In this presentation, the speaker uses a farming metaphor to explain a five‑step, sequential process for raising startup capital. The steps—tilling, planting, watering, harvesting, and closing—must be performed in order and cannot be skipped. Tilling prepares the founder’s internal certainty about the raise; planting involves defining the raise strategy, target investors, fundraising amount, use of proceeds, and a strong pitch. Watering focuses on securing a first‑mover investor who will take a significant portion of the round. Harvesting is the phase of filling out the round by bringing in the remaining investors. Closing is the final step of getting cash in the bank and officially completing the round. The metaphor emphasizes that, like crops, skipping any stage prevents a successful harvest, urging entrepreneurs to think sequentially and build a solid foundation before moving to the next stage.
Chapters
So I use a farming metaphor, and the metaphor is we are farming investor desire. Okay, we're growing investor desire, and eventually the investor desire gets big and strong and we can harvest it. And this process of farming investor desire has 5 steps. Here's the steps along the top. I noticed this morning that instead of tilling, I've got tiling. So just pretend that says tilling. So the first step is tilling, then planting, then watering, then harvesting, then closing. And each of these steps can't be skipped and they need to be done in this order. And if you look along the bottom, you can see the goal of each step of the process. So the goal of tilling or tiling is to prepare your internal environment to get to certainty around your raise. The goal of planting is to plant the seeds for successful raise, which could also be seen as orienting yourself to understand how the raise is gonna be successful. What kind of investors do you need to raise money from? Do you have a list of all the, all the investors that you're planning to reach out to? Do you have funnels set up? Have you figured out exactly how much you're gonna raise and what you're gonna use the money for? Is your pitch strong, et cetera? Then in watering, the goal is to find and sign on a first mover. Like a first investor that's gonna take a nice chunk of your round. And I'll talk a bit about how to do that. And then in harvesting, the goal is to fill out the round. So getting all the other people that you've got lined up around the table to come in and join the round. And then finally in closing, the goal is to get cash in the bank and close it out. The reason I like this metaphor is 'cause just like when you're growing crops, you know, if you skip the planting stage, if you try to go just to watering, you're not going to have any crops. If you skip the watering before harvesting, you're not going to be successful. So it forces entrepreneurs to think in a sequential way and make sure that they've got the foundation of tilling and then planting and then watering and then harvesting in order, in order to close the round out officially.
