How do I get a meeting with a venture capitalist and/or angel?

I'm reluctant to say "it depends," but legal expense for a true seed round varies dramatically based on: 1. Whether the investment is structured as a priced equity round vs. convertible debt (or variations on that theme such as "SAFE") 2. Number and location of investors, timing of closing(s), and prior angel investing experience 3. Company counsel's efficiency and fluency in industry norms 4. "Deferred maintenance" necessary in areas like corporate formation, founders' equity issuance and IP assignments. #4 is the item that takes many entrepreneurs by surprise. On the investor side, it leads otherwise very savvy observers to give unrealistically low estimates of legal expense because they assume starting from a clean slate. This item is also most resistant to automation or standardization because startups come into being many different ways; each story is unique. I would put the lowest estimate at around $3K, assuming the company is already formed as a Delaware corporation with clean, basic documents, has issued founders' stock and handled related IP and other matters, and simply needs to issue a convertible note to one or two accredited investors with minimal negotiation of documents. The highest I would expect for a true "seed round" is about $15K, where some corporate cleanup is needed, the deal is structured as a streamlined kind of preferred equity (e.g., Series Seed), there are multiple closings with investors on different dates and terms, etc. Beyond that point we're really in "Series A" territory, doing things like creating a full set of VC preferred stock investment documents (about 100 pages), negotiating with investors' counsel (at the company's expense), and so forth. The expense and complexity of a traditional Series A deal have been the main impetus behind using convertible debt or Series Seed-type documents for seed-stage investments of less than $1 million or so in recent years. I hope this proves helpful. Always happy to chat and answer further questions.

Convertible notes are by no means "earned." They are often easier to raise for early-stage companies who don't want to or can't raise an equity round. Equity rounds almost always require a simultaneous close of either the whole round or a defined "first close" representing a significant share of the raised amount. Where there are many participants in the round comprised mostly of small seed funds and/or angel investors, shepherding everyone to a closing date can be very difficult. If a company raises money on a note and the company fails, the investors are creditors, getting money back prior to any shareholder and any creditor that doesn't have security or statutory preference. In almost every case, convertible note holders in these situations would be lucky to get pennies back on the dollar. It would be highly unusual of / unheard of for a convertible note to come with personal guarantees. Happy to talk to you about the particulars of your situation and explain more to you based on what you're wanting to know.

You are right that the range is wide. You need to figure what are good values to have for your category. Also, you can focus on the trend (is your DAU/MAU increasing vs decreasing after you make changes) even if benchmarking is tough. Unless your app is adding a huge number of users every day (which can skew DAU/MAU), you can trust the ratio as a good indication of how engaged your users are. For games, DAU/MAU of ~20-30% is considered to be pretty good. For social apps, like a messenger app, a successful one would have a DAU/MAU closer to 50%. In general most apps struggle to get to DAU/MAU of 20% or more. Make sure you have the right definition of who is an active user for your app, and get a good sense of what % of users are actually using your app every day. Happy to discuss what is a good benchmark for your specific app depending on what it does.

As Ken suggested, there is a wide breadth of mobile offerings and although there are some great "mobile only" funds, each investor / fund has their own thesis that makes them interested in some but disinterested in others. Also, if your revenue generating, you should seriously consider bootstrapping further. Revenue is treated very strangely in early-stage investing and *might* work against you. AngelList is a great way to research investors but not effective in actually connecting with them. Find investors who you are confident will be passionate about what you're doing based on prior job experience or what you know they are investing in. Happy to talk in a call to help explain this further if you need more clarity.

From my experience I would not advise you to go with Venture Capital when you're a start-up as in the end they will most likely end up screwing you. A much better source for funding would be angel investors or friends/family. The question of how much equity should I give away differs for every start-up. I remember with my first company I gave away 30% because I wanted to get it off the ground. This was the best decision I ever made. Don't over valuate your company as having 70% of something is big is a whole lot better than having 100% of something small. You have to decide your companies value based on Assets/I.P(Intellectual Property)/Projections. I assume you have some follow up questions and I would love to help you so if you need any help feel free to call me. Kind Regards, Giuliano