‘Traction’ is the magic word for many VCs. No traction – no funding. But maybe you need funding to build traction? If you are in this catch 22 situation, trust me, you are not alone!<\/p>\n
So what to do when you’re still pre-revenue or maybe just have a little bit of traction? How do you convince investors?<\/p>\n
For our Startup Funding Book I asked advice from different angel investors and VCs, as well as fellow founders that escaped that catch 22.<\/p>\n
Here’s one example from Rebecka L\u00f6thman Ryd\u00e5, Investment Director at Inventure, a VC fund focused on the Nordic and Baltic market:<\/p>\n
“Sometimes it can even be misleading to look too much at initial revenue growth since it might not say that much about where you will be in a year or two. At least at the Pre-Seed and Seed stage.\u00a0We do however love seeing founders showing substantial insight and strong data-driven hypothesis about the market they are taking on.”<\/p>\n
“Even if you don\u2019t have revenue yet, make sure you at least can show that you have spoken to a large number of potential customers, found out exactly what their prioritized problem is and analyzed your competitors to the very last detail. With that said I am a fan of companies getting a handful of paying customers early on that they can also closely learn from and build with. If possible, choose these customers carefully so you get a good mix that can help shape your product and strategy in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition she says: \u201cCome prepared knowing your numbers, your market and your product inside out. I want to be blown away by how much you know and rather than agreeing to everything I say, show that you know more, and even challenge my input!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Read more insights in Startup Funding book, the book about investor readiness, fundraising and deal terms that I wrote together with venture capital lawyer Sjoerd Mol to help founders to nail their fundraising process. Order it via\u00a0bol.com<\/a>,\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0or your local bookstore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ‘Traction’ is the magic word for many VCs. No traction – no funding. But maybe you need funding to build traction? If you are in this catch 22 situation, trust […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[392,213],"class_list":["post-6797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en","tag-funding-friday-en","tag-fundraising-en"],"yoast_head":"\n