Learning To Raise Capital With The Right Sense Of Entitlement

(As appeared in Forbes.)

Many of those in Silicon Valley, including the golden boys of big tech, are frequently accused of entitlement, white privilege, foreign-founder privilege, and other means by which they access big checks easily.

Sara Batterby, the Founder of the Equity Capital Collective thinks entitlement plays a big role in access to capital, but maybe not in the way you think.

Batterby, who spent more than 20 years founding companies and sharpening her skills raising many millions of dollars, was in the inner sanctum of Silicon Valley with the entitlement crowd. She just didn’t realize it.

Moving from insider to outsider

Batterby opted to shift her lifestyle, moved to Oregon, and found herself in the cannabis business. It was there, where she founded the Portland chapter of Women Grow, that she raised over $5M in funding over 2 years. It was natural to her, because:

• she knew how to raise funds, and
• she “knew that she would raise the capital”

It is this posture of expectation that made her a success, but also a mystery to those around her. She was outside of the microcosm of Silicon Valley with people who didn’t know how to raise funds and, in some cases, that didn’t believe they were worthy of the capital. And that really bothered Batterby.

All around her were women founders, minority businesses, LBGT-led enterprises, and every other kind of “not made in the mold of the Valley”-led firm and they “presented” as unsure outsiders. It’s true that some can use the mantle of the outsider to gain power, even of our country, but only when they view it as a strength.

From the outside looking in…looking in through the eyes of founders who had no sense of entitlement—and in Batterby’s estimation no less reason to have capital or access to it—she decided she had to do something.

According to Batterby, when she hears people say they have “access to capital problems,” she thinks they “access to entitlement problems.” She wanted to convert people from a “have not” mentality to help them first unlock their potential and with that their access to capital.

The fundraising skills that build the right kind of entitlement

Batterby developed a workshop to help founders understand fundraising, not as a privilege, but as a skillset. She hypothesized that if entrepreneurs could understand the skillset—one of the first keys to getting over the imposter syndrome that kills too many dreams—she could help them move the needle.

There are three fundamentals that Batterby feels she learned in her experience that lead to capital success. It is these fundamentals she is sharing with founders.

1. Fundraising Skills – Being able to speak the language of capital and finance and the assumptions that go into a business model, a valuation, or the terminology investors expect a founder to be conversant in.
2. Fundraising Strategies – Being able to understand the process of acquiring capital, methods of efficiently fundraising and how best to engage different investors or strategic partners.
3. Insights – The rubber meets the road with these skills which are built around core beliefs about money and value. These are the skills they don’t teach in business school (or high school), and you won’t learn them hanging around the “have nots.” Founders must understand that money is power, know their internal value is real, and then articulate that value externally believing they are entitled to capital. It’s a whole different spin on entitlement when you know your idea is priceless and equally believe you are entitled to the capital to fund it.

The best investors don’t manage funds, they unlock founder potential

VCs work great for those that the system was made for. However, VCs help only a tiny fraction of founders in the real world. There are many more entrepreneurs who need capital and will never be on the inside of the ecosystem supported by traditional VCs.

Batterby is not focused on changing founders to fit the VC mold, which many fundraising coaches or programs advocate. Instead, she’d like to change the capital game by helping founders find and change themselves and ultimately transform the alternative funding landscape to bring more great ideas to fruition.

Every day thousands of new founders are born and they are legitimately entitled to capital. Batterby is committed to helping them believe it.

People have been telling you that you have a sense of entitlement for so long. Do you really? Maybe you should.