Are you ready to launch your next fundraising round? These tools will help.
One of the biggest reasons that founders and startups fail is lack of funding. The biggest reason they fail at getting funded is lack of strategy and really planning out their raise well. Unfortunately, there are few real quality resources out there to help. After launching, raising for and exiting my first startup I published this book that has been praised as one of the best for entrepreneurs wanting to raise money.
Wrike is one of the newer project management tools out there. It’s pretty easy to get started with, and even emails you your daily to-do list. There are other options too, like Basecamp and free Freedcamp. They’ll help you stay focused, keep a handle on what’s done and your countdown.
You need somewhere to store your documents, collaborate on them with team members, and host them to share with potential investors. Like your pitch deck, business plan, investor FAQ, investor updates, and other assets. Plus, it easily integrates with all of your other GSuite tools.
There are fancier tools for building more beautiful pitch deck slides out there. Yet, this is an easy one to use. It’s simple for collaborating and converting to different formats, and will keep you focused on the content instead of just design.
Gmail is probably the most widely used email service. So, it’s easy to integrate for your new startup, and working with remote and part time team members. You can use GSuite to use your own domain and custom email addresses as well.
There are a lot of team communication tools out there today, like Slack. Some will stick, some will disappear. Google Hangouts doesn’t seem as popular since Google+ failed. Skype is okay. Whatsapp seems to have gained far more popularity all around the world. Use it for group chats and quick conversations, while keeping an easy track record of what’s happening. It also simultaneously makes it easy to share files and flip over to to voice and video calls. Most people will be familiar with it and that makes it easier when onboarding new team members.
There are lots of CRMs out there today. Zoho happens to be PC Mag’s Editor’s Choice. It’s certainly robust and can do a lot. It may be a little more complicated than you need as a young startup in early stage rounds. You may find tools like Close.io are more focused for managing prospective investors. The last thing you want is to get bogged down and take a whole other detour learning a CRM when you are running out of money.
Upwork has become the largest platform for finding freelance help. It’s stock performance may make it one of the worst-performing IPOs in recent history, yet there aren’t any other platforms nearly as efficient. Note that recent changes have made it much less likely top talent will find you and apply to your job ads. Instead, use it to proactively search the best fitting profiles and invite them to your gigs instead. Use it for finding designers, marketers, video editors and more.
Early-stage startup funding is all about your founding team. If you’re thin in this area, it’s high time you linked up with some strong cofounders and advisors who can help you see it through. CoFounders Lab is the largest entrepreneur network for connecting.
If you need to find more potential angels for earlier funding rounds, then you can apply to 1000Angels for free and try to get in front of their great network of investors. You’ll find investors from Foundry Group, Thiel Capital, Softbank, Greylock, Cisco and many others.
Use Crunchbase to research and find the best fitting investors who are active and are into your kind of startup.
Join the Inner Circle for fundraising training and to get all the insights you need to perfect your ask, and be smart when navigating the different steps of a campaign.
If you’re still not confident in your deck, grab this pitch deck template from Peter Theil and customize it to be your own.
LinkedIn will be a powerful tool as you fundraise. Your strong profile will give you great credibility. You can use it to find cofounders, advisors and investors. Leverage your connections to get introductions and get closer and closer to those need on your team.
Since 2016 Twitter has bounced back and become one of the most popular social networks for successful founders and angels. Get on it and network.
Facebook may not be as cool as it once was. Your kids and grandkids would probably never want to be caught on it any more. They still have a lot of data. Though, if you are looking to create buzz and engage throughout your next round, you might want to check out Instagram instead.
If you’re looking for simple list building and email automation, then Mailchimp will get you going for free. It’s easy to use, has more integrations than most other email tools, and offers landing pages and forms too.
Paypal is an easy way to accept money. If you use it to process transactions and sales in the interim, you may find you also qualify for a good amount of business loan and working capital through Paypal. It may be just enough to give you more runway until you do get those bigger investor checks.
While not as hot as it used to be, Help A Reporter out can be a way to find opportunities to get in the media and generate buzz about your business and raise.
HelloSign is an esignature tool for getting documents signed on the fly, and ensuring you don’t lose investors and capital due to old school paperwork.
