Don’t answer every question in your deck. Give just enough information to pique curiosity.

Let’s peer into the spooky world inside a VC’s brain when you’re pitching with a wall-of-text slide.

Understanding that you have a very limited amount of time and space to compete for a limited amount of investor attention.

The Team slide is your chance to answer the question, “why you?” A handful of logos is no more helpful than two paragraphs of text.

If your pitch deck should form an argument, the best way to formulate that argument is by writing it out in three sentences.

Structure your pitch deck in a way that it forms an argument and each slide supports that argument all the way through.

Market sizing should articulate how you see the market, showing that you understand your target market and can focus on it.

You don’t have critical distance from your business to be able to get out of the weeds. Get feedback on your deck from someone with that critical distance.

The author of Dropbox DocSend’s pitch deck analyses shares his insights into building a “snappy” pitch deck.

“There’s very few companies, or people, or teams that get to build the future.” -Sunny Han

Sunny looks at VC as a game, one that has rules. You can still choose to play with people good people, but know that they have objectives that may not be the same as yours.

After raising in the bubble of 2021, the next raise proved both challenging and humbling.

Sunny shares, “The Series A felt like poetry. It didn’t feel like finance. And I think there, underlying that, there’s some delusional problems with how I was managing the company at the time.”

VCs push founders for growth. Founders push their teams for growth. But is all growth the right growth?

Sunny shares his lesson on how he would choose investors.

Running a targeted fundraising process—knowing who he want to reach and who can introduce him—got the fundraise moving quickly.

Sunny leveraged his personal savings and help from family to fund the pivot.

Starting out as a consulting business was a great way to learn what customers wanted, but caused problems as the other founders didn’t want to give up the consulting work.

Meet Sunny Han, founder & CEO of Fulcrum. SpringTime invested in Fulcrum and has been with them through all the ups and downs.

Should you back off of the business to fundraise for 3 months, or can you accomplish more by spending 4 months heads-down growing the business?

Pick three weeks to block out just for initial investor meetings to create a tight feedback loop.

Should you back off of the business to fundraise for 3 months, or can you accomplish more by spending 4 months heads-down growing the business?

Before you send a single email, build a list of 200+ target VCs. Here are four sites you can use for free.

There are 14 weeks between now and Thanksgiving. If you don’t have a term sheet by then, you’re not going to get one until Q1 next year.

In fundraising, the end of June is a lot like the end of November. If you don’t have a term sheet on the table, you’re not going to get one in the next month.

The title of the book is not about romantic love, it’s about instilling a love for the work within your organization.

If you can become a great leader, people will dig deeper for what they’re building. An authoritarian approach will drive people away from your startup.

A culture of innovation that is tied into your vision and team goals will drive success throughout the organization.

You’re not going to hire the right people every time. Increase your chances by learning the “Who” methodology by Geoff Smart.

Live by your core values, without exception. Because any one exception will undermine those values for everyone.

It’s not just you; enabling autonomy is hard for all founders.

After you have articulated the vision, break it down into clear expectations for each individual. Done right, this will create autonomy.

The vision for your startup needs to come out of your head and be articulated to you company.

SpringTime partner, Jeff Gardner, released a new book, “Love Your People” that shares his insights through years of successful startup growth, turnarounds, and exits.

Why would Tom self-fund or limit fundraising if he could? It can distract from the business

Stacking SAFEs gets messy, vs. priced rounds that clean cap tables. And having more investors can benefit you because they can make introductions to other investors.

Two common mistakes: trying to tell everything in the first meeting, and not finding your painkiller solution.

If the CEO’s job is to fundraise, what do you do when the best fundraiser on your team isn’t the CEO? What iink did was change CEOs.

Despite not having a network of wealthy people that could invest in his startup, Tom built that network himself, leveraging service providers, LinkedIn, and highly customized emails.

After digging through the data, I lay out my expectations for the rest of the year.

Peter & Allyson share about some of the things founders should be aware of when raising money on SAFE notes.

Peter Walker dubbed 2023 “The Year of the Bridge Round.” In many cases, the founders did what they set out to do, it’s just that the bar for Series A moved.

Startups getting from Seed to Series A in two years has dropped by a third. It’s creating a “messy middle in the earliest parts of the market,” according to Peter Walker.

There are rays of hope for the market, but the most important thing is to stay focused on what you can control.

There are rays of hope for the market, but the most important thing is to stay focused on what you can control.

If all Seed & Pre-Seed funds shift just 5% of their allocation from first checks to follow-on checks, there will be $3 billion fewer available for first checks.

If all Seed & Pre-Seed funds shift just 5% of their allocation from first checks to follow-on checks, there will be $3 billion fewer available for first checks.

The backlog in the private markets extends from IPOs to PE, all the way down to Series A. It’s one of the primary drivers of so many startups stuck at Seed.

The market conditions driving Seed have been building for the past few years. More Seed funds kept Seed isolated from the later stage problems… until now.

After you raise, recognize that you can’t possibly hire everyone all at once. Take your time to hire right. And most importantly, celebrate!

What to say when asked about your valuation expectations. And don’t forget to negotiate valuation!

One of Karyn’s clients put together a team from the Board to support the fundraise. It drove the process and drove results.

Avoiding some common financial pitfalls can help with both cash flow and fundraising.

It’s invaluable having a CFO that can provide meaning and actionable business insights.

There’s so much in fundraising that you cannot control. Focus on what you can control and it will help what you can’t control fall into place.

By making fundraising into a game, you can change your mindset around it.

Advice to founders to avoid time-wasting VCs: ask in the first call if a fund is actively investing.

