We thought: we need money to build our vision, so let’s go talk to some investors.
WRONG.
Nobody gave a fuck that we needed money. We needed to prove we deserved their money.
At Udemy, we were 3 first-time entrepreneurs trying to raise seed capital. We made every mistake in the book.
We got 200+ no’s and wasted 12 months fundraising.
We eventually pulled through, just barely. 😅
This thread shares our mistakes as lessons for founders.
**Read On**
We thought: we need money to build our vision, so let’s go talk to some investors.
WRONG.
Nobody gave a fuck that we needed money. We needed to prove we deserved their money.
Few decision-makers wanted to meet with us.
We should’ve stopped there.
If getting meetings is hard, it will take you forever to raise.
Instead, spend your time building product + getting traction.
Learn to understand and appreciate investors. Follow them on Twitter, listen to podcasts from @HarryStebbings or @eriktorenberg.
An investor's job isn't easy.
They only win if you become a billion dollar company.
Don’t kid yourself - if you aren’t the right fit, bootstrap.
Risk-adjusted, bootstrapping can make you happier and more successful.
Investors don’t give a shit about next year. They care about the next decade.
Paint a picture of 10 years in future: how will the world be different and how will you build a $1B+ business?
Everyone said no except one Turkish billionaire.
Don’t trust Turkish billionaires. Don’t trust any investors who are outside of the Valley ecosystem.
The billionaire ghosted us.
We had made a huge mistake: we didn’t launch! Investors could smell our launch anxiety and didn’t invest because there was no traction or urgency.
Show the investors you’ve got chutzpah. Press the button.
🚀
We were on top of the world, and sent some follow-ups to investors.
They didn’t care.
Don’t succumb to SV hype - investors are (mostly) smarter than that.
Simple: we found true believers. @darian314 and @bubba put their name behind us after watching us for a year.
There is a “whisper network” amongst investors: they all share notes. If you want to raise a round, get into the network.
Once you get your first yes, close everyone else quickly. If you have a good first investor, you should be able to close the round within 3-4 weeks.
Keep everyone updated with your progress, create momentum, and close as fast as possible.
For practical stories about entrepreneurship, join my newsletter at https://t.co/ZIqQt0cadZ
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Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)
It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.
Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".
As a dean of a major academic institution, I could not have said this. But I will now. Requiring such statements in applications for appointments and promotions is an affront to academic freedom, and diminishes the true value of diversity, equity of inclusion by trivializing it. https://t.co/NfcI5VLODi
— Jeffrey Flier (@jflier) November 10, 2018
We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.
Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)
It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.
Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".
