I have tried to fundraise before, unsuccessfully. Now, looking back, I believe the attempts were unsuccessful for some key reasons:
Most importantly:
❌ I didn’t pitch the right business…
😟 to the right people!!!
But even if I had the right pitch, I wouldn’t have made it, because:
⏱️ I didn’t dedicate enough time to the raise (I spent more than 50% of my time on the business)
😰 I was unable to push through the low times, which suck but they’re a necessary part of every fundraise so far as I’ve heard…
The right business:
Marketplaces are incredibly hard (especially for first time founders) and expensive to grow, for a multitude of reasons that I will go into in another post…
So when I was trying to raise a relatively small amount of money, for an expensive business, whose unit economics were far from figured out, it was an immediate red flag for any professional investors I pitched.
Every fundraising attempt that I failed, I was purely trying to pitch the marketplace business. And like a broken clock, I still continued to pitch that same business for the first 5 months of my 2022 raise, from Oct 2021 to Feb 2022.
After I tried to push a lot of excitement out into the world, and I had very little energy come back in return, I finally started to listen to the world and explore what might be wrong.
I tested variations of pitches & businesses in my head, on paper, with friendly potential investors, with customers, and with friends in the industry.
For a couple of calls, where I was sharing the new idea with friends in the industry, I tried going a step further and asking them if they’d be willing to put a tiny bit of money into the idea. I asked for the minimum I thought I could take (logistically): £3k
A few said yes. One said hell yes and offered more than 10X the amount I asked for. Because he understood the need for the solution, he’d seen me slave over this company for years, and he believed in me.
That changed everything!!!
It was the beginning of March 2022. I suddenly had more than 0% committed (my target was £150k at the time). And I had an evolution of the business idea, that not only excited other people, but more importantly excited me. That friend’s offer was a massive boost to my confidence, and that combined with a business that was endlessly inspiring for me, gave me an infectious energy that people could hear in my voice on every call.
I ended up closing £140k in 6 weeks (more on that later).
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This is the story of how I successfully fundraised (£295k at £1.5m pre-money). It started in October 2021 and ended in Q1 2023.
This is NOT a playbook for how you should do it. Every person's journey is different.
But I hope this might inspire you for possible paths you can explore.
Follow #tuttifundraising and I’ll share more insights when I have time to write them around building the business.
Planned raise and actual raise were completely different
I am very very close to closing the book on my first successful fundraising journey for Tutti.
I've been sharing the experience with a few other founders on one to one calls and it seemed like my experiences were really helping them (my honest re-telling of events probably helps), so I thought I might share them here on LinkedIn over multiple posts.
So, to start off here are some key facts:
🚩 I officially started "working" on this raise in October 2021.
-- (I thought I could get it done before Christmas 2021)
🎯 Original target was £750k (can't remember what valuation) to:
-- Build mobile apps
-- 20X listings
-- Improve SEO
-- 100X traffic
-- Prove the unit economics work
👽 Original focus: marketplace only
🤯 Plan: raise some money from professional angels, then use that momentum to do a crowd raise (the only bit that stuck)
What ended up happening:
▶ Raising to build SaaS, to become a SaaS enabled marketplace.
🏁 Raised £140k at £1.5m pre from friends, family, and some founders & angels in Apr 2022
-- Priced round, mixture of direct investors and SPV wrapped, using Odin.
🏁🏁 Raised another £155k still at £1.5m pre from more friends, more family, a lot of fellow founders, and a few professional angels, via Seedrs in Q4 2022.
-- Same price round in order to make the most of crowdfunding, mixture of direct investors and nominee wrapped, using Seedrs.
To close the book finally in the next couple of weeks, I am wrapping up some final paperwork and then I can consider that chapter closed. We're almost there!
But yeah, if you think fundraising will be easy or fast, think again. This journey has taken me 16 months, there have been extreme highs, devastating lows, and everything in between.
I have spent months focused on just fundraising and nothing else. And some times trying not to think about it...
And I've learned a hell of a lot along the way, so I figured I'd share that in a series of #tuttifundraising posts. But I haven't written them yet, so don't expect them in any sort of timely fashion - I have a business to build.