Congratulations on closing your first round! You finally have money in the bank, maybe more than you’ve seen in an account before. It’s an exciting time!
Soon you’ll feel real pressure to put that money to work to grow the business. This leads most companies to overspend and underperform, and before you could imagine possible, you’re back needing to raise another round.
The expectations on that next round are bigger and it’s often much harder than what you just experienced, especially if you’re missing your goals. You may be thinking, “this won’t happen to us.” Unfortunately, we’ve seen hundreds of companies fall into this trap and then be forced to put together a less than ideal bridge round.
This course is for founders and executives who recently raised their first round of at least $750k of institutional or angel capital. We will help you build a company that can navigate the pressure to increase sales, expand product, grow the team, deliver results, and set yourself up for the next financing round. You’ll learn the things your new investors expect you to already know.
We know you’re busy. Every aspect of this course is designed to generate immediate results. Pre-recorded videos can be watched on your schedule. Live, highly interactive sessions are recorded allowing you to learn from others if you can’t make it. Bring what you learn confidently, and at your pace, into your business with the included how-to guides, templates, Miro boards, and worksheets.
This course is valuable at all levels of engagement, and the best results, with the deepest insights, will come to those who are able to try out the course materials as we go. If you prefer to experience the full course before integrating the learnings into your company, we understand, which is why alumni have full access to the materials and can attend future courses again for free when a new person from the same company is a paying participant. Think of this as a “buy one, get one alumni free” discount.
This course is more valuable than an accelerator and you don’t have to give up 7% of your company or move somewhere for three months. You and a small group of like-minded entrepreneurs will experience six weeks of material followed by another six weeks of “learn by doing” sessions with customized support as you bring your learnings to life within the company. While all companies will benefit, the material is optimized for those with people or planet in your mission.
As you begin to grow, it’s easy for sales and product development to get out of sync. Build the wrong features and sales will stall. Sell too much of the wrong thing and product development will become overwhelmed and unable to deliver on your big vision. Co-developing product with early customers is a powerful way to link sales and product, and it’s critical to not become a custom development shop for them. Guide sales and product development with an understanding of the progress your customers want to make not just the features they request. Increase the clarity of your vision in a way that can guide product development. Create sales performance and product adaptability with a basic sales funnel and just enough product development process.
The todos, the meetings, the late nights to catch up - the constant demands of a startup can quickly become too much. Overwhelm doesn’t have to come with all the hard work and long hours. When you can’t possibly get everything done, it’s important to identify the right things to finish first.
Before you have repeatable sales success and a proven product (product/market fit) it’s hard to know if you’re going in the right direction as a company. Many of the operational metrics bigger companies trust to answer this question don’t work at your stage. It’s important to discover as soon as possible the early signs of progress that you can rely on to make important product and sales decisions. Even basic visibility allows you to confront what’s not working so you can deliver results and pivot toward bigger opportunities with confidence.
If you built a financial model only to convince your investors that you’ll be cash flow positive in 2.5 years, you’re missing a huge opportunity. Turn your model into an essential tool to predict your future cash, track your overall business progress, and help answer the hard questions that normally would plague you at 3 am while you’re staring at the ceiling.
Most companies run out of money because they hire the wrong roles, too fast. Instead of guessing when and where in the company to hire, understand which roles will move the whole business forward and how to hire the right person.
The pressures from success often pull a leadership team apart. Ineffective coordination fills your calendar with meetings. Hiring for growth puts a strain on already incredibly busy people. You start dropping balls and resentment builds. Effective leadership teams make fast, high-quality, data-informed decisions, hold successful meetings that use time well, and operate the business on a cadence.
Board members can have an outsized influence on the company and poor board management brings down more CEOs and companies than many would like to admit. When you understand how the mindset of board members change over time and in different situations, you’ll have the ability to leverage the wisdom of your board members and avoid the common mistakes that harm this unique relationship. Even if you only have an advisory board right now, it’s important to understand how to get the most from these relationships.
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