How do you structure a 12-month fundraising process?

do you really think fundraising is going to be easy for your startup hate to break it to you but if you're trying to raise money now when you need the money you're in for a long road ahead in this episode I'm going to demystify the timeline of fundraising and make sure you set yourself up for Success the strategy I will share is for Founders at any stage of their business raising Equity from professional investors within the next 12 months if this is your first time tuning in to fundraising demystified I'm Jason kiry I've been building and selling companies for 17 years I've raised over $145 million four exits and now I help founder-led companies access the right capital from the right Partners at Meer thunder. BC stay tuned for a freebie on how you can access a free list of AI recommended investors specific to your startup now let's get back to managing your fundraising timeline as you you know or as you probably have heard fundraising is a marathon not a Sprint in this video I'm going to be breaking down the exact steps you need to build investor relationships keep your company growing up and to the right and get the right investors at your cap table the first thing we're going to do is we're going to talk about month zero and I'm calling it zero because I'm assuming maybe you haven't done this step yet uh and it's never too late to start the best time to start is now if you haven't done it already so we're going to start with fundraising before you need the money so too many Founders wait until they're desperate to ask for money and ultimately what ends up happening is you go out when you need you know money in three months you try to B relationships and maybe you get a couple Angels But ultimately you won't raise the money that you actually need and you don't get the money to hit the velocity that you need to raise the next round so I always like to bring up this point and most people don't know this but did you know that the average VC founder relationship lasts longer than the average American marriage okay how many successful marriages started off with a cold email and ended with a ring on a finger in less than 90 days I'm going to go with probably zero or a negligible amount and it's so important for Founders to change their perspective about fundraising you think you got to be in a cave you know locked in your basement your garage wherever and just build build build build build and then show up one day and you know here's who no one in the world has ever heard of and he's knocking on your door asking for money it's like pump the brakes there I don't know you I need to build a relationship with you I need to trust you you need to demonstrate that you have the ability to build a real business less you know take it easy TI get slow and that's what's this month zero is all about it's about building and the establishing these key relationships as early as possible first thing you need to do you need to identify and reach out out to Smart relevant and very credible people that are highly regarded in their industry or sector that you're either building in or have built in uh they do not have to be investors they just have to be credible experts that have strong networks so this is the most important phase of this whole strategy you need people early on to believe and trust in you and make sure you don't ask for money you ask for advice what ultimately ends up happening is you share what you're building you don't tell them what they're doing you share you make it a collaborative experience you talk about hey I'm thinking about doing X and because you're coming at it from a open-minded perspective they're not judging you they're collaborating with you they're going back and forth with you sharing ideas and you want to demonstrate like okay I'm thinking about the business this way I think my ideal customer profile will be this I think my you know go to market strategy would be this I think the market is this big you what are your thoughts what am I missing what could I do better what could be a better value proposition this way you get these people leaning in with you they feel like they're contributing and have either at least their identity wrapped up in the business because they contributed maybe something crucial that you end up building or they feel like they like you more they're able to build a relationship with you more so this is really important in the early stages of these relationships and it also demonstrates that you're coachable this is one of the most important attributes especially a firsttime found that doesn't have the the ego of a you multi-time multi- exited founder it's important to really be coachable and also one other really key point that I do not want to miss for mon zero meet these people in person grab a coffee grab go meet at the office make sure you actually establish an in real life relationship because if you don't I get this question all the time when I make intros to investors for for my friends my investments my clients I get people come up to me and they're like oh cool you know Bob like Bob sounds cool like oh you work with Jessica okay like well do you know them like have you met them in person like what what do they what do they sound like how do they hold up themselves like how do they present themselves those are questions I get and if I haven't met that person in person and I say oh well we just we've met a couple time on zo Rec will meet the quality of that intro drops dramatically they they still take the intro seriously they'll still take the meeting but it comes with a little less you know juice behind it and that why it's important to prioritize those inperson meetings all right the goal for this month zero and however long it ends up taking you need at least 10 of these people in your Camp to make sure you're going to have a big enough Network to get enough intros to the right investors to actually secure the capital down the road all right so let's move on to months one through six so you can be doing month zero task all through month one through six as well but ultimately you need to be building rapport with these relationships you need to be providing updates on a regular basis if you're doing a 12-month raise and you need to close at the end of 12 month you need to provide monthly updates if it's further out then quarterly updates are fine but ultimately