What are your good takeaways and useful tips when raising money?
I have come across several statements such as: a single person cannot raise money on their own (you need to be in a team of at least 2 people), it is not worth it because there is pressure on you, etc.
What is your experience with raising money?
What did it give you, and who did you raise it from?
What do you think helped you to a large extent to get the raise?
I would be happy if you would share your short story and your knowledge.
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Klariqo AI Voice Assistants
Oh that's a real good one.
If had to say in short: Founder's story > Actual product.
The investors usually invests on the founder, their grit, their execution methods. After that comes the actual product. For the product itself, its about early traction, and what's your team like?
Solo founders are given a chance but its kinda walking on thin ice, where you gotta basically convince them twice as hard I feel. And early traction definitely matters instead of just "Yeah this is going to be the next trillion dollar company, believe me" haha
Also It could be just me, but I feel most founders should only go for Investments "after" some proper traction, maybe even $10k MRR, that way they raise from a point of authority rather than flailing about.
@ansh_deb At that point you're negotiating from proof, not pitching a story. I'm building without raising specifically to avoid that pressure and keep control, but watching founders who do raise, it seems like the ones who wait until they have real traction get way better terms and less dilution.
Klariqo AI Voice Assistants
@berghoffer 100% That's the game. It all depends on who holds the winning cards.
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@ansh_deb Do you have experience as a solo founder? To whom should I reach out to raise money? (I mean VC fund... because it seems that Y Combinator is more open to multiple founders)
Klariqo AI Voice Assistants
@busmark_w_nika Yeah I am a solo founder as well, couldn't find a technical co-founder so I started it all alone haha. It has been tough, but once you can consistently secure a few paying clients, things become easier, even if you are flying solo.
Best Case Scenario: 2-3 founders, 'x' paying customers, proper breakdown of churn, MRR etc
Good Case Scenario: Solo founder, 'x' paying customers, again proper breakdown of the stats
Basically at the end of the day, funding should be considered only when you are already making some sort of moolah, and want a rocketship launch to take it to the next level.
Ofcourse comes with minor caveats like most VCs expect you to sell the company or do an exit after 5-7 years no matter what, etc.
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@ansh_deb the thing that I am not technical, so my options shrank to get funding. And if I wanna create something technical, I need to learn everything from scratch.
Klariqo AI Voice Assistants
@busmark_w_nika Yeah I am not technical either, but the thing that I realised is, technical people are not good salespeople or know how to market stuff.
I mean I personally follow you on linkedin and more, how many "developer"s or technical people can say that they manage to get the same level of interaction as you do?
Like its said, building a product is easy, marketing is hard. I would say a lot of tech minded people would be happily ready to work with you on your idea, considering your reach. I can recommend you some if you want
I managed to raise money as a solo-founder which means anybody can.
I raised a $600k pre-seed at the idea/prototype stage from VCs and angels. It was mostly a pretty easy process. I reached out to a few funds via their website with a really bad pitch deck which quickly turned into loads of introductions.
The first $100k was the toughest and after that it becomes much easier. The most time consuming aspect was the legals but in the future I'd just raise on a SAFE/ASA.
I think they key to raising is showing how passionate you are about the idea and being able to convince them that you're the person to execute on the vision. If you're a solo-founder I think the best thing is to know your weaknesses and have good ideas on how to address them.
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@jxd_dev Hey Jamie – from which VCs did you raise? Wasn't a problem that you were a solo?
@busmark_w_nika the round was led by Frontline with contribution from Ascension and Concept.
There were a few people who encouraged me to find a cofounder but it didn't block the round.
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@jxd_dev I will google them, ty!
Warestack
VCs care a lot about the founders’ credibility - especially in today’s AI era, where they want to clearly see defensibility and early traction.
They always ask themselves why these founders are uniquely positioned to solve this problem. They also expect founders to understand their market and competitive landscape extremely well. If you can’t articulate the competition or dismiss it entirely, that’s usually an immediate NO.
I believe the idea that a single person can’t raise money isn’t true - but having a strong, complementary founding team with long-term trust and a clear split of responsibilities definitely helps. In our case, my cofounder and I have been working together for 12 years, and that story most of the times wins.
As for our own round, we decided to postpone it for now - we want to build a bit more traction and double down on defensibility and direction before raising.
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@dkargatzis To whom do you want to reach out in terms of funding? If investors decide, according to founders, what should be in their portfolio? What kind of successes?
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@george_esther Hey Esther, thank you, confirmed. Feel free to ask. I have a question regarding the funds you raised as a solo. From whom did you raise them, and what did you provide to convince them to fund you?
in 2025 - probably best to be in revenue
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@dzaitzow I just need tocome up with product :D
Querri
It's not impossible, but pretty challenging to raise money as a solopreneur. As a startup founder you have a few knobs that you can leverage for fundraising. You have to have at least one of these in your favor for VCs to believe in you.
Have a great product that your customers love or you can prove that you can sell and close deals yourself
Have a great team who has been there done that
You have an patentable vision/product concept that VCs would die to invest in.
Have easily accessible VC network.
In very early stage, VCs invest in teams, not products, because startups always pivot and that product could end up being completely different than what they invested in, but it's the team's confidence, resiliency, and hustle that investors bet on. If you are a solopreneur, then you product, traction, or vision is something that has to be hard to ignore.
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@querri Do you think that a learning app would have a chance to raise money?
Must be in the right place, right country, right continent to be able to raise. I could not :|
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@fancsiki Whera are you based?
About solo founders: I have heard Sam Altman and Jason Calacanis say that we will see many solo-founded unicorns in the coming years. In practice, I see that YC doesn't like solo founders, and Startup University doesn't either. Also, it is hard to do it on your own. As a first step I'd try to find a co-founder (so am I :))
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@pors Who is your co-founder? :)