We are close to reaching our goal of 2-2.5 million dollars in funding! It is exciting to reach our fundraising goals, so today on The Legalpreneur, I am sharing my strategy for building venture capitalist relationships. 

Traditionally, venture capitalism was a closed community. You could only meet investors by knowing someone who could introduce you. However, things are changing, and a new class of venture capitalists is emerging. In every major city, there is a startup community that you can join to ensure you get in the room with the right people. The Legalpreneur fundraising journey was launched after a pitch competition exposed me to a group of potential investors, which led to many more opportunities. 

Remember that you are in the business of relationships, so positioning yourself within the investment community is a vital part of fundraising for your startup. Every interaction has the potential to change the financial trajectory of your startup!

If you want to learn how to position yourself and your business for financial success, listen now!

Key Takeaways:

[3:00] Venture capitalist opportunities 

[5:00] The San Antonio pitch competition

[6:00] Getting involved with your city’s startup community 

[7:00] Turning down the Capital Factory

[8:00] How one event can introduce you to investors and opportunities 

[10:00] You are in the business of relationships

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Disclaimer: 

The Legalpreneur Podcast is advertising/marketing material. It is not legal advice. Please consult with your attorney on these topics. Copyright Legalpreneur Inc 2022

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Legalpreneur transcript:

Andrea Sager  00:03

Welcome to the Legalpreneur podcast. I’m your host Andrea Sager founder and CEO of Legalpreneur Inc. As a serial entrepreneur and someone that works exclusively with small business owners legally protecting their business. I’m dedicated to covering common legal issues faced by business owners, providing you with the business knowledge you need to catapult your business’s growth, and showing you just how some of the world’s most elite entrepreneurs have handled these legal and business issues themselves. In true attorney fashion, the information in this episode is not legal advice. This is for informational purposes only. And you should always consult with your attorney before implementing any of the information in the show. Hello there Happy Friday. Today we are going to be chatting about fundraising and raising money for your startup. 

Andrea Sager  00:53

But before we get into it, I am here to remind you about the legal premier membership, we have now two versions, you can get the base membership or the advanced membership. The advanced gets you all access to your own attorney unlimited emails, a phone call every month document, review our contract templates, discount on services, like all the things trademark search business audit, and then the base membership is legitimately everything minus the phone call and emails every month, you do get the q&a with me every month. So we basically in the q&a, I dive deep into a specific topic, and then do q&a. So it’s going much deeper than anything that we put out on the podcast or on social media. So it’s getting you more into the weeds of what you need to know as a business owner as a CEO. Because there’s so many legal topics that you have to be aware of. And then now that we’re going to be launching the attorney marketplace soon, that is going to come with more experts, more legal experts that are able to come in and do deeper dives on certain legal topics. So get in the membership. While you can. The link is in the show notes. $99 a month for the base membership 349 a month for the advanced membership, you get all access to your own attorney. 

Andrea Sager  02:12

Okay, let’s chat fundraising. I want to talk about this because we’ve gone through it now. And we’re I mean, we’re still in it. We haven’t closed our round. But this time around, it’s very different than this time last year. So this time last year, and I know I’ve talked about this, but just want to give you guys a rundown this time last year, we were trying to raise money, I wanted to raise 2 million as our seed round. It turned into $150,000 friends and family round. That’s what we raised. And I had VC commitments, but we quickly realized like, Hey, we’re actually not ready for this, like, let’s just do what we got to do to be in a better position. Because I’ve talked about this before going from small business to start up. There’s a lot of things that we just didn’t do when we were truly just a small business. And number one was knowing a lot of our numbers. And now we’re just in a much better place. Even knowing who we are as a company A but be certain numbers, like certain KPIs, we know our churn or I always talk about churn just because that’s like the number I’m so impressed with with us. Because when last year when I did this, 

Andrea Sager  03:19

I remember pitching and the guy was like, What’s your churn rate? And was like, uh, 80% is like, No, thank you. But now, over the past three months, it’s been less than 1%, over the last six months has been less than 3%. So there’s a lot of numbers that you need to know a lot of KPIs, but we had no idea. We were just a small business. But and what I want to talk about is really, the warm intros. So if you’ve ever looked into raising money from VCs venture capital money, the old tradition is truly like, you have to know somebody, you have to get an introduction to somebody that is at a VC firm. You can’t just like cold email them, and they’re going to fund you that slowly changing because of the commitment that we did get last year. It was actually a cold email. I just emailed them, they we talked and they were like, Hey, let’s do this. It’s slowly changing, because there’s a lot of emerging VCs. And what I mean by that is new VC funds that are really trying to change the industry. Because traditionally, I think it’s like 85% of VC dollars go to men, less than 1% goes to black founders, less than 1% goes to Hispanic founders. So there’s a lot of emerging VCs trying to get more money in the hands of women and underrepresented minorities. Last year when I was fundraising, I was hustling. Oh my gosh, like I literally sent out I think it was 150 pitches before I started getting some traction. And it was a lot that was a lot of it was like a full time job in and of itself. 

