A checklist for when you are researching funds to invest in your startup. As the name suggests, it's kind of like Product-Market Fit, but for finding fit between you and investors.
As they say, launch, launch, and launch again...
It's official. Startup-Investor Fit is now an app. Given the popularity of the concept, it went from being a Google Sheet --> to a Taskable List --> to the simple no-code Bubble app it is now.
What is it again? The definitive index to identify investor-fit for your startup. An 18-point checklist, with three sections to help you find startup-investor fit.
Who is it for? Founders! Use this checklist for when you're researching funds to invest in your startup. There are an abundance of investors out there - so the goal isn't to reach out to all of them, but to find the one that suits you the most. This checklist can also be used when you’re taking a meeting: get on a call and go down the list. See if you are a fit for them, as much as you consider if they have what you need as well.
Why did I make this? Well, for context, I am the head of pipeline at Techstars - sourcing startups across the world for all of our accelerators. I am responsible for helping find over 750 companies a year now, so that's about two investments a day. Needless to say, I see a lot of startups and probably more pitch-decks and cold emails than anyone else. So this guide is to help founders who reach out cold or try to hit up every investor, not realizing fundraising is a game of targeted approach, not spray and pray.
What other stuff have I made for founders? Idea Validator, ClearPitch42 and Startup Starter Pack.
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Much gratitude to Yash Jain for helping build, and Kiley Giebel for QA and marketing. Go follow them!
Thank you also to the following founders for sharing their perspectives and helping me put this together. To ensure I got mixed views, the founders here have raised $0 to $4M. The average raise was $1.25M, and the median was $500K. Check them out and see what they’re building.
Abb Kapoor, Curu Credit
Alex Friedman, Talk Howdy
Alison Anderson, SuccessionMatching
Adam Metz, Cidersoft
Ben McDougal, Author of YDNTB
Danish Dhamani, Orai
Kendall Warson, Cohart
Lindsay Padilla, HelloAudio
Mariam Nusrat, Breshna
Matty Johnson, Taskable
Matt deCourcelle, Paperstreet
Yasin Abbak, The Convoy
Happy Fundraising!
@yashjaing, you are a star. Can’t wait to see what else you build. Thanks for helping with this one. Couldn’t have done it without you.
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Hey @imsabakarim and all other makers, thanks a lot for this Product.
As a founder, I can confirm that finding the right audience (investors) is a big challenge, especially if you're not already part of or known to the investor's community (that means, you already know who to talk to).
Rather than sending tons of cold emails to or preparing (good) decks for a random audience, targeting precisely the audience increases for sure the probability of success.
It would be super in my opinion also to allow interactions between founders and investors, in a sort of social / community style (e.g. topics-chats, discussion-groups, etc.)
Thanks again!
Best,
Giuseppe
@giuseppe_di_nuccio, that’s exactly why we built it. Thank you. On the interaction part - I feel like there is a ton of tools out there already for that. Slack channels, Discord groups, and many startup-matching tools. My goal was to make this one-sided tracking only!
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Amazing tool @imsabakarim and congrats on the launch! I've been using some of the tools you created right from Idea Validator to ClearPitch and even some you've recommended like Paperstreet. This feels like another promising tool that will help especially, first-time and (very) early-stage founders like me. Thank you and all the best!
@sneha_saigal. Thank you so much for your kind words and support. Believe it or not I have more to come! I welcome all feedback on what we’ve built, and recommendations on it her things you’d find helpful!
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Love stuff that fits. Startup-Investor matching is an ambitious one - will check it out, and best of luck!
@imsabakarim Congrats on the launch 👏
Super helpful tool for founders.
Also I really appreciate your efforts on all the tools and resources you are building for founders at https://www.sabakarim.com/stargaze
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Saba was nice to me. Being around startup culture so consistently i guess its unsuprising hes chosen to scale that kindness with startup investor fit. I love the idea of saving both founders and investors time by making sure that all investment outreach is optimally targetted to the right investor at the right stage, making the right connections and missing the wrong ones, cutting down learning curves and maximizing the likelyhood of positive outcomes for all concerned. Kudos mate. Appreciate the kindness. Keep going.
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