Day 3 - Free Start-Up Education?

I run a service company that matches amazing tech talent with fractional positions. Three months ago (pre-launch), I spoke with an advisor who asked whether I'd be bootstrapping or try to raise funds.

I had no idea. I don't really know that much about raising funds or how the process works in the first 30, 60, 90 days.

-> So I took a fractional position as a lead designer with an awesome 30-day old start-up.

Here are some of the things I've learned in the past two weeks:

• Accepting funding (at any level) adds requirements to your roadmap. My client-founder has deadlines for mock-ups, V1, first customer and semi-regular show & tells with his VCs

(( ... I like the idea of the deadlines, but this scared me a little. The learning? Hold off as long as you can, before taking funding, otherwise you're flying a plan, while building a plane, while the plane is also on fire... waiting can remove the 'fire' element))

• Get in front of your customer. My client-founder hired 10 advisors that represent his ideal audience. He meets with them to review their current tool, sends them surveys, interviews them, shows them designs, tests with them. He pays them rather than a marketing/research company

((DONE. I wonder how expensive this actually is... But I love this idea.))

• Do not design for build at this point. Design for ideation. You can't move really fast if you're buried in design details. Get an ipad and sketch it into Figma. Hire a designer to clean it up later. Right now, get those sketches in front of an advisor.

((This both annoys and thrills me. ))

• Meetings will kill you.

(( Require parameters for fractional roles. Make expectations clear up front.))

La. :D