Kelley Griggs’ Post

Calling all #Founders who are #fundraising! Distill your efforts to focus on THAT NEXT ITEM that will accelerate your startup to revenue. This speaks to #investors AND determines the $ amount you actually need to raise. Yesterday’s panel discussion (that I had the privilege of moderating) brought up so many suggestions for founders right now. Reach out with questions!

Making it to a Series B (and beyond) funding round is a testament to your team's skills and hard work. If you're at this stage, it's all about cracking the code to exponential growth and market domination. Navigating the oddysey that is raising funds for your startup while you're running its daily operations at the same time can be a daunting task. That's why we made this free "Cheat Sheet", to help you know what your priorities should be at each stage. You can download it here: ▶ https://lnkd.in/eGrSC6mH

When we say your community is your greatest asset - this is what we mean. Raising from your community transforms it into a powerful source of long-term capital - which is exactly what this #DealMaker client did. They kept their audience engaged with periodic updates... not just while they had active campaigns running, but any time they had exciting progress to share. That communication and consistency has paid off in spades for this issuer. Of the $54M they raised from 2020-2022, nearly a quarter came from their existing community - over $12.5 million! DealMaker Engage makes it easier than ever to keep your investor list warm - so when it's time for your next raise, you have a built-in pool of potential investors to tap into. We'll have some exciting updates to share about Engage in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! #EquityCrowdfunding #StartupFunding #CommunityRaise

When I tell people about Phodu Club, I get three major questions 1) How much funding have you raised? 2) What is the valuation? 3) What are you trying to solve? I am fine with questions due to curiosity, but I find it weird when people equate starting up with raising funds. They think fund raising is success. Yes, I agree that funding can help you scale the company faster and provide a great network. But that's literally the start of the journey, not the end. Change the mindset. Focus on value addition, not valuation. P.S. We are bootstrapped! Dhruva Pai Angle

Don't believe in our process yet? Don't take our word for it. Our programme has helped 280 founders raise 288 million euros in about two years. Those two years weren't easy: some say it's probably been the worst VC years in history. It's hard to picture how much five days can change how you approach fundraising forever, but our alumni are great proof. The reality is that the programme is truly paradigm-shifting. From changing your mindset on behaving around investors to offering a new way of negotiation. We're not here just to make your pitch look better or review your cold-calling emails. That's the bare minimum. What truly matters during the Fundraising Bootcamp is that we'll change how you think about raising funds forever. You'll have a completely new strategy and approach and will deal with investors differently in all your future rounds. Not sure yet? Try it for yourself. We have a money-back guarantee if you don't see value in our programme. Join the last Fundraising Bootcamp of the year in Paris this November and get ready to change the 2024 of your startup. Details here: https://hubs.la/Q027ynGC0

A big gap in fundraising space.💲 Yash and I have been tinkering with the problem statement for a while now. 💡 And this conversation sparked when we attended a VC's EiR program and saw a lot of first time founders questioning about finding co-founders, approach towards raising funds, etc. This led us to a big whitespace where we understood that a first time founder often faces hurdles while raising funds for the first time. Some questions we asked ourselves: 1. How does a first time founder go about finding a co-founder? 👥 2. How do they navigate the vast ocean of raising funds❓ 3. Does she/he have the basic hygiene of raising funds? (different instruments, 10s of terms that is to be included in the deck, who to approach: an angel or a VC and how) 🥶 And most importantly, 4. What is the ratio of time invested in figuring out fundraise to building an MVP? ⚖️ (ps: here the first time founder refers to an individual who is non-IIT/IIM/ISB/top-B-school) While some are solving for it, I've not come across anyone solving it holistically. 🛑 We've got some initial insights after speaking to a couple of first time founders (in the next post). 💯 Would love to chat if you are a first time founder building something interesting or if you have raised a pre-seed or seed round recently. ✨

This fundraising playbook from Forecastr (props to Jeff Erickson and Steven Plappert, awesome humans) is fantastic. It gives a very comprehensive strategy for how to raise capital and if you're raising right now, I'd highly recommend you check it out. https://hubs.li/Q02Csrpt0

There's a lot of advice about #fundraising, but what happens after the round is closed? When Matt Blumberg agreed to come on VC Minute, I wanted to tap into his decades-long #startup experience and learn the top mistakes #founders make after they raise their round. 📂 Under-Reporting — work with your investors right out of the gate to decide how you'll track the business and how often you'll report. 💰 Over Spending — I love the litmus test he provides: for your post-close team celebration dinner, did you spend hundreds or thousands? 💸 Not Forecasting Cash — tying those two together + the CEO's #1 job to never run out of money and you should produce a rolling 12-month cash forecast. What would you add to the list? What post-funding mistakes can you share?

Have you ever wondered about Series A Funding? Understanding the various funding rounds like Series A, B, and C is key in the startup world. I've broken down the essentials of these stages in fundraising for budding companies—from Pre-Seed Funding to Series C. While there are further rounds like D, E, F, and even private equity rounds, grasping these primary stages is crucial. Let's delve into the fundamentals of #Fundraising together

The amount of nonprofit startup ecosystems that actually charge their Entrepreneurs to join their programs is crazy! Isn't the whole point to give Entrepreneurs access to no cost early stage programs and services and even some no strings grant capital to kick things off? I guess that's why we chose our model at BisonX to be different than the others. We started our ecosystem by anchoring the capital sources and then we built out the programs and services. Donor based fund, grant program, traditional LP fund, we purchased a VC firm and moved it locally...we're not just VC capital, we're capital that everyone has access to no matter how big or small your business is. If you don't have access to capital then the ecosystem will eventually fail.