you need to be demonstrating the good the bad the ugly with the business so that people are aware of what you're doing maybe they have an opportunity to contribute and ask for you know advice or help but ultimately if you miss out on doing the updates you fade away all that work you put in a month zero all those relationships start fading people start forgetting who you are so it's super important to maintain their relationships I've made this mistake before with other businesses it definitely comes back to bite me if I'm not providing updates it feels like you know I'm using them and that's ultimately what can kill a relationship they love seeing the progress they love seeing the updates so make sure you prioritize this while you're building a great company while you're doing everything else right in the operations you need to be at least prioritizing a few hours a month just keep investors updated try to get those inperson meetings if you haven't got them already and and have those frequent you know touch points all right now month six this is where the game starts okay you have established relationships youve nurtured them a little bit now everyone's kind of like you know leaning in on okay what what do you got you know are you going to actually raise money what what's going to be your raise so this is where you get everything buttoned up and here's the the checklist that you need number one you need a deck but don't build a deck in a silo collaborate with your network work bring in experts talk to people don't ship out your deck as if it's a final product ship it out and you know say hey this is our first draft you know what do you think well what questions do you have with this deck make it a collaborative process again get their Buy in by allowing them to share their expertise so important to continue to build those relationships and if you're unsure on what to do with your deck or you haven't built a really strong deck or a deck that's appropriate for your stage don't worry reach out to our team at help at thunder. BC let let us know what you're working on and we'll see if we'll be able to help you with the deck we love putting together great decks all right deck aside you at least got a deck going for you now now you need to architect a growth trajectory that you can sustain for the next six months this is really important and make sure you have enough cash on hand to juice paid Marketing in case you might fall in the growth if you don't have consecutive consistent growth for the next 6 months you might have to actually start over in your fund raise the reason why is once once there's like this this this and then a drop investors immediately get turned off like oh well when you figure out that come back to us it's just the easiest thing to say no to it's like oh you haven't figured it out yet you're not deris enough yet you know maybe some investors again you have these great relationships great intros they can look past those things but if you can continuously Drive growth over the next six months please do and I also say is like keep a little bit of cash on hand you know it's better to have a slow and steady growth or stable growth than it is to have like a big you know Peak run out of money and then have a drop so manage your cash flow accordingly so you can keep that consecutive growth you need three months of growth before you can actually start the fundraise and you need to maintain the growth through the D the diligence and the fundraise process uh until you actually have cash in bank so that's why I give this advice on six months quick plug for Founders looking for an edge raising Capital companies on thunder. BC have gone on to raise over a billion dollars since joining our Network it's absolutely free just go to join. thunder. BC to get started and if you leave a comment on this video down below with your company's name and the problem you're trying to solve you'll be inured to win a free coaching session with me okay that's it just comment down below now let's get back to the show all right so now you got your growth plan you got your your deck together now it's time to go to your network and say we are ready you need to tap your network for those warm intros you need to be very clear and specific with who you want those intros too so do your research on which investors you ultimately want on your cap table if you want help creating this list of a hyper targeted investor pool then I suggest you go to our website thunder. BC go to create a profile or apply now and create a free profile and we take all the guess work out of finding out who you should be building building relationships with and who you should be raising money from with our AI tool we score your company against six 6,000 investor profiles to find which have a higher probability of investing in your company so once you have a list that identify you know your target investors share that with your network and identify who can map the intro to who and this could take some time this is not meant to be easy it is tedious it is manual there's not a tool out there that can make this perfect so do the hard work figure out who connects who to who and then be very specific with the ask send a pre-drafted email that they can just forward to the person you want the intro to so that they can tee it all up as seamlessly as possible and on your timeline and do not give up until everyone has brought you in warm intros this happens like you have to be persistent just people get lazy people go on vacation people forget and it's not because they don't like you it's just because they get busy and it's not their highest priority but if you make it their highest priority by reminding them it will get done eventually and that's going again back to month zero all those relationships you built now is the time to cash in all right so how do you map out your calls so when you start getting intros we're going to call this the getting to know you calls the first call so I have a whole sumar video on how to manage your first call with an investor But ultimately you want to demonstrate on this call that you're working on something cool and relevant that investors would be interested in okay so you're not trying to ask for money you're not trying to you know give them the hard pitch you just want to demonstrate that you're a trusted you know credible person working on something interesting relevant to