?

1. Start at least 3-4 months before you start to pitch VCs.

2. Make a list of all the VCs that you want to talk to.

3. Plan how you are going to get meetings with those VCs.

4. Decide what narrative inflection point you’ll use as your hook. (Try to raise when you’ve hit $50k revenue or 1000 users, have something to capture attention).

5. Put this all down on paper. Have a document where you are planning your fundraise and write down the plan don’t just keep it in your head.

This may seem like rudimentary advice but 90%+ of the founders I speak to haven’t actually put a plan to paper before they start fundraising. Like anything else in life, the better the plan, the better the results.

Are you looking to grow your business? Here is how I can help:

📢 Promote your startup to 2,000+ VCs including investors from a16z, YC, Techstars, Rarebreed, Sequoia and more.

📱 Book a Strategy Call to get 1:1 feedback on your pitch, pitch deck and/or fundraising strategy. (If you need general startup advice, then reply to this email, and I’ll let you know if/how I can help.)

📺 Access FundraiseOS, the ultimate fundraising course with video lessons and practical worksheets helping with everything from deciding how much to raise to understanding a term sheet.

💸 Promote your product or service to 100,000+ entrepreneurs.

🌐 Connect with me on LinkedIn or X (formerly Twitter) to get access to new content about startups, fundraising, venture capital and more every day.

Your continued support means a tremendous amount to me. Each person subscribed to this newsletter is trying to improve themselves and their business every day. Always remember that the best goal in life is to make sure every day is better than the last. Keep putting in the work, find the right mentors/advisors, and you will see the results!

Onwards and Upwards,

Liam Gill

P.S. It would greatly help me if you could share the newsletter with more founders to help grow our community!