How I would teach founders to get their startup funded

I’ve raised money myself, done venture investments, and been a lawyer for 25 years to many dozens of investors and venture capitalists alike during the funding process.

Learning by doing is the only way

The only way to teach founders how to raise money is to get them funded.

Not writing a social media post, and definitely not a book or business school entrepreneurship course. Actually. Raising. Cash.

To raise money you must go stepwise through building a fundable startup, mastering the skills of fundraising, and then actually raising money — not from me or anyone I could recommend but from professional investors who are absolute strangers.

Anything else is an exercise in pointlessness, like watching a cooking show without getting off your couch, just enteratainment not food.

Cohort-based accelerator programs are the scalable solution

I did legal work for one of world’s first modern accelerators, called The Accelerator.

Mine failed, it was too early and then 9/11 happened. But the best modern ones starting with Y Combinator, Plug and Play, Techstars, 500 Startups, and Founder Institute have all mastered fundraising skills.

The rewards of teaching at an accelerator — or being a startup lawyer like me — are that you help build a hundred world changing startups with a hundred brilliant founder teams, not just doing a single one for yourself.

Like becoming a teacher after retiring, paying it forward.

They teach how to build an accelerator

If you want to get meta, there are already multiple accelerator accelerators — cohort based programs to teach you how to build an accelerator.

They have at least as many moving parts as startups. You need partners, mentors, staff, investors, sponsors, a collaboration platform, and curriculum. And that in turn requires ideation, branding, entity and legal. It’s a huge investment of time and reputation.

If I built an accelerator it would focus on DevOps or space tech, US meets Asia/Pacific, single founders, or another differentiator I have a passion for that makes business sense and can inspire community. That’s better than trying to be everything to everyone.

In my next post I’ll list out the curriculum.

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