Fundraise Like a Brazilian Steakhouse

Hey there, I’m Matthew Kee and I run Tundra Angels. In this newsletter, I write about what investors don’t tell you about fundraising, growth, and how startups win in the market.

Send me your questions or what’s bothering you about the startup journey and I’ll look to take on your questions with insights and real-life examples. Here is this week’s post!

The Main Takeaway:

✅ Startups often kick off their fundraise far too prematurely, long before they have their fundraise details and fundraising assets game-time ready. ✅ 

Don’t tell investors that you’re fundraising without having all of your fundraising assets in order.

When a Startup Thinks its Ready to Fundraise

Tundra Angels was once doing due diligence on a startup. On our due diligence team, I had pulled in one of our Tundra Angels’ investors who was strategic to the startup’s industry. The startup had a vague range of a raise amount, “We want to raise $500,000 to $750,000.” They also had not developed nor centralized any fundraising assets. I asked for their data room, and they told me they didn’t have one in place.

Thus, due diligence progressed, but slowly. The company would present us with our document requests in a jagged fashion. Our requests were standard documents that need to be reviewed in a fundraise, yet it felt like the startup was developing and releasing documents as we were asking for them.

I called up our Tundra Angels investor to chat about how the process was moving slowly. This investor, who didn’t come for the venture space and was new to the vetting and due diligence process, remarked to me,

This investor was saying, “If this startup isn’t game-time ready, then we shouldn’t engage.” 

Fundraising Should Act Like a Brazilian Steakhouse

If you’re ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse, you’re missing out.

It’s a fun experience where the host or hostess seats you at your fancy white table-cloth table and gives instructions about the experience.

Once you flip your card to green, then almost like magic, servers approach your table with long skewers of meat, ribs, pork, pitching you on the meat they are offering you and asking if you’d like some.