Just raised and here are the stats (July 2024)

CEO of a startup - bootstrapped for 10 months with a team of 7 - Built a waitlist of $15B AUM (fintech) and here's what it took (with no intended story structure)

1. I didn't want to spam, so I decided to go the old school route and manually write every single email (some copy and paste)

2. In order to feel prepared, I would do my research prior to reaching out, albeit sometimes limited due to time x reward

3. Sent over 350 emails to around 300 funds and we received three yes' (to be honest we received more than three, but they wanted too much equity, or they weren’t a good fit culturally)

4. Pre Seed is different for everyone. Some accept pre revenue others expect 100-300k ARR - this was one of the more frustrating pieces for me, due to the fact that it's extremely subjective to what "Earliest Stage" means to some funds.

5. We're pre-product, we had to remove our CTO in the process due to performance issues, we let go of our front-end, hired a new CTO, hired an AI Engineer, and replaced our front end.

6. It's a numbers game. We received 94% no reply - 5% nos (with meetings) - 1% yes'

7. I used OpenVC as my main resource, highly recommend even their free product.

8. I recommend using discount with a SAFE. Some Angels like it better, some VC’s hate it. You have to be willing to play ball with whoever leads.

9. Mercury for banking, perks (like Carta), and SAFE agreement. All great at Mercury.

10. Raising for a B2B business in an enterprise market is much easier, unless deep tech or science backed. But consumer products right now are not raising pre seed from what I can tell.

If it means anything - it's a numbers game. Go get what you deserve, but put in the work because no one will just hand it to you.

Love this community, always here to help anyone I can.