From the mailbox: Tips for raising seed investment
1 min readMay 15, 2018
In your experience, what is the most unforeseen misstep that new startups make when seeking funding at the angle or seed stage?
- Failing to contextualize the problem they are solving in their pitch to investors (or, even, not actually having a clear problem they are solving!).
- Failing to explain why their idea is a big idea worth investment, how big the market is, etc.
- Failing to communicate why they are the right person to run with this idea and be successful over any of the other people the investor could invest in to solve the same problem.
What should I be looking for when deciding which investors to work with?
- Investors who are active (there are investors, esp in seed, who actually write very few or even no checks — they’ll yank your chain but have no interest in investing).
- Investors who can bring strategic or some other benefit beyond the money.
- Investors who have a strong investor network who can make introduction to Series A investors when the time is right.
