How Seed Investors Think About Startups with Sramana Mitra
What you'll learn
- How seed stage investors think about and analyze startups.
Requirements
- Recommend my free Bootstrapping Course.
Description
One particular trend keeps me awake at night. Thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs have approached us for help with their funding at a stage where their chances of getting funding is ZERO. We can’t help them, regardless of how powerful our investor connections are. We can’t help a startup get funding before they become fundable. It pains me to see how many entrepreneurs have no idea what makes a startup fundable.
So, my humble advice to all entrepreneurs: please learn to assess your own probability of getting funded.
As you may have already learned in my courses, the early stage investment ecosystem has fragmented, it’s no longer just seed and Series A. The seed part has fragmented to friends and family financing, pre-seed, seed, post-seed, small Series A, and large Series A.
In this course, we will do a deep dive into the seed stage.
If you want introductions to Angels and VCs, a fundable and validated business is a must.
A fundable business with warm introductions is the fastest way to get funded. We can introduce you to angels and VCs, if your idea is fundable and validated. Sadly, less than 1% of businesses are fundable. What that means is more than 99% of the entrepreneurs waste their energy on pitching their unfundable businesses to investors. Hugely unproductive and unhealthy.
There is a reason why savvy entrepreneurs have been using the Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later strategy.
Generation after generation of entrepreneurs have used bootstrapping to get to a fundable stage, so they can call the shots at the negotiation table with their potential investors.
I have nothing against funding. I have scores of friends who are investors and I respect their work.
But my heart belongs to entrepreneurs who are capable of doing the heavy lifting of extensive validation. That’s where we can add the most value and that’s why we are in the trenches with those true entrepreneurs every day.
This course is designed to help such entrepreneurs understand the thought process of seed investors.
Who this course is for:
- Technology entrepreneurs.
- Startup founders interested in financing.
- Aspiring entrepreneurs.
Course content
- Preview01:29
- 01:33How Seed Investors Think About Startups
- Preview10:36
- 02:45Probability of Raising Funds
- 01:25:48The Traction Gap Framework with Bruce Cleveland, Wildcat Venture Partners
- 30:18Bootstrapping to Exit with David Lambert, Right Side Capital Management
- 28:21Digital Health Seed with Julien Nguyen, IT Farm
- 35:52Seed Investing with Greg Sands, Founder at Costanoa Ventures
- 27:39B-to-B Investing with Mark Selcow of Costanoa Ventures
- 02:27Synthesis
Instructor
![Sramana Mitra](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 2 Reviews
- 1,615 Students
- 22 Courses
Sramana Mitra is Founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), a global virtual accelerator that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant, she writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy, and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. As an entrepreneur CEO, she ran three companies: DAIS, Intarka, and Uuma. Sramana has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2015, Sramana was named one of LinkedIn’s Top 10 Influencers, alongside Bill Gates and Richard Branson.