Introduction
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Intro
There’s not a lot of “fun” in Funding.
Any time you have to ask strangers for money, it’s stressful. No matter whether you’re doing your first startup or your tenth, the process of putting together enough capital to get the ball rolling is tough for everyone.
The only way to make it a bit easier is to really know the funding game works. That’s what we’re here to help you do. We’re going to walk through every aspect of raising capital from how to bootstrap to securing a loan to raising capital from investors. The whole enchilada.
Key Takeaway
Funding is hard. We’re going to break it down to its individual parts to make it less intimidating and increase your chances of success.
Unlike applying for a car loan, securing startup capital doesn’t have a standard approach. There’s no form you fill out and wait for an approval. It’s far more driven by the Founder’s ability to sell others on a vision and be totally scrappy with pulling together resources while they do it. In many instances, it’s even counterintuitive (“You mean investors only get excited in my product after I’ve made progress? But I need their money to make progress…”)
To make this far more digestible we’re going to break the entire fundraising process out into four key phases that will isolate the challenges at each step so you can conquer them individually:
PHASE 1
Structure Your Fundraise
We’ll explain the three types of funding – bootstrapping, debt, and equity and determine which path makes the most amount of sense for you. Also, we’ll dig into the specifics for how each type of funding source.
PHASE 2
Investor Selection
If you choose to pursue investors, you’ll need to understand what types of investors are appropriate for your raise and where you’ll go to find them.
PHASE 3
Craft your Pitch
Refining your story into a short, concise pitch requires a lot of effort. We’ll dissect your pitch and show you how to hone the key elements for maximum effect.
PHASE 4
Investor Outreach
Contacting prospective investors requires a thorough understanding of how to reach out, who to contact first, and how to provide just enough information that you get a good response rate.
Even if you have some familiarity with funding it may help to just scan each of the areas in each Phase just to see if you can pick up a few details and hints. There are a lot of tiny details around how each type of funding product works that might be worthwhile to brush up on.
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