Bridger Pennington breaks down how to raise your first million: target the right investors (high-net-worth individuals, family offices, institutions), move through three stages (getting in the room, warming prospects, pitching), and lead with an asymmetrical deal. He bought a discounted Lamborghini to show how a genuinely good opportunity makes capital easier to find.
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How to approach raising your first million dollars in 2 minutes or less. Now I'm Bridger Pennington. I currently run a $30 million GP stakes fund and about a $20 million crypto investment fund. And this is how I would approach raising capital. So down to the fund launch formula here on the iPad. If I come over to phase 3 on raising capital, number 1, who are we targeting? There's 3 different distinct categories of people that typically invest into funds. You have high net worth individuals, family offices, and institutions. Generally speaking, on your first raise, you're really going to be targeting kind of this group of people, high net worths, maybe a few family offices. I would not even talk to institutions. They're not ready yet. Furthermore, per the SEC, there are a few different types of investors. You have non-accredited, accredited, and actually 2 above that, which is qualified clients and qualified purchasers. For us speaking, generally, when you're raising a fund, you're generally going to be raising from this group or above. If you raise from non-accredited investors, You're going to be, you know, hitting a lot of different compliance problems over here. Now, that being said, how do I actually go raise this capital? We call this— there's 3 distinct stages of raising capital. Number 1, are you even in the room? Are you around these high net worth individuals or even in the vicinity of them? Okay. Number 2, maybe you are in the room. You know some people that are high net worth, but how do you connect with them? How do you get them to see Oh, Bridger is a guy or Sally's a gal that I want to invest into. That would be number 2, the connect phase. To warm them up to the idea that you get a chance to go to phase 3, which is close, actually pitch and close them. So again, I like to ask, well, which stage are you struggling with? Are you number 1? Are you even getting in the room with these people? Number 2, are you in the room? But, you know, I have some wealthy friends there. You know, they get in a lot of nice rooms because their parents are rich, but no one in that room sees them as someone they can invest into. Can you now connect with that person? Are you just a, you know, a fly on the wall or can you really warm a person up to the idea that you can actually get in and close? That's where you're, you know, at the boardroom with the pitch deck closing that person. Now I'm going to zoom out for a second and share one last principle because we could talk for 2 hours about this, but we won't. How do we actually raise that first capital? I asked my dad this and he gave me this example. So I'm like, I don't have a long track record. This is my first time ever raising capital. People, who's going to believe in me? And he gave me this example. He said, Bridger, imagine me and you found this car up in Montana, and the car is a Lamborghini Aventador. It's worth $300,000, and we could sell it easily for $300K. It's going into— there was a bankruptcy or something happened. We can buy the car this weekend. Crazy example, for $50,000. We've already had a mechanic look at it. This car is legit. If we show up with cash on Saturday, we can buy the car for $50,000. And he said, Bridger, could you find $50,000 by Saturday? Maybe. You know, he goes, like, could you, like, you can't use any of your money. Could you go knock on doors, find people? You're going to make a $250,000 spread Monday morning if you sell the car. And just go with me. It's a hypothetical example. And I'm like, yeah, actually, you know what? I probably wouldn't sleep for 3 days. I'm in college at the time. I was like, you know what? Yeah, I could probably go find $50,000. I mean, I'd have to work my guts out to find it. But if we're going to make a quarter million dollars, we can split it with our investor. Dang straight. Like, yeah, I'm going to work all day. Like, I can figure it out. And he goes, why? When I go, because the deal was so good, it was so juicy. And my dad said, you know, 3 minutes ago, you were worried you were too young, you're inexperienced, you've never raised capital before. And all of a sudden, you're telling me you could raise $50,000 by this Friday. This Saturday. Why? Because the deal was so good. When you guys listen to the Funnel Launch Formula here, we emphasize heavily on the deal. When you have asymmetrical risk deals like this that are phenomenal, that you would mortgage your own house, you would take your own grandma's money and put it in this deal because the deal is that good. It's that good of a deal. Capital raising becomes a lot easier. Now there are lots of tricks and tips to get in the right room, connect and close the room. But the easiest tip or trick is just have a really good investment strategy. Have a really good deal. Have a very, very strong edge. In this video, we don't have time to keep going on this. You can see our other videos. But that's what I would tell somebody. Have a very, very good deal. Focus on the right people, probably high net worth individuals here, and then work on getting in the right room, connecting that room, and then closing the room from there. Hopefully that's helpful. We'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.
