Texts with Founders

I recently hosted a deep dive into fundraising. Presenting it here in podcast form (subscribe on on Apple Podcasts and Spotify)

Timestamps with topics and ideas that might be of interest below. I’ve been told the “Expectation vs Reality” segment (starting at approximately 11:34) was especially useful.

0:55 - Why it's called "What no one tells you"

1:26 - Why fundraising advice is generally not good

2:41 - Julian's background and overview of ODF4:10 - You shouldn't be good at fundraising

4:45 - Momentum is the main driver of success

5:29 - Customer momentum is the most important type

6:19 - Other types of momentum are less important than customer momentum

7:06 - Should you even be fundraising?

7:40 - Are you fundable?

8:46 - The funding market DOES NOT MATTER

10:02 - Raise on momentum or the dream

11:18 - If you aren't making progress...what are you waiting around for?

11:34 - Expectations vs Reality segment

11:53 - Expectation: It will take a few weeks to fundraise... Reality:

13:26 - Expectation: I'll nail most of these meetings... Reality:

14:30 - Expectation: Fundraising is a full-time job... Reality:

16:44 - Expectation: "I'm taking enough first meetings" ... Reality:

17:31 - Expectation: That went great — they're going to offer a TS... Reality:

18:42 - Expectation: [Trick] will get investors to move faster... Reality:

19:57 - Rapid Fire segment begins

20:12 - How to determine your startup valuation — it's actually straightforward!

21:00 - Does your valuation match market reality?

22:23 - Start your round raising from angels

22:38 - Top of funnel is essential for a successful fundraise.

23:00 - Get former boss to invest if they work in tech or in your sector

23:54 - Illustration of how angels lead to other investors — Freshpaint example

25:19 - How a $5k investor unlocked half of the round for Freshpaint

25:27 - Reward early backers with tranches

26:45 - RUVs are a way of rolling up small checks to save money and time

27:31 - Weekly Updates — what they are and why they help you build your business and successfully fundraise.

29:20 - AMA: How many investors do you need to speak with for your round?

30:19 - AMA: How do you define a preseed and what traction is necessary? How much runway should I have?

32:22 - Milestones inform how much you want to raise and how much runway you need.

32:41 - Defining a preseed vs seed round

33:43 - AMA: What are some of the key metrics to raise a round?

35:01 - AMA: How do you restart a process after making a bunch of fundraising mistakes?

37:20 - AMA: How do I find angel investors?

37:37 - You should be in SF if you can be if you want to start a company

38:07 - The second best geo to build a company is on the Internet — anyone can be there

38:39 - How Julian met his first investors and customers on X while a music school dropout in Boston

40:29 - Sincere cold outbound on X is surprisingly effective

41:26 - Merge - a club for nondilutive microgrants

41:57 - AMA: Is it risky to give early angels a lower cap?

44:50 - Is it worth giving a lower valuation to someone you really want to work with?

45:58 - AMA: Cold vs warm approaches for investor intros

48:11 - Cold is hard because it's a filtering challenge.

49:10 - If you do cold it must be highly personalized and succinct.

50:17 - AMA: Pros and cons of MFN sideletters

51:12 - Link to MFN document

51:33 - AMA: How do I make the most of ODF (to fundraise and otherwise)

53:20 - AMA: Applying for incubators and accelerators vs raising a more traditional round

55:27 - AMA: Things are not going great but we still have conviction on our idea - what's your advice?

55:39 - If you have conviction on your idea when it's not going well WHY do you have conviction?

56:52 - Customers understand before investors do — and most investors will never understand

57:56 - AMA: What tool do you recommend for RUVs?

58:11 - AMA: How to start super small but demonstrate to investors that the overall TAM could be really large

1:01:35 - ODF23 — the place to go to figure out who you're going to build with, what you might build, and who your initial customers might be. IRL in SF

https://joinodf.com

P.S. I don’t think you miss much not seeing the slides, but here’s the full session video with slides if want them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Aj1_S7wrhc

Follow me on Twitter: https://x.com/julianweisser

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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0mfCFqUeW0sLWUefeWgtPK?si=4df2cdc42a004326

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/texts-with-founders/id1725949759

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit textswithfounders.substack.com

This is a bonus episode. It's not based on a post—it's actually audio from a short video I recorded about what to do after you've received your first term sheet and you're still talking to other investors.

Check out more short videos and subscribe at textswithfounders.com/shorts.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit textswithfounders.substack.com

Welcome to the third week of the brand new Texts with Founders Podcast.

The goal of this podcast is simple: make the knowledge being shared on Texts With Founders even more accessible to a wider audience of founders by creating high quality audiobook-like editions of popular posts.

Find me at weisser.io and on X at https://x.com/julianweisser

Full Written Post: Avoiding Gossip

Podcast Archive:

- Check size doesn't matter

- VCs that Ghost

- Handling Investor Inbound

Are you exploring starting a company? Apply for ODF. The program has helped over 1,000 companies such as Traba, Levels, and Finch find their co-founders and get started. Learn more at beondeck.com.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit textswithfounders.substack.com

Welcome to the third week of the brand new Texts with Founders Podcast.

The goal of this podcast is simple: make the knowledge being shared on Texts With Founders even more accessible to a wider audience of founders by creating high quality audiobook-like editions of popular posts.

Find me at weisser.io and on X at https://x.com/julianweisser

Episode Notes

Angels mentioned:

- Ashley Mayer

- Packy McCormick

- Sander Daniels

- Patrick McKenzie (and his tweetstorms about RUVs)

Founders mentioned

- Ryan Delk of Primer

Full Written Post: Texts with Founders: Check Size Doesn't Matter

Podcast Archive:

- VCs that Ghost

- Handling Investor Inbound

Are you exploring starting a company? Apply for ODF. The program has helped over 1,000 companies such as Traba, Levels, and Finch find their co-founders and get started. Learn more at beondeck.com.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit textswithfounders.substack.com

Welcome to the second week the brand new Texts with Founders Podcast.

The goal of this podcast is simple: make the knowledge being shared on Texts With Founders even more accessible to a wider audience of founders by creating high quality audiobook-like editions of popular posts.

Full Written Post: https://textswithfounders.substack.com/p/vcs-that-ghost-twf-meetup-in-sf

Find me at weisser.io and on X at https://x.com/julianweisser

Are you exploring starting a company? Apply for ODF. The program has helped over 1,000 companies such as Traba, Levels, and Finch find their co-founders and get started. Learn more at beondeck.com.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit textswithfounders.substack.com

Welcome to the debut of the brand new Texts with Founders Podcast.

The goal of this podcast is simple: make the knowledge being shared on Texts With Founders even more accessible to a wider audience of founders by creating high quality audiobook-like editions of popular posts.

Full Written Post: https://textswithfounders.substack.com/p/texts-with-founders-handling-inbound

Find me at weisser.io and on X at @julianweisser

Are you exploring starting a company? Apply for ODF. The program has helped over 1,000 companies such as Traba, Levels, and Finch find their co-founders and get started. Learn more at beondeck.com.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit textswithfounders.substack.com