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- Your Fundraising Timeline is Not Accurate
Your Fundraising Timeline is Not Accurate
why you should be building investor pipeline WHILE growing traction
A lot of founders in early-stage tech I’ve spoken with over the last few weeks think that their raise will happen like this:
Spend month one prepping your deck and financials
Month two pitching 20 VCs
Month three closing the round while popping champagne.
Too many teams start fundraising when they feel confident about their metrics.
But the best time to raise money is when you don't desperately need it. The worst time is when your bank account is screaming.
If you have 12-18 months of runway, you are in a perfect position to be able to raise from a point of strength. It is completely possible to start to build an investor pipeline, take intro meetings, and get good feedback, WHILE working on traction / product growth.
In fact, there is zero reason you should not be doing this.
I understand the feeling of wanting things to be “right” before going-to-market.
You want a few more customers, you want MRR a little higher, you want your team a little more built out.
But waiting until what you feel like is the perfect time is going to do more damage to your company, and your raise, than having a few less customers ever would.
The main reason for this is because (in 99% of cases), VC’s and investor groups are not sitting around waiting for you to finally decide to raise.
They have their own timelines, their own dates for when funds are to be allocated, and plenty more.
This is why initial reach outs, conversations, deck previews, DD, must be done early in the process.
If you had the ability to put the cards in your favour as much as possible to find the right partner, at the right time, wouldn’t you want to give yourself the most time to be able to do so?
It’s a lot of weight for tech teams to carry to try and focus on running and growing their business, AND put forth a direct effort to their raise.
This is the exact problem we’re helping solve with @ Breakout.
Start your raise earlier than you think you should - even if your runway is “good” right now
Work on getting fundraising materials ready WHILE working on product / traction - not after it’s “ready”
If you want help finding, reaching out, and connecting to the right investor groups so you don’t need to lift a finger except take intro calls, check us out at Breakout.
Have an awesome day everyone,
Ryan