Master The Art Of Fundraising With Inner Circle

Are you wondering what you don‘t want to include too much text in a pitch deck? You want to convey all the great stuff about your startup when pitching angel investors, but too much text in your pitch deck can kill your chances of getting funded. This might sound like a small detail. Yet, it continues to be one of the most common mistakes that entrepreneurs make. It is a huge pet peeve of professional investors and VCs.Here’s why you may not be getting funded, and how less text might get you more money, on better terms.

Fredrik Skantze is a serial entrepreneur on a mission. He believes business intelligence and its adjacent markets could be 10 times bigger if business people had access to better tools and could make better use of their data without having to rely on technical teams and analysts. So, he’s building the foundation and solutions to make that a reality. In his guest appearance on the DealMakers podcast, Skantze broke down the good, the bad, and the ugly of entrepreneurship. We talked about failures and mistakes which don’t usually get shared with new aspiring entrepreneurs. As well as how to be successful in scaling and fundraising.

As a start-up founder, you have a number of potential equity deals available to you when negotiating with investors. Two of these are the SAFE note and convertible note. Both have much in common, but they also have their specific advantages and disadvantages. In this article, I’m going to explore exactly what a SAFE note and a convertible note is, how they differ, and what sort of advantages they hold over each other.

Idriss Al Rifai is helping us leap into a future where eCommerce businesses can serve everyone, and everyone can benefit from online shopping from their phones. His startup is well on the way to connecting four billion people who have been left sidelined by big industry incumbents and the old status quo. We got together for an episode of the Dealmakers Podcast. Al Rifai shared with our listeners how his time in the special forces prepared him for founding a startup, his thoughts on who to hire first, what the future of eCommerce looks like, and what’s different about launching a business in Dubai versus the USA.

There are many ways to fund a startup business. Since their inception in 2005, startup accelerator programs have become one of these options for entrepreneurs. Like any funding strategy, startup accelerators will be the perfect fit for some businesses, but not for others.  How do you know when a startup accelerator is the best option for your business? In this ultimate guide to startup accelerators for entrepreneurs, I’m going to take you through the startup accelerator process so that you can best answer that question.

Jack Smith has believed in the ability to create your own destiny from a very young age. He has rolled that into raising $25 million for his own startup, helping others raise even more, and going through the full cycle to being an investor himself.  We recently got together for an episode of the Dealmakers podcast. He shared his creative fundraising hacks, persistence, who he thinks makes the best startup hires, how to find product-market fit, what makes a fundable startup, and more.

Jason Tan’s startup is on a mission to help everyone trust the internet. He’s already raised $106M from some incredible investors. During our interview on the Dealmakers Podcast Jason shared his entrepreneurial journey of fundraising, building and scaling companies, managing teams, mental health for founders and overcoming the dark and depressing days.

Fully diluted shares are a measure of how many shares a company has at its disposal. This measurement is used to determine how much a business is worth. To calculate this, you need to know how many convertible securities a company has. Then, calculate how many shares would be created if these securities were converted into common stock. This is the first step in calculating the company value.

Murli Thirumale has built and sold two startups and is no on his third. His formulas for success seem to have provided him a system for replicating this success at the highest levels. Together we recently hosted an episode of the Dealmakers Podcast where Murli Thirumale shared his journey, his models for proving product-market fit, how to raise startup funding, and his top tips for new founders.

What must your pitch deck answer in order for your startup to get funded? If the survival and ability to grow your startup depends on getting funds in, know that getting funded can all ride on your pitch deck. So, aside from the slide titles and number of slides, what must you convey an answer for potential investors to get from that first connection to money in the bank? You can bet investors have a lot of questions. If you leave the most important ones unanswered in your deck and presentation, you are already giving them a reason to move onto the next pitch. At a minimum, it puts the ball in their court and is going to make it a lot harder to convince them and come back from. 

Brenden Millstein has already raised $133.5M for his climate change startup. They are just getting started and have lots of room to grow. In our recent interview on the Dealmakers Show Brenden shared how he got started, all the data they’ve been collecting, what the future looks like, and surviving the trying days of being a startup founder.

Seed round investment is the critical funding round for many startups. Without it, the foundation of a business cannot be created, making it more difficult to raise capital during subsequent investment rounds. The key question then is: How do you raise funds during a seed round? To answer this question, I’m going to explore what a seed round is, why it is important to startup founders, and the steps you should take to maximize your chances of securing seed round capital.

How do the different stages of startup fundraising work for entrepreneurs and their businesses? The big numbers thrown around in the media might make you think that one big fundraising campaign or two is enough finance your business idea for life. It doesn’t work like that. Startup funding in done through a series of stages of ‘rounds’.  Each round typically targets a different type of investor, for different amounts of capital. Investors will have differing expectations of entrepreneurs and their startups at each stage. While there are always exceptions, these round often come 12 to 18 months apart.