You're so money and you don't even know it.

The fundraising environment continues to be tough in some sectors, but things seem to be opening back up a little bit again, which is encouraging. One of my pitch coaching clients just got themselves into a term sheet tug-o-war between three VCs, so I've been working with them to try to decipher what the best deal is for them, strategically - and whether taking more money than they were looking for was a good idea. Expect a blog post about that in the next little while, because the answer is a lot less obvious than you might think.

This week’s Pitch Deck Teardown

GoodBuy Gear went under the pitch deck tear down microscope this week. I took a look at the deck the children’s gear resale marketplace used to raise $11 million in a Series A-1 round in May of this year. What’s included in this deck is generally very good; the flags for me was the things that were missed. Including, incredibly, a team slide. Have a read and you’ll see what my thoughts are on competition slides, operating plans, and why you need to be absolutely certain of your market size and clear on your competition.

If you want a private pitch deck review for your startup - I offer those! They are like Pitch Deck Teardowns, except in a lot more detail, and with 20% less snark.

3 top fundraising tips

We get down to cold, hard cash in this week’s newsletter. Even if you’re not embarrassed to talk about money–and as a founder, you really shouldn’t be–some questions and conversations about it can be difficult. I’ve picked out three conversations that can be a bit tricky for founders and how you can approach them.??

1. You have to pay yourself: If an investor suggests that you shouldn’t be paying yourself a salary... Maybe pass on them. This is something that I feel very strongly about, and I explain all of my reasons here. I also set out my thoughts on roughly how much you should be paying yourself, but in short, it’s “just enough”.
2. How much do you need to raise?: Trying to raise both too much and too little are easy mistakes to make. You might think of it in terms of ‘I need to raise this much to keep me going for this long’ but from an investor’s point of view, how long your money lasts isn’t the key factor. It’s what you do with it that counts. You need to be raising enough to get you to your next round of fundraising, hitting defined milestones along the way. I explain the theory of how much you need to raise here.?
3. How to get your 'ask' slide right: When you’ve worked out how much you need to be raising, how should you ask for it? You’d be surprised by the number of decks that I see make a complete hash of their ask slides. The thing is, it isn’t just about asking for a given sum of money. You need to demonstrate that you have clear plans for how you’re going to use it. It’s that which makes the difference with your ask slide.

If you are raising money for your startup, and you want a private pitch deck review from Haje, that’s possible! See haje.me for more information.