79 days to go: fundraising with business as usual

A recap of week twenty two as a full-time Founder.

Jade Buffong-Phillips

Mar 13, 2024

Hey there 👋🏾,

For those of you who are short on time, here are the sections of the newsletter you can skip ahead to…

Win🏅: 3x warm introductions and 1x cold call booked through LinkedIn
Loss 🤕: Struggled to prioritise the right work
Lesson💡: How to move on from bad calls with investors

As always, I appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave comments or reply to this email with your thoughts.

🎯 Objective

Build investor pipeline Event planning & cracking down on admin

First of all, sorry for running late with this week’s newsletter! I’ve been wrapped up in event planning, strategy work and business admin (more on that in the newsletter) so I fell a bit behind.

It was one of those weeks where I didn’t have the option of balancing the business with fundraising, I had to choose between one or the other. And, I chose to focus on the business (which is why most of the wins are about the team’s progress).

While it felt frustrating at times, on reflection this is another learning and reality that comes with fundraising. Speaking to investors doesn’t undo the fact that there’s growth to think of, a business to run and people to look after.

I’d love to hear how other Founders have been juggling the 101 things on their plate. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

🔋 Progress recap & highlights

Biggest wins

WIN 1️⃣: 3x warm introductions and 1x cold call booked through LinkedIn 🥳

Consistently sharing the ins and outs of our fundraising has led to more incremental gains, both organically and through my outreach. Last week, for example, I was fortunate to get 3x warm introductions from a fellow Founder and 1x cold call via LinkedIn.

These introductions may or may not turn into investors, but I now have an opportunity to build a long-term relationship with them and broaden my network.

While I know that building and raising in public isn’t for everyone, I believe that even raising your profile as a Founder can lead to more opportunities to meet investors, supporters and even customers. Dedicating a few hours a week to writing this newsletter and being active on LinkedIn (I share 3-5 posts a week), has helped in ways I couldn’t imagine.

TIPS FOR SHARING IN PUBLIC: Pick a cadence that you can commit to and makes sense for your business. Weekly, fortnightly or even monthly updates can work as long as your updates are helping others to learn. I also recommend choosing one social platform and sticking to it. Spreading yourself too thin will make it more difficult to commit.

WIN 2️⃣: Interviewed a celebrity afro hair stylist + discussing a potential collaboration

One of the recurring themes in the Black hair industry is, that people have a lot of questions but have no idea how to get access to reliable information.

There are thousands of influencers offering different perspectives (that can sometimes be conflicting), so customers end up sitting between a rock and a hard place. They either, don’t know where to find reliable information or they hit system overload with the sheer volume of online advice and recommendations.

To better understand what people need (and answer some of their most pressing questions) we’re speaking to really knowledgeable celebrity afro hair stylists. They are people who have covered the Super Bowl and worked with actresses like Issa Rae and musicians like Alicia Keys 😍.

We were even fortunate enough to get a reply from the Director of Education at Beyonce’s new hairline, Cecred. While she’s too busy with the launch to have a call right now, knowing that the door is open for us to reach out in the future is a big deal.

And all of this came from sending a few DMs on Instagram and shooting some emails out to their agents. You can gain a lot from having the audacity to ask.

TIP FOR INFLUENCER OUTREACAH: many influencers have an agent or a team who manages their inbox. Find their agents information using platforms like Booking Agent Info or check their Instagram profiles.

WIN 3️⃣: Made it to the 4th stage of the application process for a start-up program + spoke to the US accelerator ✨

Good news again! I’m through to the 4th stage of the Equitable Future Program with Braze. I’m not quite sure what’s in store now but it involves a demo, so hopefully I’ll have a chance to see more platform use cases in action.

There are a few tech platforms that offer discounts or free use of their platform to start-ups (e.g. Intercom, Mixpanel) but the trouble is, there’s zero onboarding support so you can easily waste the best part of the year trying to get it set up. That said, I love that Braze takes the time to look after the people entering their new cohort. It’s really refreshing to see!

I also had the call with the US accelerator last week — and got a much better understanding of what’s involved, expectations of me and what we could potentially gain. Likely to hear back from them early next week so I’ll keep you all posted!

TIP FOR FINDING START-UP PROGRAMS: there are a lot of tech companies that offer start-ups a discount or free access to their product for a period of time. Always check the pricing page for this information or reach out to Customer Success before opening an account to make the most of these opportunities.

WIN 4️⃣: Visited and secured our space for our first stylist event

Having spent the past six weeks looking for an event space (and struggling) I have a newfound respect for event managers/planners 😭. Events are long, high attention to detail, and projects that need more time than you’d expect to set up. Luckily, my co-host found an amazing space in central London that is also a curly hair salon. Here’s a sneak peek of the space 👇🏾

It also made me realise there are 1,000 things to consider when you’re running an event (even a small one). We’ve been planning this since January and I honestly thought that two months was more than enough time to get everything done. But between hiring, product development, fundraising and well… trying to breathe 😅, it turns out that two months isn’t that much time at all.

We still have catering, chairs and a few other small things to take care of, but regardless it’s been a great learning curve and I think there’s plenty that we can apply to the next run of events that we host.

TIP FOR SECURING EVENT SPACES: venues can be expensive and the best offers can come from your network and community. Ask other Founders, WhatsApp/Telegram communities and people who work in your industry. You'll be surprised how many options you can find at a reasonable price.

