Christoph Meise’s Post

So excited to kick off our Startup Fundraising 101 series with a chat with Arpan Shah, Partner at Pear VC and former founder. Fundraising is painful even for the most experienced founders. But if you're a first time founder without a built-in network, it can feel even more daunting. We're diving deep into the art of building strategic investor relationships, covering: - How did he make that initial connection with his seed investors - How effective are cold Linkedin/Twitter DMs - What are some common mistakes he's seen founders make

In the black is the new black cash flow > $$ raised disagree? 5 years ago everyone bragged about how much capital they raised now you're starting to hear about people bragging about not raising what's hot right now for founders? 1. Understanding value of CF 2. Not having to ask for permission to exist every 12m 3. Bootstrapping - it's easier to bootstrap a venture scale business than ever before If you are raising, founders will look for more flexible, sustainable and aligned funding partners but bootstrapped businesses will stay more innovative why? Constraint means you just build it agree or disagree?

In the black is the new black cash flow > $$ raised --> disagree? 5 years ago everyone bragged about how much capital they raised now you're starting to hear about people bragging about not raising what's hot right now for founders? 1. Understanding value of CF 2. Not having to ask for permission to exist every 12m 3. Bootstrapping - it's easier to bootstrap a venture scale business than ever before If you are raising, founders will look for more flexible, sustainable and aligned funding partners but bootstrapped businesses will stay more innovative why? Constraint means you just build it agree or disagree?

I love raising from Angels. We’ve been flirting with VCs for our round at Baseline and we have a world class pipeline for our NEXT round IF we want it. What’s surprised me is VCs writing Angel checks because they love the mission. The Angel community make the startup world go round. They’re lower tickets but they’re mostly the highest value add. I used to not focus on angels as much because I didn’t think they moved the needle on the round. I’ve been so wrong. What raising from world class angels has taught me: - Be ultra capital efficient. - Find ways to build with little cash. - Cashflow is king. If you’re an Angel investor and want to join a growing list of other awesome angels backing me and my team, DM me to see our data room.

I've spoken to several founders this week gearing up to raise. With the fall fundraising season winding down, I recommend pumping the breaks until January unless you already have enough momentum to close your round by Thanksgiving. That makes now the perfect time to prep your process for Q1. Every Monday from 11.25-12.16 from 11:30A-1P PT / 2:30P-4P ET, I'm hosting an early-stage founder deep work session on Flow Club for anyone who wants to share what they're building and get feedback/support on their raise. 👋🏽 30s to intro yourself and share what you're building 👩💻 80m for muted deep work to share questions/challenges in the chat and get input from me and other founders who join the session ⏭️ 5m wrapup at the end for each person to share takeaways and next steps You can also just come and say hi and do other work 🤠 Often, the best time to connect is before you're ready to raise, and it's always great to get perspective from other founders at a similar stage. If you are interested, let me know which date and I'll send you the sign-up link. 8 founders per session. At Hustle Fund, we invest year-round into pre-seed b2b SaaS, digital health, fintech and web3 companies, and love meeting founders beyond our current network. You can pitch us (I review every submission with support from our amazing Venture Fellows) here: https://www.hustlefund.vc

Yesterday, we partnered with nextNYC and Charlie O'Donnell for How I Raised My Seed, a round panel discussion with the founders at BoldVoice, Infield, and Compyl. Our biggest takeaways for founders trying to raise? ✔ Filter out investors by asking the right questions. What’s your check size? What kind of companies do you fund? What industries? ✔ When negotiating your term sheet, take as much money as you can possibly get. It might seem tempting to minimize your funding to give away less equity, but consider this - everything may take 2x as long and costs 3x more than you expect. ✔ It’s all about networking. Leverage everyone you can think of - friends, family, college roommate - no one is off the list. Once you get more comfortable having these conversations, you will be able to identify potential investors from those who may not be suitable. ✔ Don't get boxed in by traditional labels. Fundraising stages are subjective. They're less about intrinsic meaning and more about articulating a startup's growth plans to potential investors. Pre-seed, Seed, Series A, B, C, call it what you need to reflect your company's unique milestones and strategic goals. ✔ No one knows your story better than you! As a founder, own your narrative and stay true to what got you started. Look out for more takes from NYC founders like Allison Pike.🗽 ❤️

