Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash
Our mission is simple
Everything that we do at IfWeRaise is focused on providing fairer access to entrepreneurship, especially those who are underserved by the current system. We do this by providing affordable, unbiased support so that early stage founders can reduce their risks and increase their speed.
I don’t think we have a North Star metric (yet!) but the positive feedback from founders about our impact could not be more motivating.
Sometimes when Hattie and I are debating a choice we can quickly reach a conclusion by just asking ourselves - ‘what’s most valuable to a founder?’
Taking a long view of maximum value creation vs quick wins takes patience (reminder to self!) But that means I feel genuinely confident that we iteratively keep accumulating more value for founders.
Thank you to everyone who keeps turning up and helping us do this, you know who you are. And not least our members who are founders themselves. Every week they entrust some of their time to us and the community because they believe we can help them.
What’s coming up
Hattie’s giving a free IfWeRaise pitch masterclass this Friday (15th 13.00 - 14.00)
Create your personalised startup funding strategy (Multiple dates)
Revenue now - How to get customers before you get investors (Multiple dates)
Have we got the fundraising workshop right?
We're preparing for our first workshop on "Creating Your Personalised Funding Strategy" for IfWeRaise and we want to know what we've missed! 🧐.
It’s designed to empower founders to answer key questions. Do I want to raise money? Where can I raise money from? What do I need to do to raise money? Can I build my business without taking investment? What strings come with taking investment?
Your view as a founder or an angel is invaluable, just reply to let us know what we’ve got right or whether we’ve missed something you’d expect to see. The more feedback we get, the better the course - full course content below ⬇️.
Take care
Tim and Hattie
Course content - Create your personalised startup funding strategy
1. Overview of the different funding types 💸:
A map of the kinds of fundings startups can attract based on their traction and stage
Deep dive into angel investing, venture capital, corporate venture capital, crowdfunding, friends & family, grants, revenue and invoice finance, and loans.
For each we'll explore:
The evidence needed to attract funding
Myths and misconceptions
What it's best for
What to watch out for
The ROI the funder looks for (and how to weigh up the costs of the capital)
2. Exploring your founder ambitions & their impacts on your funding choices 🪧
We'll introduce a series of spectrums to help you prioritise different paths
We'll share our founder funding score card - you can use after the session which will unpack which options we'd suggest based on your personal goals
3. Business model and industry considerations including 💡:
How different industry investors have different expectations at each stage (e.g consumer goods vs SaaS vs deep tech)
Which business models benefit most from growth funding and at which stage
4. Financial modelling to feed your funding strategy 🧮:
Introducing our favourite tool for early stage financial modelling
Sharing our bank of core questions every founder should ask themselves, and that investors will look at
5. Practical tips 🛠️
Gaining and compensating the right advisors before investors
Building founder brand
Reframing your MVP
6. Time for extra questions 🖐️
7. Resources to take away 🎁
Slides and recording to recap any time
Founder funding scorecard
Business model considerations guide
Financial modelling meets funding strategy - question bank and resource list
Our favourite funding resources guide: from inspirational content, to recommended tools and providers, to free templates, guides and more!