9 Courses On Raising Pre-seed Startup Funding

The toughest round of funding an entrepreneur seeks to raise is pre-seed investment. It sports the lowest probability of success, the highest amount of ambiguity, is poorly defined, and is causing the greatest amount of confusion and road wreck out there.

I would like you to start with the basics of how we practice startups in 1Mby1M:

• Do not go to VCs as beggars. Go as Kings.
• Do not chase Investors before chasing Customers.

Your chances of fundraising for a pre-seed startup are vastly higher if you bootstrap first. So let’s start there.

1. Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later with Sramana Mitra
2. Bootstrapping a Startup with a Paycheck with Sramana Mitra
3. Bootstrapping a Startup with Services with Sramana Mitra
4. How to Bootstrap Startups by Piggybacking with Sramana Mitra
5. How To Succeed As A Solo Entrepreneur with Sramana Mitra

Next, please try to understand how pre-seed investors think, how they formulate their investment thesis, and create a strategy on how to align your investment thesis to their investment thesis. This is called Investor-Entrepreneur fit.

Just like you seek product-market fit, you need to seek investor-entrepreneur fit. For instance, if you’re looking for pre-seed Fintech investors, that would be a pretty specialized quest.

Notice, Deep Tech is an area where entrepreneurs seek a pre-seed round more often. I have brought a set of investors on to discuss the issues thereof.

Finally, there is a class of investors that have emerged who are not seeking Unicorns. Your situation may fit some of them better than going after the Unicorn hunters.

One caveat: Not all investors who advertise themselves as pre-seed VCs actually invest in pre-seed ventures. When rubber meets the road, they are actually Seed or Post-seed VCs.

1. How Pre-Seed Investors Think About Startups with Sramana Mitra
2. How Seed Investors Think About Startups with Sramana Mitra
3. How Seed Investors Think About Deep Tech with Sramana Mitra
4. Alternatives to Unicorn Chasing Investors with Sramana Mitra

That’s it. This is a complete collection of Udemy courses that can help any entrepreneur to understand

• If and how pre-seed investment can be obtained
• What entrepreneurs need to have before attempting to raise a pre-seed round
• What one could expect in pursuing pre-seed venture capital
• How pre-seed funding for startups has changed in the last decade
• What work needs to be done to get to the pre-seed stage
• And finally, how pre-seed VCs think and what they really want

We hope you find this set of Udemy courses on pre-seed investment helpful, timely, and practical.

Looking For Some Hands-On Advice?

For entrepreneurs who want to discuss their specific businesses with me, I’m very happy to assess your situation during my free online 1Mby1M Roundtables, held almost every week. You can also connect with me during our Rendezvous meetups, and check out my Bootstrapping Course, our YouTube channel, podcast interviews with VCs and Founders.