What was your biggest WIN in Q1? What's your North Star GOAL for Q2? As I often say here, I LOVE hearing the wins from the community. This group of exceptionally talented people that share here regularly never cease to inspire me. Big moves. Healthy living. Inspiring stories. So let’s share the wins and goals. Here’s mine: → Q1 Win I just raised $1.2M in a month for a biotech company with nothing more than a pitch deck. No product. No revenue. No doubts. Just a brilliant founding team, an excellent idea, and decades of capital raising experience. LFG! → Q2 Goal Raise my profile CONSIDERABLY. I’ve been tirelessly building my voice here for a year and change now. You might have noticed lol Next quarter I’m getting some help from a BIG TIME profile raiser. WATCH OUT! — Share the wins fam. We want to hear what you’re celebrating and what you’re working on. You never know who’s in the comments and can help you reach those goals. It's Friday. Let's gas each other up going into the weekend!

Is VC your cup of tea? Are you THEIR cup of tea? Join me as I talk with THE Alex Batdorf to expand our notion of what capital and business models are available to early stage founders. If you haven't yet met Alex, she will bring the 🔥 🔥 + the truth + deep experience supporting founders level-up -- it'll be quite the ride. Link in bio. Feel free to share! ---- (DM me if you want links to the two previous no-holds-barred webinars: "How to Raise Like a Tech Bro" & "How to Run a Fundraising Process")

If you are either working on building your startup team or trying to raise money (to build up your startup team)... My friend Max Shapiro has you covered. 👍 Max is hosting a webinar on May 28th to share his expertise on both of these critical topics. As the Founder/CEO of the executive search firm, PeopleConnect Staffing, and of the investor pitch series, PitchForce, Max can offer a perspective you won't get anywhere else. 💯

Raising in public, 86 days to go: we have another commitment 🎉🔥 Every week, I share a weekly update of Mane Hook-Up's funding round on Substack and LinkedIn as I try to close the round in 240 days. Why? Because we always hear about how much companies have raised, not how they got there. As always, a huge thank you to the people who supported or checked up on me last week: Tom Greenwood 🌎, Brian AM Williams, Neda Sahebelm, Patricia W. and Cecily Motley 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝘀 🎉 Commitment from a Board member of a global Black hair & beauty brand 😇 2x great Angel calls and 2x warm intros to funds 🚀 Made it to the next stage for a start-up program and in conversation with an accelerator 🎟 Attended Fabrik's community leader launch event 🛠 Finally finished working on a Founders Fundraising Toolkit I started reaching out to Senior Executives working in the Black hair industry, knowing they would understand and care about the problem Mane Hook-Up is solving. Four weeks later, we have a commitment from one of them, which is a huge win. (P.S. I'm proud to say, this was the result of cold email outreach 🥳) 𝗟𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 😞 Email deliverability took a hit Cold emails have played a huge role in helping me find and book calls with potential investors. However, I didn't prioritise doing all of the maintenance I should have and now our deliverability has taken a dip. Luckily, I've started using a tool called Warmy to tackle the issue and our deliverability has already crept back up. This was a not-so-gentle reminder that I need to prioritise email admin! Check out the newsletter for tool recommendations to manage this problem if you've experienced it as well. 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻 💛 3x things have drastically improved my pitch ✨Improving my deck: each round of revisions has helped me to fine-tune my message and answer the most important questions upfront. ✨ Memorising my script: I have about 3-4 bullet points per slide to keep the conversation on track (highly recommend if you don't already have this). ✨ Time to practice: the more investors I speak to, the easier it is for me to understand what they're looking for and the parts of our story that resonates with them. More on this in the newsletter, but if I could go back in time, I would give myself more grace at the beginning of the journey to make mistakes at the beginning. It's all part of the learning process and, if you're paying attention, it can only get better. To see what else I got up to last week, check out my Substack and subscribe for the weekly updates: https://lnkd.in/ewuVdjW8 — P.S. I’m sharing snippets of my journey as a first-time Founder as I fundraise for Mane Hook-Up. Repost ♻️ to help other Founders learn more✌🏾