“Fundraising is an Enterprise Sales Process”
I recently read an article re: fundraising by Dave Parker on the Techstars blog. Dave opened with the above declaration, and I totally agree.As one who has raised capital for a startup and a fund, this statement resonated. Raising money is selling, so measure your process as such.I figured I’d share some metrics you can consider applying to your capital raise process along with a Google Sheets CRM template for tracking and measuring your progress.
A few things to consider:
- This is for more than organization: It’s for holding yourself accountable. Many of us are uncomfortable asking for money (aka dialing for dollars), but if you’ve committed to raising capital, you have to get over it and hit it hard.
- Diligence pays off: Nobody I know loves data entry, but be diligent in your tracking, whether in this template or a CRM.
- Track by Acquisition Channel: Consider tracking the above metrics by investor acquisition channel at the individual potential investor level. For example, referral from a current investor or someone who passed? former colleague/employer? invested in space or tangential? total cold outbound? Do the metrics show they behave differently? Do the results jive with your expectations? Can you learn anything here?