Andrea Sager  04:56

Meanwhile, like I also had a million other full time jobs trying to juggle all the things and, and I kept hearing people say like, oh, you should get more warm intros. And I’m like, I don’t know anybody like, What the hell am I supposed to do? Like, I don’t know anybody. So last year, I went to this pitch competition, actually, I saw it on Twitter somewhere. And it was Latinx. In tech here in Texas, it was in San Antonio. And they had a pitch competition. And I remember I applied and I was just like, oh, whatever, a week before. They’re like, hey, congrats, you’ve been selected to pitch and I’m like, Holy shit, oh, my god, like, What the hell do I do, like, I’ve never pitched in my entire life. Like, I was like, excited, but also like, Oh, my God, I have no idea what I’m gonna do. So I just wing it, I have done even practice, I was just like, whatever. And it was awful, like, awful. However, that one event has literally led to everything that’s going on with us now. And that one event, just like me going to that one event, it has now spiraled into so many other opportunities. And I’m telling you this, because if you’re thinking about this, you have to go to these events. Guaranteed if you’re near a big metropolitan area, if you’re near some kind of city, there’s a startup community, and they have these events, go to them, even if they don’t have a pitch competition. And if you’re like, I don’t want to pitch like just go and start meeting people like that is all you have to do. Because let me tell you, Okay, so we’re in this NetSuite accelerator now. 

Andrea Sager  06:26

And I met the NetSuite people in San Antonio. So we’re now we’re in this accelerator, which the accelerators helping our business in so many ways, but they’re also introducing us to VCs, like they are introducing you to the VCs. That’s the warm intro that you need. And just the fact that we’re in this accelerator, VCs are like, Oh, great, like they’re getting help. They’re not doing this, like people are helping them that know what they’re doing. And like, just getting plugged into so many other resources has been incredible. So they’re in Texas, there’s this kind of an it’s an accelerator, and they’re a fund called Capital Factory. Well, they do a lot for the startup community. And I initially turned them down. They, they wanted me to join the accelerator. And initially, I turned them down. But I think we are going to go with them because I’ve been hanging out with the he’s the principal of the fun at Capital Factory. He’s good friends with the guy that runs the accelerator, the NetSuite accelerator. So I got invited to this poker night, like, I’m just telling you guys like all this shit, just spirals. And so this guy, Nick, he’s been, he’s like, sorry. So fundraising, he’s like, give me shit. Because I actually turned them down. I don’t think people ever turn them down. Anyways, that’s a whole nother episode. But basically, you have to start attending these events. If you are ever interested in creating a startup, getting VC dollars, whatever it is, you have to get plugged in and go into that one event in San Antonio has now got me in the accelerator. We got invited to the deal day. And now they actually just told us yesterday, there’s gonna be another deal day. So introduce two more investors. 

Andrea Sager  08:18

And I think we’re about to close some investors. So it’s just like, all spiraling. And so that poker night, you guys, oh my gosh, I don’t know if you followed it on Instagram. But it was the most insane thing literally, like 50 investors in this one room. We’re all playing poker, which is my thing. So I’m just like in my zone, and just shooting the shit with all these investors. And it was basically like, one of the greatest nights and then we all went out afterwards. And South by Southwest, oh my gosh, like I almost didn’t go a couple of other events that I supposed to go to. I was supposed to speak at an event. And then I was supposed to go to New York, y’all. I had to cancel everything because then literally the Sunday before by Southwest started I got an email, they’re like, hey, we want you to pitch at this event. At this certain session. I was like, oh my god, like literally all this fun from one event. The thing in San Antonio, so if you are ever interested in

Andrea Sager  09:22

you have to go to these startup events. And some of them may end up being a waste of time, but some of them will just bring an incredible ROI and just meeting people of course meeting people it’s like I’ve talked about in this podcast so many times before you are in the business of relationships and so you have to create new relationships. So really exciting. Oh we have going on I think we are about to finally raise our to two and a half million, which is super super exciting because you’re gonna see some even bigger changes quicker changes like we’re just about to be on a freakin rocket ship, which is super are exciting and I’m so glad that you all have been here the whole time. And just listening along and chiming in. So, I hope you’ll continue to stay along for the ride. Let me know if y’all have any questions. If you have any questions about startups, if you have questions about raising money, of course, any legal questions, send me a DM reach out on Tik Tok because a lot of times I get the topics I’m going to talk about on the podcast from social media. What are people asking? And then I answered on the podcast. All right. So much exciting stuff going on. All right, we will see y’all next time I’m here at legal corner. We’re committed to providing a supportive legal community. 

Andrea Sager  10:40

For all business owners. I know how scary the legal stuff can be. If you found this information helpful, I would be so grateful if you could share it with a fellow business owner. And quite frankly, it doesn’t cost anything to rate review or subscribe to the show. Your support helps me reach more listeners, which allows me to support more business owners in their entrepreneurial journey. Have any questions or comments about the show? Feel free to drop me a line on Instagram. I promise I read all of the messages and comments. And if you want to be a guest on the show or know someone that would make a great guest simply fill out our application form and a team member will reach out if we think it’s a good fit. I’ll see you in the next episode.