We have 3k+ signups, paying users and potential B2B client, how to reach VCs?
We did a soft launch of corpora AI ( https://www.askcorpora.com/) a AI Q&A and search tool for your data 2 weeks ago since then we have generated a lot of interest, 3k+ signups, paying users and lot's of businesses reached out to us for providing then B2B solutions and we are closing deals with few of them, it will make our ARR real good.
But we are still under teamed and under resourced and looking for VCs investment.
Till now we have had 2-3 meeting with VCs but reaching out to VCs is still hard for us, we don't have existing network, so cold messaging not much working.
We are looking for funding as our product need rapid improvement and team development to increase with market.
Do you have any suggestion, how to reach to some good VCs as our numbers are getting stronger everyday and we need resources to manage it.
Cold DM is the answer.
Look for Twitter/LinkedIn profiles of analysts working at your favourite VC firms.
They are the people who are always looking for interesting startups.
Unlike senior VCs, they have a little following on LinkedIn/Twitter. (Easy to get noticed by them)
Chances are very high to get a meeting if you follow this approach. All the best!
Thanks, I will sure send some DMs to associates and analysts.
First of all, congratulations! You are ahead of 90% of VC funded pre-seed / seed startups as you have paying customers :)
The best intro you can get is actually from portfolio founders that a VC has already funded. It also helps you to identify which VCs are relevant (90% are not). Find similar funded companies (not competitors), write down their VCs and more important in this stage: Business Angels (e.g. find them on Crunchbase), list them, rank them based on fit (e.g. A,B,C - start with C to learn) and reach out to the founders and ask for advice/intro. Also, consider applying to YCombinator / other accelerators (I know different opinions on this, but can help when you have no network to VCs or Angels yet).
Adding on to the above tip, this is also a great way to build connections with founders and grow a high value network (which could also help feed more business/customers into your business).
Applying to YC/accelerators can really help with learning to talk the VC talk.
Also going from C B A really helps with getting down the pitch!
thanks, really great advice, I will try to reach out to some founder but not sure they will do intros or maybe they will, we are thinking of applying to YC, we currently have no network to VCs.
LinkedIn is great as a backdoor!
VCs get a ton of emails plus you talking to their normal email doesn't make you seem "hacky"
If you reach out via LinkedIn and let them know you want to get their opinion on your positioning 10-20% should respond (assuming your connection request is decent)
Also make sure to have a pitch deck before doing outreach as sometime VCs wait 30 days to meet and sometime they're like "let's meet today!"
I used this process to talk to 20-30 VCs and get their opinion on my company's positioning (learned a lot even though no VCs invested occurred)
Hope this helps!
thanks, will try that.
I'm pretty sure cold outreach works, as VCs always want to discover new products. What did you try to contact them?
We are sending emails, but I think they might receive a lot of email in a day so less probability, what medium or resource we should try?
That doesn't sound right. If you cold email VCs and tell them you have gotten 3,000+ signups and X amount in ARR within 2 weeks of launching, you should at minimum get a response email even if they don't end up investing. If you aren't even getting response emails, then maybe your emails are too long (are you sending 3000 words with your revenue and signup numbers at the end?) or your emails contain some sort of spam triggers that are resulting in VCs not actually getting them in their inboxes.
Alternatively, if you are getting such a wild influx of customers without doing additional advertising, then you could consider just funding growth for awhile out of the cashflow from sales. If your unit economics do not allow you to operate profitably with that many customers with zero advertising costs, then something is wrong. If you bootstrap your business like this for a month, it should give you a little breathing room as you continue reaching out for VCs.
We haven't mentioned these figures in cold emails yet as we are waiting for some clients for contract signing but My other concern was is it good to directly message these figures.
we are fine with growing using our current cashflow but it is very limiting for us we have to focus all our resources on one client then move to other and this space is currently fast moving and seeing few competitors also, perfect solution is going to be available in 1-2 month and we also need to build a lot of thing and improvements and we think our improvement velocity is not good enough with limited resources, it needs to be fast so we can provide entire ecosystem needed by medium to larege businesses.
VC’s receive a lot of email, don’t try to introduce yourself or anything just cut to the chase (preferably on linkedin or personal email, or vc firms website contact form) this also works for cold calls:
Wait for a few days and send another with the same message (don’t add unnecessary stuff like “you probably did not see my last email”, “here is a reminder” etc it does not add any value to the receiver.) Also send it to everyone, don’t try to pre-screen.
Great job with the product/numbers and good luck!
thanks, msg template looks great, we need to be more direct.
https://www.producthunt.com/products/funden-assisted-fundraising
Just saw this in product hunt. Haven’t used it.