The real secret to raising a pre-seed round
This is every founder pursuing a lead investor for their startup.
Founders, you may think…
…it’s because you’re too late. …it’s because you’re too early. …it’s because you’re not creating A.I. …it’s because you’re building hardware. …it’s because you’re a minority founder. …it’s because you went to the wrong school. …it’s because you’re not in Silicon Valley. …it’s because you didn’t work at FAANG. …it’s because it’s not fair.
But, having seen hundreds (thousands?) of startups over nearly 20 years, I’m confident about these three things…
- Raising money for a startup feels impossible for almost everybody.
- 100% of founders who succeeded didn’t give up.
- 100% of founders who gave up didn’t succeed.
If you can’t raise that round of investment, focus on making that next, tiny bit of progress. One more “friend/family/fool”; one more channel; one more lead; one more sale.
Don’t let the headlines fool you.
“Founder still hasn’t closed investment” doesn’t generally make it into TechCrunch.
And finally, take heart from my friend, Yoav.
He’s just closed a $2.3m round of funding.
It’s taken him hundreds of different pitches, multiple different $50K safe notes… and more than 3 years.
That’s a story for another day.
