5 Funding Tips From a Veteran Entrepreneur

5 Funding Tips From a Veteran Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurs who have had successful exits have a unique perspective on early-stage companies and founders' dilemmas. Here are tips directly from the newly-exited source.

1. Everyone has an opinion

Years ago, a friend told me, "raising Angel money is more of an art than it is a science. If you ask five different Angels what they think about your idea, you are going to get five vastly different opinions." The higher up in the funding process the more it becomes numbers and strategy oriented.

In the early stages, you are selling an idea and yourself. You are answering the question, "are you the person who is going to execute this best?"

According to Courtney, the pitches they receive at M13 should have a mix the following to get his attention.

2. Identify two to three points of commonality

Surprisingly, many people still use the "spray and pray" method and abandon the idea of tactical pitching when they're rushing to get money. Spend the few extra minutes to read about the background of the investors you'd like to speak to. It shows.

"There is a fine line between annoying and pleasantly persisting," said Courtney. If you really know your audience and you've taken a moment to research what makes them interested in a product there is nothing wrong with following up and keeping them in the loop.

3. Cold emails are totally OK!

According to Reum, if he's the right guy for the product (and you'd know this if you did your research) there is nothing wrong with a cold email if you truly have no one in common. It's always better to get a warm intro, but don't let it discourage you if you can't.

4. How will you scale?

Reum looks for companies with semi-frictionless scaling. Meaning, have you thought through all of the ways you could scale (and what could possibly cause friction?). Have the answers - and if you don't, perhaps it could be time to re-evaluate.

5. Don't confuse urgency with rushing

Many, many, many founders make this mistake early on. I'd be willing to bet that at least every first-time founder did this at one point before learning the cold hard lesson. According to Reum (and I agree 100%), "moving with a sense of urgency to build, scale and execute your plan is a necessity, but the moment you rush, you miss key insights and potentially the window of opportunity to pivot. Thoughtfulness is the key to success."

Overall, there are many parallels between pitching to new business, media and investors, the key is to remember who you are talking to and what is going to appeal to them, and them alone.

Thank you to Nina Ojeda for conducting this article.