Part 1: How to Raise Money for Your Startup, as Explained by a Former Entrepreneur

A condensed and practical roadmap for startup fundraising.
Skip to: Part 2 — Fundraising Assets

Courtesy: Martin Schmetzer

Fundraising for your startup can be simultaneously exciting, nerve-racking, and even daunting. Aside from the mechanics of the term sheet, the negotiations, confronting rejection, and finally landing signatures, many (if not most) entrepreneurs actually have no clue where to even begin. In this post, I’ll give you a practical roadmap, so that even when you inevitably get into specific rabbit holes of fundraising, you can always find your way back to the big picture. This post presumes you are working on an early-stage startup, but the best practices can apply even if you are far into Series A and B, etc.

Know What You Want

How much money do you want to raise? That depends on a lot of things, of course. But my recommendation is to structure your determination around time. By that I mean — how much time do you need to get to your next milestone? Let’s say you need to roll out a minimum viable product (MVP) in 8 months. And let’s say you need X number of people and cover Y amount of other monthly expenses, culminating in a total of $100K per month. Ok, now you’ve got your monthly burn rate nailed down. Then just multiply that…