Paving The Yellow Brick Road to Funding (Transmission #305)

Fundraising is hard. The markets suck. Investors are risk averse. Proptech isn’t a shining sector. 

All that’s true, I get it.

It’s Blueprint week, and virtually every proptech VC will be on the ground in Las Vegas by Wednesday. Many, many founders have opened rounds in the past week or so. Untold others will be opening rounds in the coming weeks, as VC season enters full tilt.

Every investor you speak with will ask questions. Some, many. Some few. If they ask zero questions, you know they’re a lemming following notable investor X to riches or failure. Those aren’t the smart ones. The sharpest investors will seek to understand your business at a much deeper level.

To pave the road to round completion, you, as founders, need to answer whatever they throw at you thoroughly, yet concisely.

You also need to understand how investors evaluate an investment opportunity. Putting my REACH/SCV Venture Advisor, occasional angel investor, and frequent VC-founder connector hat on, there are two critical areas I’m looking for (aside from the obvious, a big problem customers are actively searching for a solution to): distribution advantage and unit economics.