No one is better qualified than entrepreneurs who have personally grown their own businesses to inspire and guide you to success; to recommend resources and answer questions on critical issues. Talk to any seasoned entrepreneur and they'll tell you - "Don't go it alone; find people you can confide in".
Consequently, this meetup's purpose is to bring entrepreneurs, founders and CEO's of different types of startup together to empower and inspire each others success by:
- Learning from each other's experiences
- Developing relationships with peers
- Focusing on common challenges
- Tapping into each other's resources
- Goal setting and accountability
- Enabling more business
The Meetup is sponsored by MMS Edinburgh and meets above Skyscanner at Quartermile One
If you’re about to start fundraising for your startup, or aspiring to build a high-growth startup, then you can't miss this opportunity to hear and discuss your questions with successful fundraiser Gavin Littlejohn (Founder and CEO of Money Dashboard) who raised a Seed Round of over $4.1M in 2013.
According to Paul Graham, founder of incubator Y Combinator, “Raising money is the second hardest part of starting a startup. The hardest part is making something people want... But the second biggest cause of death is probably the difficulty of raising money. Fundraising is brutal.”
Gavin is a serial entrepreneur based in Edinburgh and founded Money Dashboard, to allow consumers in the UK to freely see all of their current, savings and credit card accounts in a single view and organise budgets.
During the course of his entrepreneurial journey, Gavin has developed and executed several types of funding in a variety of situations and business stages, as well as leading negotiations in some other transactions.
Some of the fundraising dilemmas we will be discussing include:
What's most important to have? Traction, Team or SEIS
Work/Work Balance? Fundraising is a full time job, what about your other full time job - customer discovery or product/service development?
When is it the right time to seek investment? When you’re turning over £20K or £2M...
How much investment should you ask for? £5K, £50K, £50M or all of them...
What should you spend it on? Staff, Marketing, Premises or Product Development...
Which kind of investors should you approach? Accelerators, Angels, Super Angels or VC’s...
How long will it take for you to get a "Yes"? 3 months or 6 months...
What will it cost you? Equity, control or money...
Where should you look? Should you be thinking locally, nationally or Silicon Valley...
How should you prepare? Perfect your pitch, Increase traction or improve your product...
How long should you keep pitching? Until you’ve had 50 “No’s” or 100...
How should you approach them? Directly or via introducers...
How much of your startup should you sell? 15% or 25%...
Who should do the fundraising? The CEO or CFO...
What information should you present? A video, slidedeck, Business Plan or Executive Summary...
What’s the ideal valuation for your startup? High or low...
Agenda:
12:00 Event opens
12:10 Introductions/Pitches (practise makes perfect...)
12:20 Good News - what have you achieved or learned recently
12:30 Gavin Littlejohn talking about Fundraising for your Startup and Group Discussion
1:30 What are you going to take forward?
1:45 Heads-Up on upcoming startup events, parties, opportunities, funding etc
2:00 Networking
2:30 Close
Attendance is limited to 20, so if you want to benefit, RSVP ASAP to avoid being disappointed
