The hardest part of raising a seed round is aligning serendipity, investor education, and timing.
Whether or not you’re in Silicon Valley, just getting in front of active investors is challenging. Cold emails are rarely the ticket, so I’ve had to become a professional networker in order to gain access to capital. For angel or institutional investors who aren’t professional venture capitalists, ensuring they understand seed investment structure and the dynamics of early stage investing can be challenging and time consuming. All investors look to their own experience when making investment decisions. If an angel only has experience with other areas like real estate or biotech, you can expect to spend hours with them explaining how everything works. Confusion over standard parts of a startup term sheet can kill a deal as easily as trepidation over the company or product in question. Just like anything else in life, timing is everything. It’s always better to raise capital when you don’t need it and strike while the iron is hot to ensure you’re adequately capitalized in the face of future uncertainty.
Stefan Martinovic is the Co-Founder and CEO of Create, a real estate data platform for investors and the construction industry. Like SimCity for the real world, Create is built around an immersive 3D map of the entire city that is packed with building and property data including structural, ownership, residential and commercial market, construction cost, tenant, financing, transit, zoning, city planning, environmental, and demographic data sets which are constantly updated through live feeds from 3rd party partners.
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