Strategies for Getting Funding at the Early Stage
Fundraising is something that must be prepared from the beginning and escorted by the process. Not only by one founder, but also every team member who started the business from scratch. Plans and strategies are designed to avoid mistakes before the process and avoid failure after getting fundraising.
Here are some strategies that startups can adopt to prepare and anticipate errors and failures.
Team building
Building a team plays an important role for startups. In addition to relying on their technical abilities to be able to build quality products or services, the team needs more than that. A solid team in the early stages is those who have an open mind and can easily learn new things. Coachable. In its journey, startup is not only about systems, but also marketing, communication, finance and other things.In the context of fundraising, teams usually determine the investor's view of the business being run. If the team has a "star" in their field and has a number of good track records, chances are investors will be interested, at least provide input for how the startup develops.
On the other hand, if there isn't a single "star" in your team try to build a solid team and have a bright future. Convince investors by forming a team that can continue to learn and develop, creating new "stars".
Get growth
Still in the strategy section before fundraising, the thing that can be done is to strive for user growth and if possible start earning money from them. Make sure startups are in good condition, user acquisition trends are increasing, and try to keep innovating by listening to the needs of users.Positive achievement of startups becomes an important provision when dealing with investors. More or less can illustrate that a startup is indeed developed to continue to grow and produce.
Discover the Drinkable Viable Product (MVP), launch the beta version, get the initial user, look for the distinguishing aspects of the existing competitors or develop unique and different solutions, and continue many users. The steps that must be taken at least to get to the decision to get users.
Prepare pitch
Furthermore, who still has an important role in the process of getting fundraising, is pitch. This one must be prepared as well as possible with detailed real information. Arrange the best pitch deck, if possible involve other team members to give input. Do presentation exercises in front of colleagues, because the deck is just not enough.Included in this category, startups who are looking for funding must conduct research on investors. Expand the business network by attending community gatherings, seminars or events held by venture capital. It can also take part in the incubator program.
If the target is an angel investor, try introducing them. Contact through official channels such as official sites, email to social media. Use good, concise and clear language to describe what your intentions are.
Always provide Plan B and evaluation
Fundraising does not guarantee startup success. Many also succeed only by relying on bootstrap. But backraising can save startups that are on the edge or even accelerate business acceleration in the initial stages. All depends on the plan and execution. If fundraising is not going well, make sure there is a backup plan.If many investors have been visited, there have been many opportunities for presentations to go through but have not been able to produce funding at all, start to clean up. If the startup really needs funds, go through Plan B which should have been determined from the start, then do an overall evaluation from upstream to downstream. Look again at the existing MVP, look back at the user's growth trend, find out what's wrong and if necessary do a pivot.
This is done if indeed there are many investors and many presentations in front of them. If it's still one or two times, it means maybe only small parts that need to be considered and started to be developed. Always try to ask for criticism and suggestions when making a presentation in front of investors, because they really appreciate those who work hard and want to improve. If rejected at the first meeting and returned more prepared and better at the next meeting, perhaps that is what investors ask.