Funding - Series A

Im an investor and advisor. As many people as you ask, you will get different answers. The best and most successful way to raise capital is to start with people you know, aka friends and family. If friends and family are insufficient as they often are, then you need to find angels. If you dont know anyone, network. They arent hard to find. It might be a good idea to find a few prominent local people to serve as advisors and get their help in raising money. The worst part about raising money is that it almost always deflects from running the business. If you want to discuss this further, Im available.

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.

I don't think there's a right—meaning, sane—answer here. How much capital do you think you'll need over the next 4-5 years? Series A? Series B? So on? Some, but not all, institutional investors will take a look at a cap table made longer by crowdfunding the way kids look at a pool that's been peed in. They might politely decline to hop it. I don't say that to scare you, but just so that you'll be aware. Totally agree with Owen's point: it might make sense to raise LESS money with a MORE strategic investor. One dollar with Investor B might have more long-term value, in the form of introductions or domain expertise, than the same dollar from Investor A. Regardless, ask yourself this question: what is the absolute minimum we need to raise right now? Now multiply that times 1.5. Then, figure out a Plan A, B, C, and D for getting there. Plan A might be a big influx of cash. Plan B might be a mix of cash and some business development from a new advisor. Plan C might include minimal cash, a new channel partner, and a few big contracts. Plan D might be a pivot or hopping into bed with a manufacturer to cut your costs. Happy to discuss more if you'd like. Get in touch! Cheers, Austin

I like the way you framed this question. Staying calm, always leads to better decisions being made. The best way to maintain a "calm" state is to do your best to look at your business from a completely detached view. Having a talk with myself or anyone else well-reviewed on Clarity can bring needed perspective, but some people can achieve the same analysis on their own. Questions you should be asking yourself: 1) What evidence do I have that I'm building something others need? Was I expecting to have more evidence than I currently have? If so, do I trust that I know how I can obtain this evidence within the next 30 days? 2) Do I have credible options to fund what remains to be completed to get real customers (not my friends or associates) to use the product and give feedback? 3) Are others working on this project with me willing to make the necessary sacrifices (deferring payment) to get us to the point where we can test with real customers/ If you're not scoring at least 2/3 with confidence, you should reach out to me or someone else on Clarity.

In my experience, every step you take to complicate your company's structure and ownership rights reduces the likelihood of investors providing your venture with seed funding. To attract seed funding, investors expect a single-minded laser focus on the entrepreneurs' assessment of his or her best path to validating their business and growing it into a very large business as quickly as possible. So the very idea that you are reliant or considering taking multiple paths to success is likely to act as a red flag for most experienced early-stage tech investors. Also, until there is significant traction achieved, an investor is expecting to own everything generated by the business. There are rare occasions where a particular asset, brand, domain or other component of the business can be spun-out (usually in the case where it's a distraction from the core business but there's inbound demand from a buyer), but when I say rare, I mean this happens so infrequently that it's not anything that should be reasonably expected in the course of planning. Speaking candidly, this entire strategy creates a perception (accurate or unfair) that you are undecided on a number of the key questions you need to be sure of before you have a good chance of raising seed funding. I'd be happy to talk to you about what you're doing and help provide some clarity based on what I hear. I encourage you to review my references as I have been helpful to many other Clarity members on these types of issues.