Herding Angels and VCs for Your Startup’s Round

Hey, what's up, folks? It's Bunkaj. Welcome back to investream. Today I'm going to answer a question that ankur had on YouTube about how you can herd investors together once you've got that first investor in and try to get your round close as quickly as possible. Coming up next, Let's talk about how you can herd investors together to get your round closed as quickly as possible. And none of this is foolproof, so I want to lay that out up front. These are just some tactics that you can try to use to get your round closed as quickly as possible and get some investors that are sitting on the fence, get them to tip over onto your side of the fence now. All right, let's start with number one. Number one, once you've got that initial, initial investor locked in, there's a couple of things you want to make note of. Is that investor a large investor or they come in at the minimum, make a note of that. So number two, you want to know what are they well known for? Are they well known for investing in a particular vertical? Are they best well known for finding unicorns really early on? What are they known for? And will that add value to your having them on the cap table? So, for example, if you find an investor who's really well known for finding great SaaS companies and you are a SaaS company, great, that's probably going to help, right? If somebody like that is coming into your realm. Number three, is the lead investor different from the first investor? If your first investor is your lead investor, meaning they're the largest, most well known, and they're making introductions to other investors on your behalf, then it's more likely that you can get other folks that receive introductions from that investor, get them to close, right? But if they're not the lead investor, but they still are making some introductions, that can also help. But those folks that don't know that investor or didn't receive an introduction for them, it's still going to be a little tricky. But these are a couple of things that you can try to use. Some investors make introductions, others don't. So don't rely too much on the introduction piece, but that's something that could help. Another thing that you try and want to do is you want to get other investors that perhaps are smaller investors, may not be as well known investors. You want to try and give them an opportunity to co invest with somebody of repute, right? So for example, if, you know, if I'm just starting out as an angel investor and I'm getting an opportunity to co invest with Paul Graham on a deal, assuming Paul Graham even does non YC investments anymore. But if I'm getting an opportunity to co invest with him, that might help me get over that little hump and say, oh well, Paul Graham is in and he might be writing a small check, but still Paul Graham. And I'm getting a chance to co invest with him. Perhaps I'll even get a chance to meet him, talk to him about this investment, maybe work with him on a future investment. So I might be a little bit more inclined to say yes on a deal like that. So those are some things that you could try and do that might be helpful. There is no foolproof way, you know, people use other tactics like oh, we're closing the round on Friday. If you're in, you got a sign. If you're not, you know, too bad. So there's creating a little bit of FOMO that sometimes work, but it really doesn't work as well anymore. I think a lot of investors have gotten very sophisticated and have realized that, you know, that's a tactic that startups will use to try and get people in quickly as possible. But it doesn't really work as well because investors have a lot of options and you know, they've seen this too many times now. Less experienced investors might go for it. But you know, my personal opinion is like, look, if. If I'm going to do an investment, if I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it and you know, the company needs the money, I'll try and close it as quickly as I can to get it done. Of course, sometimes life gets in the way and sometimes you're just not able to get back to a as quickly as you wanted to. And that's unfortunate. But it does happen. So I hope that answers the question, gives you some things to think about that might help close a round a little bit more quickly. And if you've got additional questions or comments, and especially if you've got other tactics that you've used to close rounds quickly, please share them in the comment section below. If you haven't yet subscribed to the YouTube channel, I would love for you to smash that subscribe button. And also make sure you hit the little bell. You get notifications of every new episode of Invest Stream. Thanks again for joining me. I will see you again next time.