162 days to go: the final push before Christmas
A recap of week eleven as a full-time Founder.
Hey there 👋🏾,
For those of you who are short on time, here are the sections of the newsletter you may want to skip ahead to…
Win🏅: 3x Syndicate & Angel calls booked, 1x event invite for January and 2x Syndicate applications in review
Loss 🤕: 1x investor call cancelled (and not being rescheduled)
Lessons 💡: Talking about exit strategies with investors
Hack💥: Platforms you can use to find founder/investor events
As always, I appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave comments or reply to this email with your thoughts.
🎯 Objective
Making the final calls, emails and applications of 2023
With Christmas just five days away (it’s scary to think that 2024 is just around the corner 😱), I’ve been tying up loose ends and preparing for the next big push in January. The main focus has been:
Booking final calls for this week and monitoring the last email automations of the year
Completing a bulk of syndicate application forms and responding to the syndicates that have moved us through their process
Considering we’re in the final two weeks of the year, I’ve seen a huge improvement in the response rate to emails, LinkedIn messages and a faster turnaround time for applications to be reviewed, so continuing with outreach has definitely been time well spent.
That said, today’s newsletter is my final weekly reflection of the year! Next week, I’ll do an end-of-quarter reflection, highlighting the most significant lessons that have influenced my raise so far.
A big thank you to everyone who has been reading along, sharing the 240 Days newsletter and offering help and guidance along the way this year. I really appreciate the support and hope that these weekly updates continue to help Founders who are raising!
🔋 Progress recap & highlights
Biggest wins
WIN 1️⃣: 3x Syndicate & Angel calls booked, 1x event invite for January and 2x Syndicate applications in review 🌎
Instead of dialling down my investor outreach in December, I’ve continued to send emails and complete Syndicate applications. This has (surprisingly) led to:
Calls being booked the week before Christmas (or in early Jan)
Getting an invitation to an event abroad at the end of Jan
Several Syndicates starting to review my application
Not only has it been pretty fruitful, but I sense pushing on in December will help kick-start my outreach plans again in January. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from this is following the trend of conducting outreach during high season, isn’t always the most helpful strategy it’s easy for your messages and emails to get lost in the noise.
Even though I have had my fair share of ‘nos’ come through since outreach started in December, that also helps narrow my focus and channel energy into building relationships with the investors or syndicates that may be interested.
So, as I wind down for Christmas this week, I’ll start to focus on completing the last few applications (which will probably be reviewed in Jan).
TIP CONTACTING ANGEL SYNDICATES: Not all Syndicate's will have an appication form. There plenty who just have an email address or contact us page on their website. Grab the generic team emails and also find the email address of a Partner/Angel before sending your pitch to both. This will increase your chances of at least getting a response. WIN 2️⃣: 1x amazing Founder and Angel meeting 🫎
Warm introductions to other Founders can be just as meaningful as introductions to investors.
I experienced this last week when I was connected with another Founder in the curly hair space. We met for the first time (in person) and had an absolute blast.
What should have been a 1-hour meeting turned into 2 1/2 hours of fun and looking for ways to collaborate in 2024. It’s moments like these that remind me:
a) Zoom calls are great, but nothing can really replace in-person interactions and
b) a strong, tight-knit, founder community is one of the most valuable things you can have
This meet-up was followed by a call with an Angel investor. While I didn’t fit their investment thesis (they mainly focussed on health-tech) I got some incredible product feedback from someone who has a world of experience in that area.
It’s so important to remember that not all investors will want to put money in, but when they give you their time and honest opinion — which seems to be a rarity — that is another way of demonstrating that they see something in you or your product.
TIP FOR INVESTOR OUTREACH: Now is a good time to thank anyone who has given you some of their time this year. Make some time to send some Christmas and New Year messages to show that you're grateful to those who poured into your cup this year.WIN 3️⃣: Email automations update: increase in opens and replies 📧
Final update on email automations for 2023! Here’s how the stats are looking:
📧 1,098 people have opened my emails (up 4% WoW)
↩️ 109 people have replied so far (up 18% WoW)
🥈 92 people replied after the 2nd email in the series (up 15% WoW)
Opens are only up slightly but replies are up (as are replies after the 2nd email). The last set of messages will go out this week and then my automations will start again in January and I’ll start sharing a fresh set of stats.
Is this helpful? Share the 240 Days newsletter with your community.
Biggest L’s 🤕
LOSS 😩: 1x Angel Syndicate wants to reconnect in 6 months (questions on ability to scale)
I’ve mentioned this before, but feedback is a rarity in the world of fundraising. So, I’m always very grateful when investors shed light on why they have decided not to move forward at this stage. Last week, a Syndicate’s let us know that:
Our team and product are a great fit for their thesis 🥳
They are impressed with what we’ve achieved so far 🎉
But, as we’re pre-revenue they have questions about our ability to scale
This isn’t a hard loss as it feels like the conversation has been put on hold, not stopped altogether.
