Relationship Management Hacks For First-Time Early Stage Tech Startup Founders

Note: I published a post titled “Relationship Management for Your Startup” on January 13, 2014at Tekedia.com. This post is inspired by that one, and portions of this post are exactly identical to the original. It appears the post at Tekedia is no longer online. This post updates that one, with lessons I have learned since that time and advice I share with first-time founders with whom I have the privilege of meeting as they embark on trying to build their startups.

How should an entrepreneur manage the relationship with investors who say “no” to that entrepreneur’s pitch for capital? As I have noted above, I first tried to tackle this question in a post in 2014.

Before I suggest an answer to that question, I will propose some assumptions.

1. The interaction between the entrepreneur and the prospective investors has been one of respect, and professional courtesy. In other words, you have not been treated badly or insulted by any of the investors you have met.
2. The investors you have met are honest people, who would tell you if there is absolutely no instance under which they would invest in your startup. They do not have to tell you why, although it would be great if they did.
3. Irrespective of how things play out now, there is every possibility that you will speak with investors at a subsequent stage of the current project you are working on, or, Insha’Allah, you will become a serial entrepreneur who seeks funding for a new startup in the future.

If my assumptions hold true, then it does not work to your advantage to “cut-off” an investor just because that investor did not fund your startup during your current round of financing. This is especially the case if that same investor might be able to invest in your next round of financing – for example, a venture fund which makes institutional seed-stage and series A investments, but which passed on your seed-stage round of financing.

Every venture capital fund’s primary responsibility is to make money for its limited partners. Venture capitalists do not invest because they like an entrepreneur or an idea, or because they feel obligated to provide capital. No. Venture capitalists invest in entrepreneurs and startups that they believe will make them money, lots of money . . . enabling them to fulfil the obligations they have made to the LPs in their fund.

It is your responsibility as the entrepreneur to connect the dots, and to help the investor understand how they will achieve that aim by investing in your startup. That is a very difficult task. Dealing with the inevitable rejection that comes with fund-raising for an early stage startup is jarring, for anyone . . . and it is especially so for first-time founders.

Are there any hacks that a first-time startup founder can use to make the journey less fraught with frustration? I think there are. Below, I share some suggestions.

Preparation is key; It is better to be over-prepared than it is to be under-prepared.

It is easy to assume that one will be able to tell one’s story in a way that makes sense to one’s audience. That’s a fatal mistake. If fundraising is important for the startup’s survival then founders should practice the pitch . . . Fundraising is about narrative and storytelling. Founders must practice telling the story until it becomes second nature.

This involves both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the startup’s story. It is important to note that this kind of storytelling differs from others in the sense that a startup founder seeks to persuade the listening audience to take a specific action that will work to the startup’s benefit. Write a check. Become a user. Become a customer. Spread the news about the startup’s product. I do not know if there’s a recommended amount of time that one should devote to preparing for something of this sort. When founders ask me privately for help preparing for a do-or-die pitch that is a few months away in the future, I recommend 80 – 100 hours of preparation; something like 1 or 2 hours of daily preparation devoted to making sure they know the story inside-and-out and that telling it is as normal as breathing. I also recommend that they practice delivering the pitch to different types of audiences to get input on the delivery from different points of view.

When founders ask me privately for help preparing for a do-or-die pitch that is a few months away in the future, I recommend 80 – 100 hours of preparation; something like 1 or 2 hours of daily preparation devoted to making sure they know the story inside-and-out and that telling it is as normal as breathing. I also recommend that they practice delivering the pitch to different types of audiences to get input on the delivery from different points of view. Toastmasters International is a useful resource for this, but founders will need more than Toastmasters offers.

Research is key; Know who you should be talking to.

It is easy for a first-time founder to get suckered into thinking it’s imperative to speak with “every investor known to mankind” . . . Meeting lots and lots of investors can really give a founder’s ego the kind of massage that market realities aren’t willing to dish out without herculean effort from the startup. Also, an investor’s willingness to “meet for coffee to discuss your feedback on our model and your perspective on the opportunity” can seem like positive confirmation that the founder did not make a huge mistake by pursuing this goal of creating something from nothing.

