Raising Money as an Early Stage Startup Now? Yes You Can! (Chris Seidensticker)
More than any time I can remember in the last twenty years, the advice from venture capital firms to their portfolio companies is overwhelming: Don't raise money now if you can avoid it. The environment is terrible; investors aren't putting money to work. You need to extend your runway and do what you can to push off fundraising six months, if not twelve or eighteen. But for how many startups is that realistic? Very, very few. Especially if you're Seed to Series B... So, sure, it's not a great fundraising environment, and if your entire focus as an early stage startup has been to grow the top line, regardless of customer acquisition costs, retention, or cash burn, then you're going to have a hard time, and without material changes to your approach, you'll likely not have a successful fundraise and will be forced in to unpleasant decisions, including, ultimately, getting acqui-hired or worse, shutting down. But, companies that over the last six to nine months hav...