WIN 5️⃣: Automations update 🤖

Similarly to last week, I haven’t made any changes to my automations - here’s the performance update:

💃🏾 0 people added to automations
📧 1,007 people have opened my emails (35% of the total - up 1% WoW)
🖱️ 244 clicks on our pitch deck (24% of those who opened - up 4% WoW)
↩️ 63 people have replied so far (6% of opens - up 5% WoW)

Opens are still pretty level (but have dropped from a 3% weekly increase to 1%), however, clicks and replies have shot up again. Most people in the automations are reaching the end of the process and likely have 1-2 emails left in the sequence. So, chances are, we’ll see another increase in engagement this week or next. Until then, I’m keeping an eye on deliverability to make sure my emails are safely landing in the inbox.

Other positive things that happened last week:

Booked 3x founders in for the podcast interviews
An event sponsor confirmed they would be supporting our first in-person events in March

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Biggest L’s 🤕

LOSS 😩: Struggled to prioritise the right work (and felt busy but not productive)

There is often a fine line between being busy and productive, and that line felt very blurred last week 😅.

With a to-do list the length of both my arms, I was scrappily deciding what to do each day (and it often felt like I was failing). Even with my planner, a colour-coded calendar and all the tools in the world, sometimes I lose sight of the most important goal and get sidetracked by all of the things that have to be done in between.

The result was feeling very busy, but not productive. For example, I knew we had less than two weeks until our event, but I got so wrapped up in admin that very little time went into the final bits of event preparation. The result? More pressure to tick off the urgent, time-sensitive, event-planning tasks this week.

Finding the right balance between managing projects, fundraising and admin can be tough and, while I don’t have a concrete solution, I’ve started to tackle this in a couple of ways…

Creating two separate to-do lists — projects and admin.
Putting projects in order of importance and not moving on to the next until the task at the top of the list is complete.
Handing over or sharing the load with admin to make sure it doesn’t get too backed up (I have an intern who helps with this).

And I think the last point on the list is the most important. Asking for help is key, for all founders. Whether that means speaking to friends and family or looking for an intern, it all adds up in the end and allows you to be more focused on the tasks that really matter.

I’m very guilty of not asking for help often enough, or waiting until the last minute, but you are much better off asking upfront and as soon as possible. It doesn’t make you less organised, or an inconvenience. It just makes you human.

💡 Lessons learned

Quote of the week
Understanding that failure isn’t the opposite of success is part of success.
— Ariana Huffington

LESSON 👩🏾‍🏫: Moving on from bad calls with investors

Getting an investor call in my calendar always feels like a win. It’s another opportunity to build a meaningful connection with someone who’s interested in learning more about what we’re building, and what’s not to like?

That said, I hadn’t prepared myself for the bad calls. The calls with investors who either don’t quite get what we’re building, don’t believe in the market opportunity, or even those who are comfortable with talking down to someone.

Even though I haven’t had many interactions like this, when the bad calls came, I was wildly unprepared for how they would make me feel. It was a huge knock to my confidence, leaving me feeling lost and questioning if I was capable of running my business let alone raising. But as time has gone on (and more of these calls have happened), I’ve learned to move on from them quickly by asking myself one question:

Would I want to work with that investor in the long run?

Relationships with investors are like a marriage. Easy enough to get into, and very painful to break up with. So, it’s important to have the right people on board. If I leave a call feeling drained, undervalued or even disrespected, it’s highly unlikely that I’d want to have a long-term commitment with them.

I also try to remember that if someone doesn’t see the value of the market or my product, that doesn’t make our business less worthy or worthwhile, nor does it mean they’re a bad person. It’s just a sign that we’re misaligned and, therefore not meant to work with each other.

As a Founder who has built a product that solves a problem I once had, I’m deeply connected to Mane Hook-Up so it’s very easy to unintentionally take things personally. So framing an interaction as an indication of an investor being a good/bad fit for the business also allows me to be one step removed. This also allows me to bounce back from bad calls in a few minutes or hours instead of days.

It’s important to remember that protecting your peace is just as important as raising the money you need to get the business to the next level. You will have great calls, awful calls and ones that are somewhere in between. What matters most is your ability to go through the rounds and keep a level head.

💥 Hack of the week

Nothing new to add this week! Feel free to revisit some of the hacks from my previous newsletters:

📚 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.

Fundraising

Funding opportunity for Black-led start-ups: Michael Berhane is investing $25k checks into Black Founders - complete his form in this post to be considered.
Funding opportunity for community-led start-ups: Jeanine Suah is investing $5k-$25k checks into Founders this year - register your interest by filling in her Airtable form.
Raising from family and friends: Toby Egbuna shares how he raised $110k from his inner circle and why it’s important not to make assumptions about how much they can help.

General advice

Managing cash flow with a 12-month runway: Asif Ahmed offers some great advice for Founders who have 12 months of cash and when they should start making key decisions.
Community & content strategy advice: Jeanine Suah may be starting a 45-minute AMA session with founders who need help with their community. Comment on her post to show an interest & she’ll follow up with a DM.

🧰 Founder’s toolbox

Anyone who knows me knows that I love finding tools, apps and systems to add to my arsenal. Here’s a list of the best tools that I found last week.

Clay app: manage all of your professional and personal relationships

What’s it for: A personal and professional CRM that helps you to manage relationships and stay in touch with people.
How it helped: I’ve not personally tested Clay, but one of my advisors stands by it and I think it’s a good alternative for my current personal CRM, Dex.
Price: Free for 1,000 contacts, and $20 a month for unlimited contacts and onboarding support.

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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