How do I increase venture capital with a prototype?

AngelList is your best bet. Since you're asking the question, chances are you don't have a way to get introduced to these investors. The simple truth (like it or not) is the chances very low that you'll get a deal done without an introduction from someone they trust. AngelList can help with that, so can going to networking events. And finally, If you're the introverted developer type, you can also get their attention by just building something really cool on your own, followed by some serious traction. Arguably the best strategy of them all.

I like to take a rule from the Steve jobs playbook and use simple circles... one larger than the other but no more than 2. your most immediate target (realistic reachable) and one of the "enemy" competitor company. or overall untapped market cap. **for this to be effective you must provide as accurate projections as possible** no bar graphs and as little or no text as possible... remember that a deck is a companion to the speaker... avoid bullet points and use the deck to entertain rather than educate... is not a class is a pitch. :)

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.

If you want information that matters in "Creative Financing Techniques" find a person with the experience/insight. Most of what is in books is dated. Many of the more creative methods are a function of current tax code and market factors (like QE).