LinkedIn Templates: Fundraising

I see it every single day:

Fundraising founders drowning.

Stuck with a failed fundraise lasting months.

All the while never actually building your business.

But it doesn’t have to be this way, you know.

If you have the right systems?

You can do both.

All it takes is building out your own fundraising operating system.

That way you can fundraise more effectively.

And spend more time actually building the business of your dreams.

You can see more about how to do that in the comments below.

♻️ Repost to help other founders with this.

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P.S. Building these systems is not a quick-fix. It takes time.

But these can be used for every single fundraise you do after, so its always worth it.

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

— Steve Jobs, 1997

Grateful for your support.

The best is yet to come. Noa Khamallah

97% of founders fail to convince investors.

All because you are unbalanced in your persuasion.

👇🏾 Here’s how to change that 👇🏾

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P.S. My name is Gian Seehra.

I help founders raise Pre-seed to Series B money by helping them build their own fundraising operating systems.

If you enjoyed this post I write every day here. Click on my profile to follow me :)

#entrepreneurship #startups #venturecapital

Hot Take Season is back!

One of the biggest problems of the VC world is the incentive and practice to tout your wins and hide your losses.

So many "Tier 1" VCs will swear up and down about early stage investments they made and the conviction that they have and then founders and others start to believe that they're geniuses.

"We knew Uber was going to be huge, read our investment memo on it" --> please shut up and show me the 50 investment memos you wrote that year that you didn't get your money back.

You likely had the same conviction on those 50 other deals that went belly up within a few years and you got no return

Every time a VC talks about a 100x return there are usually 20-100 that end up being worthless.

They have the same conviction at the earliest stages about their winners as they do their losers, which means that their conviction is misguided and essentially meaningless.

The problem is that the conviction leads to founders and LPs thinking that investors are omniscient mini gods. Founders and LPs will listen to their advice on building and take it as gospel even though many investors haven't built anything in years!

And before people respond with power law nonsense, I'm not arguing that they can't be good investors even when they're wrong most of the time, I'm just arguing they shouldn't tout certainty and conviction when their accuracy is abysmally low.

The problem isn't that they tout their wins, it's they give advice as though they aren't wrong most of the time.

#founders #vcs #hottake

At the earliest stages, more investments have happened because of "good vibes" than logic or DD. Make the vibes good my friends.

If I told you that I could get you 5 investor intros, but that each one would only listen for 3 minutes, you would make sure those 3 minutes were extremely compelling.

Founders need to understand this concept.

MOST PITCHES THAT INVESTORS GET AREN'T INTERESTING UP FRONT (either to them specifically or more generally).

Founders need to understand two critical things about how investors think about investability.

1) An investor spends 3 minutes on average looking at pitch decks.

2) Most investors will likely decide if an idea or business is compelling or relevant to their thesis almost instantly.

You need to make sure that your startup is as compelling as possible AND that you know how to tell that story.

You also need to make sure your startup matches their thesis. This is absolutely critical when reaching out.

You usually have one shot, make it count.

#founders #startups #investors

You suck at fundraising.

Because you don't understand WHY investors invest into companies.

That's why you should read VC investment memos on the companies they invested into.

Luckily I've made this resource for you.

200+ Investment Memos from Tier-1 VCs like:

- Sequoia

- Bessemer

- A16Z

- Atomico

- Octopus (even my own 😅)

As well as others.

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To get it, do 3 things:

1. Like this post

2. Comment "Memos"

3. Connect with me

And I can send it over to you.

2 reasons why founders raise $$$millions with 0 traction.

And you can't even raise a penny.

That requires time, practice and experience.

1️⃣ Network

When I started my first business I didn’t even meet a single investor.

I had zero ways to find and get into a meeting with them.

Instead I tried everything:

→ Cold emailing

→ Direct on their website

→ Stalking them on the streets (I joke…maybe…)

Without a functioning network you’ll never actually get the chance to show why you are great.

And you can’t do this via linkedin, or cold, or via an investor’s website.

You have to be structured in how you build your network.

Through 3 main ways:

1. A CRM of all the potential connectors you have

2. A system of how you make people around you LOVE you

3. A structured, mapped out network who want to connect you to investors

Without these 3 you’ll never get to the main goal of your investor network:

At least 100+ warm connections into different investors by the time you launch.

With at least 60+ of those turning into actual meetings.

If you don’t do this, you fail before you even start!

2️⃣ Narrative

So you’ve solved your network and can meet at least 60 investors when you launch…

Now what?

This is where I see founders fail purely because you aren’t being systemised of HOW you build your narrative.

This isn’t your pitch deck.

This isn’t your data room.

This.

Isn’t.

Your.

Docs.

Your narrative is the subjective way in which you influence and convince an investor to invest into you.

To do this you have to prepare how you tell your story in the right way.

That is clear, concise and exciting.

You have to build your 4 stories:

→ Company Origin Story

→ Founder Origin Story

→ Customer Stories

→ Vision Story

Because without this you’ll never make investors want to invest into you.

After this you need to work on HOW you communicate with investors.

Then put in a system in place to make sure you have ample time to:

→ Practice

→ Change

→ Hone

How you speak about you and your business.

You can’t just ‘wing’ it and expect investors to fall into you lap.

Now I know…

This looks like a lot of hard work.

And it is.

(Truly).

But this is how fundraising founders successfully raise money for their start-ups.

And you are sitting here reading this wondering why no investor wants to invest into you.

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Now it’s time for me to sell

You have 2 options here

1 - Read this post, get a dopamine hit, move on with your life on LinkedIn and fail to fundraise.

2 - Decide you want to stop fluffing around on here and actually fundraise for your startup.

If you selected Option 2 - DM me “RAISE” and I’ll share the details on how I can help you.

PS - The minimum price is £2,000. Wanna be upfront about it.

#entrepreneurship #startups #venturecapital