Where to find communities of founders raising a first round?
Hi all.
I'm building https://www.firstmoney.so/
It's a marketplace that will connect Angel Investors with founders that are raising their first round but don't want to spend time searching for warm introductions or pitching around.
They will list their project/startup on Firstmoney for free, share their metrics (if they already have some) and update with milestones along the way (only visible to Angels).
We already have quite a good number of Angels interested in the product.
For founders: other than reaching out manually (something we are doing), we are trying to find a "scalable" distribution channel, so I was wondering if anyone can share ideas where I can find communities of founders (outside IH, where of course founders are less likely to look for an external round) or any other tip on how to grow this side of the marketplace (we are not considering paid ads at this stage).
Thanks a lot!
Connecting angel investors to startups is an important service. Most founders would think of AngelList first in this space - for what kinds of founders (or angels) is your new marketplace 10x better than AngelList?
HI @JHercules.
because the process on Firstmoney is different from AngelList, for both founders and Angels.
For founders: they can list their project/startup for free, upload the relevant info (stage, team bio, pitch-deck, size of round) + connect their metrics (if they have already some) with us via API. Every time they hit a new milestone they can update their feed, to showcase they are progressing.
For Angels: they can filter for various criteria (stage, need, location, etc), have access to their metrics, see the progresses and send an intro request to founders to engage in a conversation. So, we provide them also with hard data in real-time (MRR, ARR, churn, etc), which are otherwise difficult to come by at this stage.
The process is in the hands of the founders: when they receive an intro they can read the Angel Bio and decide whether to accept or not the connection.
So we make it very transparent for both sides. Founders can concentrate themselves on building and growing the business, Angels are able to fill their deal-flow pipeline while having access to the data.
Also, it seems to me that AngelList has shifted the focus more towards Syndicates, Rolling Funds and job boards (an example --> https://bit.ly/2Pb2dfO)
gonna be hard to get the investors, but keep me informed, looks interesting...
Great concept! I'd create one high quality relevant resource to share on Twitter, perhaps a guide to cold email investor outreach, or even just a list of 100 great angels in software. Announce it in a tweet, get people to reply & then DM it to people who reply. You can easily reach thousands of people this way if it's quality, hopefully many who go to the link to download or view will then sub to the newsletter or even sign up & submit their company, but regardless, this will trigger awesome word of mouth if done repeatedly and people begin to associate you with investor-founder relationships.
Hey @lukecannon727, it sounds like a great tip! Thank you very much
oh, neat!
I've worked on a very similar problem/product before.
You'll have no problem filling your pipeline of founders if you have active angels on there. I almost wouldn't worry about finding founders until you have a mailing list of 1000+ angels.
If you get that number then you can post in places like here, Startup School, Twitter, etc that you have a mailing list of 1000 angels, and founders will be beating down your door. We have a list here of other communities where founders hang out that we've used for acquiring users.
This is a really hard marketplace to build - good luck!
Hey @mattcrail,
thank you very much for your list! Much appreciated.
Yes, marketplaces are definitely hard to build.
We're already posting on Startup School and other places.
I don't think we need a mailing list of 1.000 Angels before finding founders (it would be difficult otherwise to get Angels' interest). We do have a good number of Angels interested in signing up to the platform.
My take is that we need to prove to both sides of the marketplaces that the model works, so some early success cases will be fundamental to gain trust.
Thank you again for sharing your content and also for your opinion!
Really interesting concept @SeaOfDreams, already subscribed to the newsletter and I'm looking forward to getting more updates about it!
Hey @mariobalca. Thanks! We'll email you at launch (we plan within 2/3 weeks)
Very interesting project. My readers on VenturesList might be interested. When are you planning to go live? Happy to feature it. @SeaOfDreams
Hi @felix12777. We are planning to launch within 2-3 weeks.
I had a look to VentureList, congratulations it looks like an awesome resource for founders, I would be super happy if you'd list Firstmoney on it. I'll let you know when we are live, is it ok for you?
Sure thing. Ping me on Twitter :)