My slides from the Collision Conference where I delivered a workshop on raising a seed round for a tech startup.

1. Michael Girdley
Managing Director
Geekdom Fund
@mgirdley
How to Raise a
Seed Round

2. Agenda
1. Things To Know About Seed Fundraising
2. A Sample Fundraising Process
3. Q&A

3. Seed Fundraising is Hard
It’s a ton of work.
Expect for a co-founder to
be fundraising nearly
full-time each raise.
(Sorry!)

4. Investors Are Customers
You’re selling an investment in your
company.
Different investors have different
priorities/parameters.

5. This is a Numbers Game
You’re going to get told “No”
lots of times.

6. Investors are Herd Animals
Like it or not, investors
watch what others do. If
they see other investors
buying in, you’ll see more
success raising.
So, a lead investor is key.

7. Lead Investors Are Awesome
They agree to terms with
you.
They can help you find other
investors to finish round.

8. Not All Investors are Created Equal
Usually the guy who writes
the biggest and smallest
checks are your biggest
headaches.
Often because they’re out of
their element.

9. Signs Investors are Potentially Bad
They jerk you around.
They have no experience
investing in your industry or
type company.
They have a bad reputation.

10. Visualizing the Numbers

11. You Need a Sales Process for Fundraising

12. Selling Yourself Requires the Right Tools
You look put together in person and
online.
Your pitch deck looks SICK good with
a nice logo.
You showered and smell good.
Your emails aren’t in comic sans and
blue.
Your logo doesn’t look like this ->

13. People Invest in People at Seed-Stage
How do you make yourself look like a
world-beater?
How do you make the audience think
you’ll move mountains?
Your entire story needs to reinforce
this idea. You are the one of
thousands of wannabes to invest in.

14. Investors Must Be Accredited
To invest in startups directly, your investors must be Accredited as defined by the IRS.
There are other paths to get investor $ from non-accredited, but they mostly stink.
Besides, accredited investors write bigger checks.

15. You Don’t Need a CRM for Seed
There’s only one of you selling.
You’ll only have a few hundred
investor targets anyway.
Put it in a google doc (not an
EXCEL file -- so you can share it
easily.)
COLUMNS
- Name
- Email
- LinkedIn Profile
- How Found
- Potential Intro Candidate
- Target $
- Probability of closing
- Last Contact
- Next Contract

16. Different Inroads Are Better Than Others
Warm Referral from Trusted Person is better than…
Warm Referral from Untrusted Person is better than...
Indirect Referral (pitch competition, etc) is better than…
Cold Email is better than..
Not trying to reach someone.

17. Investors Invest In Lines, Not Dots
If you’re cold talking to someone, expect them to not say
yes first meeting.
They want to get comfortable with you.
That’s normal.

18. Things You can Do to Look Better
Put some of your own money in
Be all-in with a team that is all-in.
Get external validation (LinkedIn testimonials, etc.)
Find traction and quantify it

19. Give People Easy No’s
Best are Yes’es
Next best are fast No’s.
Worst are Slow Maybe’s.

20. An Example Process

21. Example Process
1. Generate Awareness: Do you think they’re interested?
2. Interest: Are they actually interested?
3. Meeting: Will they dedicate 30 minutes to hear your
pitch?
4. Decision: What is their decision and/or objections?
5. Close Them: Getting them to sign.

22. 1. Awareness: Fill Top of Funnel
a. First-person personal networks
b. Second-person personal networks
c. Customers
d. Luminaries
e. AngelList
f. Events
g. Accelerators / Organizations

23. A. First-person Personal Networks
1. Sit down and go through EVERYONE you know, business or personal.
2. Will they know you if you reach out to them? Do they look like someone
who is an accredited investor? Do they know someone who would be one?
3. Write their contact info in your spreadsheet.

24. B. Second-person Personal Networks
1. Take everyone from Step (a). Look through their LinkedIn and Angellist contacts.
2. Look at each person. Do they look like someone who is an accredited investor? Do
they know someone who would be one?
3. Write their contact info in your spreadsheet.

25. C. Customers
1. Look at every customer and potential customer you’ve spoken with.
2. Look at each person. Do they look like someone who is an accredited investor? Do
they know someone who would be one?
3. Write their contact info in your spreadsheet.

26. D. Luminaries
If you are outside of a major tech hub, good chance the local Big Timers want you to
innovate in their city. This can be the mayor, city council, economic development and
benefactors. They will help you.
1. Go through the websites for your Chamber of Commerce, City Council, State Lege,
etc.
2. Do they look like someone who will help you?
3. Put them in your spreadsheet.

27. E. AngelList / Gust / etc.
Active angels and Seed VCs are on there. They want to be found.
1. Search for similar companies to yours (but not direct competitors).
2. Look at their investors. Do they invest in companies at your stage? Are they active?
Are they sending signals they want to be contacted? Google them and spend 5-10
minutes to understand them.
3. If you think they might be interested, put them in your spreadsheet!

28. F. Events and Organizations
These are angel groups, pitch contests, SXSW, Collision, TechCrunch Disrupt, etc.
Some require you to pay. Some don’t. I don’t like pay-to-play personally.
1. Google funding sources and events. F6S has a nice list of them.
2. See which ones fit with you.
3. Put them in your spreadsheet.
4. Apply to the ones that might help you.

29. G. Accelerators and Incubators
There are multiple flavors of these like RealCo, TechStars,
MassChallenge, YC.
Help because they are filtering mechanisms and connectors to
investors.
Recommendation: Do your homework.

30. 2. Interest Identification
Now, you have your prospects. It should be a few hundred or more.
You run a campaign against each one.
It’s TAILORED to their situation, motivation, etc.
Goal is to get to a meeting.

31. 2. Interest Identification (con’td)
Notice I have played to what I *think* are the
interests of each person.
Selling your investment opp is solving the
investor’s problem, not yours!

32. 2. Interest Identification (con’td)
Cold emails have a lower success rate so need to be
better.
Customize your email to show it’s not a form email.
This takes time to research the targets and understand
why you’re a fit.

33. 2. Interest Identification (con’td)
Your customers have
other priorities than
just making money by
investing.
Play to that.
Call to actions are
good.

34. 2. Interest Identification (con’td)
It’s not just email BTW.
Baby Boomers use the phone.
Gen X uses email.
Gen Y uses SMS/Twitter/some app you’ve
never heard of.
You have to meld to the customer’s needs.

35. 2(a). Referrals
If someone says no or isn’t a target, then you want them to refer you to other
people.
Ask, “Do you know anyone else who we should talk to?”
Forwardable emails is the right way to make it easy for them to help you.
This link is great regarding that:
https://alexiskold.net/2015/06/24/how-to-write-a-forwardable-introduction-e
mail/

36. 3. Meeting
Face to Face Pitch Meetings work best
If not, use video call.
On phone, people get distracted.
Be prepared to travel to get in front of people.
Don’t ask for crazy amounts of time. 30 mins introductory typical.

37. 3. Meeting (cont’d)
Avoid coffee shops. Offices with tables preferred.
Be honest about where you are and what you need.
Sell them on why to invest.
Good idea to ask what their feedback is. Ask whether they want to
invest? “What do you think?”

38. 4. Decision
In meeting, you should have found the investor’s decision-making
process.
Don’t push people too hard or you may lose them.
Politely persistent.
“When do you think we could expect an answer?”

39. 5. Closing
Champagne problems now.
Your lawyer should help guide this process.
Docs get signed.
Money shows up in the bank.
Now, you have to deliver.

40. Q&A TIME!