Schedule

This week, we will begin to set up your fundraising process and materials including your pitch deck and your investor target list. We will also place you in a working group with other founders so that you can receive feedback and support. The team at FI HQ will be hosting group office hours to discuss the next 3 months and to answer any questions that come up.

The team at FI HQ along with your working group members will begin to provide you with detailed feedback on your pitch deck and on your target list. You will hold and set up practice pitches, expand your target list and will improve your deck. In addition, you will engage with your existing equity holders, to make sure you have their support during your fundraising.

This week you will refine all of your fundraising materials and you will begin to compile your data room. The team at FI HQ will help you improve your investor targeting, help you strategize the correct funding amount your growth metrics.

This week, you will start to engage with members of the FI network such as FI Network Leaders, Mentors and Graduate founders to procure introductions to investors on your target list. You will also develop investor outreach email templates that will be reviewed by the team at FI HQ.

This week, you will aggressively procure introductions to Investors on your target list. The team at FI HQ will provide you with feedback on your outreach communication and tactics via 1:1 office hours.

At this juncture, fundraising will have to become your number one priority in the business for you to succeed at this task. The team at FI HQ as well as your advisors will review your current fundraising progress and suggest improvements. We will also prep you for various investor questions that come up. 

In this Feedback Session, Mentors will provide Founders with feedback on their current go-to-market plans and progress, and cover topics like marketing messaging, unit ecomomics, customer acquisition, and more.   

Sprints

Below are just a few of the 10-15 deliverables you’ll complete through Working Groups and Office Hours:

1. Alternatives - Identify two alternative models (markets or “pivots”) for your go-to-market solution to discover the most lucrative market opportunity. Interview at least 2 customers for each alternative.
2. Advisor Follow-Up - In the next Step you will finalize advisors, so begin finalization meetings with your top candidates, and set up test Advisor Test Projects where necessary following our templates.
3. Test Marketing Messaging - Write at least three separate marketing messages for your solution, and A/B test them using landing pages with at least 100 engagements each. 
4. Customer Acquisition Channels - Identify at least five initial or new major marketing channels to acquire customers that are appropriate for your solution.
5. Conversion Rate - Begin testing at least three of your new customer acquisition channels, pushing as much traffic through them as possible to evaluate their comparative conversion rates. 
6. Unit Economics - Research any data on the standard Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC) and standard Lifetime Value (LTV) for your industry and segment, and compare and analyze against the metrics you have collected thus far. 

This week you will continue meeting with investors and you will be aggressively procuring new introductions. We will review the feedback that you have been receiving from investors to help you to improve your pitch, materials and your outreach strategy.

This week, you will see if you are ready to set a closing date, to push investors towards giving you money. You will also begin to negotiate the terms of your round with interested investors. The team at FI HQ will advise you on your investor negotiations and will provide you with detailed feedback on your terms sheets.

This week you will go all out to continue to add the last new people to your round, to fill the round.

This week, you will focus on driving your interested investors to a close, since it is hard to get new investors to close within a week. The team at FI HQ will provide you with tailored advice for your specific situation.

This week you will push interested investors to wire the funds and either do a Final Close on the round, or do an Interim Close and use this momentum to convince new investors to engage for the Final Close. From this point on the team at FI HQ will provide you with 1 on 1 assistance until you do a Final Close on your round.