Have Fun While Raising Venture Capital
Fund raising is incredibly depressing. Some days, you don’t want to get out of bed. You don’t want to hear for the last time, “I think your market is too small” or “We have invested in something similar.” To some extent you need to build up your tolerance to hearing no.
Fund Raising is Hard
Sometimes you feel investors know everything. Other times, you feel investors know nothing. If you are raising during one of the two times you are supposed to be raising money, you need the money in order to accomplish your goals.
The most interesting struggle while building a business in general is that you are willing to get kicked in the teeth to reach your goals. Realize most people will never do this because it is just too hard. You will get kicked in the teeth while raising your round and later when building the business by business parters, potential customers, or advisors.
Fund Raising is Exciting
Raising a financing is also exciting! You have days where you are ecstatic. The first time you hear, “We are in,” makes all your energies worth it. It is a constant roller coaster and regardless of what venture capitalists say, it is never easy.
This is a similar roller coaster you have while building a startup. If you are a first time founder, prepare yourself. Fund raising is a taste of things to come while building your company.
Have A Muse
Fund raising takes all of your energy and time. Like many things in life, to be successful, it should be the only thing you are working on.
However, while fund raising it is important to have an outlet where you feel like you are being successful at something. The Buffer team talk about why you should work out while working at a startup. By working out, if the startup has a bad week, but you ran the fastest mile yet, you have some success for that week.
During fund raising, I made sure to develop on SourceNinja for at least an hour a day. This helped me keep in mind why I was fund raising in the first place. Developing product is what I did before fund raising, and it is what I would do after fund raising. Rather than beating my best mile, I would make one customer happy that day.
My advice is while raising your round, find something that you love and can embrace while going through this trying time.