Here’s the thing; That is not always true. Often an investor might just want to find out what’s happening in a given market, and coffee with a founder who has initiated the meeting is a low-cost way of getting educated by someone who’s currently and actively solving problems in that area.

Obviously, the opportunity cost of such a meeting is far higher for the startup founder than it is for the investor.

What is a founder to do? Think carefully about which investors have the highest propensity to invest in the startup; at this stage, given its current levels of traction . . . within the timeframe in which the startup must raise capital. Create a short-list and focus primarily on those investors who fit the bill. This is easier said than done since investors do not often state their investment parameters publicly.

That said, for founders in the United States there are a few tools one can use. Shai Goldman, currently a managing director at Silicon Valley Bank, has created an open-source GoogleSheet’s document that is a good starting point. Samir Kaji, currently a managing director at First Republic Bank, has also created a body of research on micro-vc that is another great starting point.

These two pieces of work complement one another quite well, and should be every first-time founder’s BFF every weekend after the decision to build a startup has been made. There are other pieces of information that a first-time founder should use. These two are especially key . . . but also most likely to be unknown to most first-time founders. I maintain an email I send the founders I encounter who evidently could benefit from having these resources at their fingertips. I will post links to those resources at Hack Your Startup: Pitch.

I spent some time explaining why this matters in The Path To Disaster: A Startup Is Not A Small Version of A Big Company – The Office Hours Remix.

It’s nothing personal, it’s just business; Manage your investor relations with email.

After every meeting with a potential investor, or quite frankly, with anyone who could be helpful to your startup in any way, I think it makes sense to ask if they would be willing to be added to a “Friends of Awesome Early Stage Technology Startup” email distribution list. The most common response will be “Yes. Please add me to your distribution list for updates.” These updates will be very general in nature and should be a stripped-down version of the email updates that investors in the startup get. No confidential information should be included in this email – only information you do not mind being in the public eye.

While the periodic updates are interesting on their own, to my mind they are not the point of this exercise. The primary purpose of this exercise is to split the universe of so-called “Friends of Awesome Early Stage Technology Startup” into three categories.

First; the people who unsubscribe from the updates. I do not know a more explicit signal that they have no interest in what the startup is doing but simply did not have the courage to tell the founder so directly. There’s no point devoting much more energy pursuing these people.

Second; the people who have not unsubscribed but have never engaged directly based on a prompt in any of the periodic updates. It is probably worth sending people in this group an email saying you are going out to raise a financing round for which they might have interest based on developments since the previous round . . . If they do not respond after two or three attempts . . . Move on.

Third; the people who have engaged with the founders after an update was sent. Perhaps the startup needed to hire an engineer and they responded with a recommendation or offered to share the job description with their network . . . They have demonstrated some interest in what you are doing. Even if they do not invest themselves, they are likely to be a positive reference to someone else for whom there’s a better fit. Focus on these folks.

These 3 suggestions are the big ones. I make other suggestions to founders I meet in person. Those are minor in comparison. For example, don’t let a friendly investor who passed on investing in a prior round for a specific reason find out about a new round in which they might still be able to invest with only a week left before your anticipated close. It’s unlikely they can conclude their due diligence that quickly.

It’s not personal Sonny. It’s strictly business.                                          – Michael Corleone, The Godfather

Financing a startup’s operations is a crucial part of every founder’s responsibilities . . . In fact, it might be the most important. If financing from external investors is part of the plan, then founders need to find ways to make it less of a hit-or-miss affair. I hope these suggestions provide some food for thought about how to do that effectively without spending an inordinate amount of time.

Further Reading

1. When The VC Says “No” – a great discussion by Marc Andreessen. You must read this.
2. Dear Dumb VC – a post by Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos and Red Swan Ventures.
3. As Populist As it May Seem, 98% of VCs Aren’t Dumb – a rebuttal by Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures.
4. How LinkedIn First Raised Money (and Endured Rejection) – a post by Lee Hower.