A year after the boom-times, raising another funding round was a different story.

Unsure of whether or not he wanted to raise, Alex found himself with term sheets for both venture funding and an acquisition in mid 2021.

I didn’t have time to make a short deck, so I made a long one instead.

I didn’t have time to make a short deck, so I made a long one instead.

Consistently sending investor updates maintains awareness, opens opportunities for serendipitous introductions, and demonstrates transparency about the company’s progress and challenges.

Follow more of Allyson’s writing on the VC Minute Substack: https://vcminute.substack.com/

Focusing on a well-defined target customer profile is crucial for rapid growth and investor confidence.

Follow more of Allyson’s writing on VC Minute Substack: https://vcminute.substack.com/

The longer an investor has been around, the more likely they’ve seen someone attempting to solve the same problem you’re tackling. Convince them “why now” to get their attention.

Read more of Allyson’s work on our Substack: https://vcminute.substack.com/

Ever wonder why so few funds lead? There are real risks for a small fund.

I made a critical mistake by underestimating the importance of momentum.

Coming back around to the first lesson, the relationship between the founder and lead VC is the most important part of the whole process.

Clearly define the depth of legal scrutiny required on each issue to streamline the process.

This past December, SpringTime Ventures led a complicated priced equity round. It was the first round that I ever led and I learned a ton of lessons. The first two are that the relationship between the lead VC and the founder is the single most important thing. Second, have great lawyers who know the unknowns.

“Knowing that it is supposed to be hard is oddly freeing because it kind of alleviates that feeling of, oh, so and so makes it look so easy.”

The best fundraisers run a process. It’s no surprise that Liz has a rigorous for building and executing her fundraise.

Your pitch deck should be able to tell the story without voiceover. VCs are going to send it around externally and internally at a fund. Everyone needs to understand it without you presenting it.

To grow your skill in fundraising, master these three pitches: elevator pitch, the hero story, and your fit in greater market.

Liz believes that fundraising is not “on your to do list” but a core skill of a startup CEO, a deeply integrated part of your job.

This is probably my favorite startup maxim of all. It ties in with the Lean Startup Methodology, and is core to figuring out what you should be building and for whom.

The last episode of ABF. I promise. Maybe. But we’re definitely missing the founder’s perspective on this one, which is why I was glad to have Liz Giorgi’s input.

What’s really at the core of the “lines, not dots” maxim? Relationships.

Mark Suster’s classic post: Invest in Lines, Not Dots.

ABF: Always Be Fundraising. Should you really always be fundraising? Here are some tips on how to evaluate if this is right for you.

This week I’m covering startup maxims—tthose little phrases we all repeat to each other as common wisdom but may or may not be true, helpful, or relevant.

Today’s maxim: “Ask for money, get advice. Ask for advice, get money.”

Just as the purpose of the deck is not to get a check, it’s to get the first meeting. The purpose of the first meeting is…

A VC’s job is to say “no.” Now knowing that, how do you adjust your approach?

If you aren’t getting positive feedback from the market, don’t start adding things. Strip the product down to its core basic value prop.

Founders are efficiency-seeking missiles, which is what compels them to start businesses, but it’s a double-edged sword.

The CEO is responsible for three things: communicate the vision, hire great people, and don’t run out of money. But it all boils down to just one thing.

It’s not a thing that VCs talk about, but it is something that we should cover. I tag-teamed with my friend, Eric Marcoullier on the topic of shutting down your startup.

“This will not be your last startup.”

My friend Eric is a very successful startup founder who has been a CEO coach for the last decade. When founders come to him to ask if they should shut down their startup, he runs this process with them.

There are ways to shut down: The Ghost, The Bonfire, The Refund. But there’s also a great way to sell your startup. That advice is not mine to share, so go read this presentation by Geoff Lewis: The Terminal Plan

This week, we’re covering an important but difficult topic: shutting down your startup. If you’re asking yourself the question, you may already have the answer. And your investors may have already written your company down.

When a start-up comes into my inbox cold or through another investor, there are really only two things I’m trying to figure out: 1) Is this for me? 2) Is this interesting?

Allyson joins us to share her insights on providing specificity to the problem being solved. A founder has to be able to convey the severity of the problem and the specific upside to solving it. Without both, investors know customers just won’t buy.

Wrapping this up, I’ve been watching the “Follow-On Death Spiral” for the last year. It’s not all bad news through.

The time between startup fundraises has grown significantly. Additionally, the time between venture fund vintages has also grown, resulting in a slowdown of capital deployment. All while venture funds buoy the healthy companies in their portfolio with follow-on capital.

Over the next few days we’re going to dive into why follow-on investment is the most important thing for Seed startups. Today, a quick background on the lengthening of the Seed Phase and why Series A raised the bar.

Maybe a founder could explain to me why you would not follow up with investors that opened your deck on DocSend?

Clear communication is crucial for startup CEOs to sell their vision effectively to investors, customers, and employees. SpringTime partner, Allyson Plosko, shares why Simplicity is Genius.

We met six months ago for 30 minutes. It’s been 260,000 minutes since we last communicated. Remind me, what does your startup do?

Stay Top of Mind: Learn why regular updates are crucial for startup founders to maintain investor interest and support, especially during fundraising rounds.

Welcome back to another season of VC Minute! We are pleased to introduce our sponsor, AVL Growth Partners. And I talk (briefly) about the #1 thing you should be asking Seed Phase investors right now.

Founders should look beyond dilution in term sheets, focusing on board configuration’s significance and understanding the option pool’s impact. AJ offers words of encouragement, emphasizing resilience and daily learning for success in the competitive market.