their investment thesis you know tell them that you plan to raise in the coming months and you wanted to get on their radar early and ask if they would like to be a part of your investor update list okay so you're not going over the hard ask at this point you're just demonstrating you're you know working on something unique and worthy of their time and you're basically trying to do this whole meeting to earn the right to get them on your investor update list and to earn a meeting when you're actually fundraising okay so what you'll do on that call is you'll basically say hey I'm going to be in San Francisco New York wherever they are on these dates can we go ahead and get something scheduled and you want it far out in m so if you're in month seven you want to plan for month nine so like two months out so it's like pretty easy to get something on the schedule you say I'll be in town that week you would love to grab coffee or you know meet at your office this is the right way to build the right relationships this gives plenty of time to lead up to things you can share information over the next month or two with them you know stay in touch and then you get that crucial inperson meeting which increases the odds of success dramatically okay and be sure to have at least that one week window open already planned either book your tickets already so it's like yeah you know you're going or at least you know create the wiggle room and set some dates on where you'll be in which cities so you can coordinate call or inperson meetings as best you can and try not to ever leave an investor call without getting a clear Next Step which is either getting that next meeting booked um or you know asking if they want to be on the investor updates and if they're hesitant or they say well we'll get back to you that kind of stuff they're not interested in you you should completely deprioritize them to move on to someone else maybe add them to your investor update list but don't make them a priority all right so that is pretty much month 7 through 8 now we're on to month 9 so to recap you have all the amazing advisers or relationships that have teed up all these warm intros you've now had these introductory calls maybe one or two at this point with all these relevant investors now it's time to put pedal to the metal and run a very efficient process over the next 30 days so this is where you should have all those inperson meetings already pre-scheduled ready to go in your calendar you need to reconfirm those meetings make sure those are you know that you tell them I will be at your office at this time you put the pressure on them you know if you can't do in person you're doing Google meets so be it this is still appropriate to take firsttime calls you know you might as well get them in if you get them now uh you know take every shot you can but ultimately the target here that will likely lead to success is 30 meetings with 30 firms okay so that's pretty much the number after doing hundreds of interviews with Founders and being a part of so many different raises 30 is kind of that magic number where it's not too much not too little but if you have 30 meetings you usually have enough momentum to to get a couple term sheets so that's your goal so if you take anything away from this you know find a path to get 30 relevant meetings with investors so in month nine you took that Blitz of meetings hopefully you had at least 30 really good quality meetings with 30 firms so getting into month 10 you should now be completing light due diligence so you have like a light data room which we have whole data room strategy on our website you can find out if you go to join. thunder. VC and you should start be able to collect term sheets so if you have 30 meetings odds are you get one to three term sheets in month 10 okay and to learn more about negotiating term sheet what comes in them how to prepare for them if this is your first time we have a free comprehensive guide that's Linked In the description below um or you just subscribe to our newsletter at join. thunder. BC we'll make sure we send that to you okay so month 11 through 12 is getting through a grueling due diligence process this is of in you know if you're early stage it's not too bad but if it's you know later stage it's just a lot of legal lawyers talking back and forth uh you everyone trying to figure out you know come down to the final terms but ultimately it should be you know the end signing the docks and collecting wires and that is typically how it flows all the heavy work is building those relationships early on to make sure you get enough you know shots at on goal with you know at least those 30 investors and that often leads to a successful outcome that doesn't mean reach out to 30 investors you often probably reach out to 100 or 200 investors depending on how you run your process to get those 30 meetings But ultimately it's getting 30 meetings that ultimately it's a success so I promise you if you follow these steps I Shar with you for a 12month fundraise process and you're building a company worth Equity Capital so let me be clear not every company is worth raising Equity capital for not all companies are created equal so assuming you are worthy of raising Equity this will work I guarantee it and if it doesn't just email me tell me your story and I'll give you my office address to show up one day slap me in the face and blame all your fundraising problems on me but I know that will never happen because if you follow these steps to a te you build these key relationships make clear relevant asks to get warm intros you demonstrate that you can run a process and you get at least those 30 meetings you will have success so that all said I hope you found this session valuable again you can learn more at thunder. BC you can subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter and weekly podcast at join. thunder. BC and if you haven't already liked and subscribed be sure to do so hit that subscribe button give us a like and if you have any questions or you feel if I missed the mark on something or whatever I said was you know impossible to do give me a comment down below and I'll be happy to answer you until the next episode be be sure to watch our past episodes with amazing Founders and BCS that have gone on to raise you hundreds of millions of dollars billion dollar exits you know in our podcast series fundraising be mystified