Step-By-Step Guide To Raising Vc (Taught By A Former Vc)

Taught to Harvard Business School founders, this class is a field manual that will spell out each step of the process.

What you'll learn

How VC & angel investors make decisions

How to create and run a competitive fundraising process

How to create a compelling pitch deck for venture capital investors

What to expect during due diligence

How to build a financial model for your start-up (templates provided)

How to build a product roadmap for your start-up

How Cap Tables, SAFE Notes, and Priced rounds effect your ownership

Requirements

An interest in fundraising for your start-up in the next 6-12 months

An interest in learning about how venture capitalist's work and make decisions

Description

Raising Venture Capital is a nebulous process. The concepts of VC fundraising are actually very simple - the problem is that they are unwritten.  This bootcamp is meant to serve as a step-by-step guide to help you prepare for and execute the fundraising process with confidence. Filled with real exercises, templates, and guest lectures from 4 different seed stage venture capitalists, this class is meant to serve as a field manual to help you raise capital. Why did we design this course? If you've ever taught some one your favorite card or board game and watched them play for the first time, you'll empathize with the pain you feel watching some one make all the classic mistakes. As venture investors, that is how we felt watching our portfolio companies fundraise. This was not because they were unsophisticated or lacked the capability. It was because we had the benefit of seeing dozens of transactions every month, watching the best of the best fundraise. Our Founders on the other hand, had to spend all their time working on their business and often would only fundraise once every 18-36 months. We built this playbook to ensure our Founders didn't make those common simple mistakes that so many founders make in their fundraising journey. We wanted to give our Founders a simple playbook that they could follow to ensure they ran a competitive, momentum driven process and got the best outcome they could for their business. Therefore, this course is not about theory. This is a field manual that will guide you along the steps to get the best terms for your startup. Today, this playbook has been transformed into a talk that has been given at accelerators and some of the top MBA programs in the world, including Wharton, Harvard Business School, and Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. It is taught by Oliver Spalding, an Instructor at The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and early-stage investor. It is TA'd by Pancrazio Auteri, a multi-time exited founder & CPO who now serves as a coach for Berkely Haas's SkyDeck Accelerator program.

Overview

Section 1: Module 1: Investor Psychology

Lecture 1 Intro and Themes of Course

Lecture 2 Roadmap of Bootcamp + Homework

Lecture 3 Intro to Investor Psychology (+ Workshop)

Lecture 4 Investor Psychology: Why Now? (Workshop)

Section 2: How to run a fundraising process?

Lecture 5 Timeline of a Fundraising Round and Defining your Goals

Lecture 6 Tech Tools and your CRM

Lecture 7 How to Manage Investor Conversations

Lecture 8 Running a Process

Section 3: Module 3: Storytelling + Pitch Decks

Lecture 9 Intro and Review of Materials to-date

Lecture 10 Intro to Start-up Storytelling

Lecture 11 Rima Reddy - Principal at Commerce VC Guest Speaker

Lecture 12 Storytelling Finish

Lecture 13 Pitch Tactics

Section 4: Managing Due Diligence

Lecture 14 Intro

Lecture 15 Diligence Materials

Lecture 16 Guest Speaker: Jon Sklaroff - Principal at Optum Ventures

Lecture 17 Diligence Materials 2

Lecture 18 Due Diligence Cont

Section 5: Financial Modeling for Start-ups

Lecture 19 Why do you build a financial model?

Lecture 20 Financial Modeling 2

Lecture 21 Guest Speaker: James Shecter, Investor at Fika Ventures

Section 6: Product Roadmap

Lecture 22 Product Roadmap

Lecture 23 Pancrazio Q&A

Section 7: Negotiating and Closing a Venture Deal

Lecture 24 Walkthrough of Dilution Modeling Spreadsheet

Lecture 25 Intro to SAFEs

Lecture 26 Intro to Priced Rounds + Term Sheets

Lecture 27 Closing Thoughts

Section 8: Extra: Harvard Business School Lecture on Valuation Benchmarks

Lecture 28 Extra: HBS Lecture on Valuations

Section 9: Extra: Seed Stage Financial Model Walkthrough

Lecture 29 Intro to the Financial Model

Lecture 30 3-Year Forecast

Lecture 31 Revenue Build

Lecture 32 Business Development Hiring

Lecture 33 Cost of Sales

Lecture 34 Headcount

Lecture 35 Closing it out: Big Picture Overview

Lecture 36 Expenses

Start-up Founders that wish to raise money for their start-up