They’ve asked that we get back in touch with them in 6 months to share some updates on our progress. Plus, their feedback was helpful as it gave us an indication of the revenue traction they’re looking for.
On the flip side, Founders please be weary of the traction trap.
Some investors will reply with feedback about traction that is so high in volume that you wouldn’t really need investment at that stage. Do the math, and consider whether they are sending you helpful feedback or a subtle sign that they aren’t the right fit.
LOSS 😩: 1x investor call cancelled (and not being rescheduled)
Unfortunately, an investor who replied to one of my cold outreach emails cancelled a call last week. It was a bit of a bummer as I was looking forward to the call, but these things do happen.
Fortunately, they were transparent and let me know that they weren’t investing right now so cancelling was probably a good call.
This interaction did remind me that booking a call still doesn’t guarantee anything. It’s not until the person is on the Zoom or meets you in person that you’re able to work towards building that relationship with them.
TIP FOR RESCHEDULING: If you think it's still worth having a call with an investor who has cancelled, try to get a commitment as soon as you can. The longer you leave it, the more challenging it will be to get that yes. 💡 Lessons learned
Quote of the week
Don’t be afraid. Be focussed. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.
— Michelle Obama
LESSON 👩🏾🏫: Talking about exit strategies with investors
Last week, I got some great advice about how and when to start talking about exit strategies.
A few investors have flagged that Founders tend to mention exit strategies in conversations but, it can help to reference this in your pitch deck as:
Exit strategy plays a big role in an investor’s decision to say yay or nay
Addressing this upfront demonstrates that you have already done this thinking
After sharing this view with a few communities, I also got some helpful advice on how and where to mention exit strategies as well as what to take into consideration:
Pitch deck: reference how you believe your company can exit in a slide, with examples of similar exits from successful companies.
Demonstrate you have prepared for this exit: If, for example, you believe being acquired by a competitor is the best exit strategy, start reaching out to senior ex-employees of those brands and build relationships with them. Aim to get one person on your advisory team — exits are all about relationships so having someone on the inside who used to work at the company you’d like to be acquired by will help.
Make sure your exit is suitable for the investors you’re reaching out to: While Angels may typically be in favour of you getting acquired, VCs typically write off acquisitions as they want to make exponential returns (e.g. an IPO).
On a personal note, I strongly believe that to reach a goal, it’s better to reverse engineer the process or problem. By that I mean, think about the decisions you need to make to be successfully acquired or reach an IPO from this point onwards.
We are starting to hear so many horror stories about how little Founders end up with once their business has been sold, and I suspect that largely comes from focussing on the day-by-day (e.g. how do I build a killer product that people love), vs. thinking how is every decision I make as a Founder putting the business in the best position to exit.
From the amount of equity that you give away to the type of investors you work with (Angels, VCs etc) and the people you hire, every decision will either get you closer or further away from that goal. So it’s important to choose wisely.
TIP FOR DECIDING ON AN EXIT STRATEGY: speak to founders and investors who have had good and bad exits. Learning from other people's best and worst decisions will help you to look at exits from another lense and set yourself up for success. 💥 Hack of the week
Places you can use to find founder/investor meet-ups and events
Attending events is a huge part of the typical fundraising process.
You have a chance to meet other founders and investors who you may not have come across otherwise.
Not to mention, it’s much easier to have a lasting impression on someone you’ve met face to face vs through email and LinkedIn.
While the majority of the events I attended in 2023 came through community groups, you can be more intentional by looking for local founder/investor meets in your town or city. I recommend heading to:
Eventbrite — easy to find a lot of industry and organisation events.
Meet-up — a great place for finding small communities that host events and build connections
Use keywords like, ‘investor’, ‘founder’ and ‘Angel’, and you will find a host of events to go to. But also, look out for events that are hosted by VCs and Angel Syndicates as they are more likely to have a balanced ratio of investors/founders attending.
PAYING TO ATTEND EVENTS: Remember, events that cost money to attend are more likely to have investors who are looking for deals right now. Free events are great for building connections, but paid events are often better.📚 Resources
If you made it all the way to the end of this newsletter, you deserve a reward. So here’s a list of the best resources I came across last week to help you with your raise.
Funding for women and minority founders
Sephora: Black beauty founders: apply for $100K grants
Ganas Ventures: Community-driven founders: apply for $100K
HerSuiteSpot: WOC founders: apply for $1K grants
Wish: Black founders: apply for $500-$2K
Workers Lab: BIPOC women: apply for $200K
Amber: Women founders: apply for <$10K grants
Z Fellow: Technical tinkerers: apply for a $10K grant
TechRise: Chicago founders: apply to win $50K
SoGal Foundation: Black women founders: apply for $5-$10K in grants
1863 Ventures: Black founders: apply to get a 3Rs $5K grants
🧰 Founder’s toolbox
Nothing to share this week! I’ll be back next week with more tools!
Questions? 🤔
Feel free to drop any questions in the comments below! Until next week,
J x
P.S. Here are some of my other posts:
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