Raising Money


RAISING MONEY

 

When a VC says "Maybe," s/he means "No". - Ben Casnocha

 

A VC will never sign an NDA, and if you ask them to, they'll suspect you're naive. - Ben Casnocha

 

Never raise outside money for your business unless you absolutely have to. - Ben Casnocha

 

The unwritten vacation time for VCs is August -- don't lose financing momentum heading into August. Instead, re-start September 1. - John Kembel

 

Entrepreneurs need to understand that all investors (debt and equity) want their money back at some point. If your financing plan does not explain how and when that will happen, you don't really have a financing plan (you have a wish for a grant). - S Milford

 

Nobody spends someone else’s money as wisely as he spends his own. - Milton Friedman

 

Money often costs too much. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Stay away from brokers. Run away from the ones that want money up front. - Scott Hampton

 

Profit is a concept, cash is a fact! - Andrew Nicol

 

When someone says he raised money in 3 weeks, do not expect it will work for you as well. - John Kessy

 

If you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money. - Brad Feld (I think)

 

The surest way to get a VC interested is to say that you're not interested in taking VC money. - Chris Yeh

 

"Because I need it" is not a compelling investment thesis. - Chris Yeh

 

The job of the entrepreneur is to make sure the company doesn't run out of cash. - Bill Sahlman, Harvard Business School

 

Nothing distracts more from growing your business than fundraising. - Chris Yeh

 

"Starting a business? Don’t call VCs: call on customers and figure out how to solve a problem they are willing to pay for." Greg Gianforte

 

There are two questions VCs ask that you shouldn't answer: "Who else are you talking to?" and "How much are you trying to raise?" - Paul Graham

 

Raising $20,000 from a first-time angel investor can be as much work as raising $2 million from a VC fund. - Paul Graham

 

It's in [VC's] interest to collect the maximum amount of information while making the minimum number of decisions. - Paul Graham

 

The value of a potential investor is a combination of how good it would be if they said yes, and how likely they are to say it. - Paul Graham

 

The biggest factor in investors' opinion of you is other investors' opinion of you. - Paul Graham

It's harder to judge startups than most other things, because great startup ideas tend to seem wrong. A good startup idea has to be not just good but novel. And to be both good and novel, an idea probably has to seem bad to most people, or someone would already be doing it and it wouldn't be novel. - Paul Graham