I’ve worked with accelerators in NYC and Brazil and therefore have acted as a source of seed capital and helped companies both find seed capital and grow past seed rounds. I think this question is an important one, and requires some nuance since your sub-comment is unclear. Specifically, I don’t completely understand what you mean by “shift a focus” for your start-up. If you have achieved meaningful product/market fit, then like Sebastian says, go out and begin your campaign. And trust his great advice about getting in front of people, pitching and learning, etc… However, If you’re uncertain if you have achieved meaningful product/market fit or haven’t a more measured approach is required.
I advise you to be cautious about starting the fundraising process pre product-market fit because I’ve seen a lot of founders fall in love with the sexiness of fundraising and waste time and money while ignoring their business because they are “out fundraising”. It sounds so cool, and it puts the onus of the business’s success on a deal, not the entrepreneur’s ability to develop the start-up. It goes without saying that since start-ups race against time, misappropriating time, your most critical resource, is a mistake of the highest order.
So if you haven’t achieved product-market fit, don’t take a ton of meetings with VCs, write them tons of Emails to “keep them warm”, or any other time consuming activities. Instead, take an occasional meeting and get meaningful operational advice, build a few deep relationships and trust that as your company matures you can use those relationships to either get funding or valuable referrals. You don’t have to know everybody, you need a few people who know lots of others (and the VC community is small) who will seriously go to bat for you and refer you to colleagues. Besides, if you build a great start-up, VCs will also want to talk to you and you’ll get either or both of: a higher valuation and a larger stake in your firm post deal.
Lastly, your comment does not mention burn rate and cash so I assume that’s not a concern, but if for some reason you have a significant burn rate and limited cash then something must give. I typically think that if you’re inside a six month run rate (total cash/monthly burn < 6) and haven’t started fundraising then you’re in trouble because deals take a lot of time to close. So mind your expenses and runway, and align them so you have time to fundraise when you’re ready. If you have to, cut costs or look for a decent intermediate fundraising step: crowdfunding, small checks from friends and family, and accelerators. Happy to hop on a call to discuss any of this if you need to think this through in more detail. Good luck!!
