9 Udemy Courses on How to Raise Pre-Series A Startup Funding

If you’ve never sought money for a startup, you may not be aware of how difficult it is. I know it first-hand, and thousands of entrepreneurs that I’ve advised throughout our 1Mby1M Accelerator would tell you the same.

That’s why we are committed to educating each founder about how investors think. We do not want anyone to waste their time or the time of others. We are firm believers in minimizing waste at all levels.

9 Udemy Courses on How to Raise Post-Seed Startup Funding

Raising money is a huge challenge. To be able to raise any money at all, you must first understand how investors think.

This specific course covers how post-seed and pre-Series A investors analyze startups and what they are looking for. We will have in-depth conversations around startups and funding with several real-world investors.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-Founder of Mela Ventures (Part 1)

Krishnakumar Natarajan, Co-founder of Mela Ventures and former CEO of Mindtree, discusses the Indian Venture ecosystem.

Sramana Mitra: I’m looking forward to catching up with you. We haven’t talked in a while, but we have followed each other’s work for a long time. Catch me up on Mela Ventures.

Featured Videos

574th Roundtable Recording with Bill Baumel, Ohio Innovation Fund

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

574th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Bill Baumel, Ohio Innovation Fund

Bill Baumel, Managing Director at Ohio Innovation Fund, is one of the pioneers of the Ohio startup ecosystem.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Zain Jaffer, Partner at Blue Field Capital (Part 1)

Zain Jaffer, Partner at Blue Field Capital, discusses trends in PropTech.

Sramana Mitra: Our focus today is primarily on the investing that you had recently started. If you want to set some context about your entrepreneurial background, that would be great.

Zain Jaffer: As soon as I discovered computers, I started to mess around, code, and design things. I’ve always been at it trying to build things. Sometimes, it worked out. Most of the time, it doesn’t. I have had a lot of attempts. All you need is to be lucky once. It can change your life completely. I had a big exit. It was $718 million back in 2019 when I started an advertising tech company.

Roundtable Recap: May 5 – Spotlight on the Ohio Startup Ecosystem

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Bill Baumel, Managing Director at Ohio Innovation Fund, one of the pioneers of the Ohio startup ecosystem.

CaterBite

As for entrepreneur pitch, we had Boddu Venkat Sujith from Visakhapatnam, India, pitch CaterBite, a concept arbitrage on EZCater, a Unicorn.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Best of Bootstrapping: Seed Investors Who Like Bootstrapped Startups

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

I would like to encourage bootstrapping entrepreneurs to start thinking about certain investors as bootstrapping partners. These investors, typically, LIKE capital efficient businesses.

They do not want to force feed capital into companies, unlike certain larger funds.

Their fund sizes are small, and they are set up to make money off smaller exits. [Re: Bootstrapping to Exit]

Please listen to a few conversations to get a feel for the point of view. There are many more on the Seed Capital series on our blog. You can also listen to the 1Mby1M Podcasts for more.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund (Part 1)

Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund, discusses pre-seed and seed funding in companies focused on the betterment of cities.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get you and Urban Innovation Fund introduced to our audience.

Julie Lein: I’m the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund. We are a venture capital firm that invests in startups shaping the future of cities. We invest across a variety of verticals. These are what you might consider more traditional smart city sectors like transportation, energy, PropTech.

573rd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Steve Eskenazi, Angel Investor

Steve Eskenazi is an Angel Investor, and we had a number of interesting trend conversations.

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573rd Roundtable Recording with Steve Eskenazi, Angel Investor

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

Roundtable Recap: Startup Trends Discussion with Steve Eskenazi

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Angel investor Steve Eskenazi. We had a number of interesting trend conversations.

iBay

As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had Pradheep from Singapore pitching iBay. The company has significant traction.

Capriquota

Next we had Olabode Qudus from Ogun, Nigeria, pitch Capriquota, a concept stage venture with a little bit of validation.

BEI.RE

Then we had Ranga Krishnan from San Jose, California, pitch BEI.RE, a prop tech venture that also has some degree of validation.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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572nd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Andrus Oks, Tera Ventures

Andrus Oks is Founding Partner at Tera Ventures, based in Estonia. We have a great discussion on entrepreneurship in the Baltic and Scandinavian countries in particular.

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572nd Roundtable Recording with Andrus Oks, Tera Ventures

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

Roundtable Recap: April 21 – Spotlight on the Northern European Startup Ecosystem

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Andrus Oks, Founding Partner at Tera Ventures, based in Estonia. We had a great discussion on the Baltic and Scandinavian countries in particular.

Peep

As for entrepreneur pitches, today we had Elif Aydin from New York, pitching PeeP, an app for identifying street parking. Also an excellent discussion.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

I wrote a book called Billion Dollar Unicorns a few years back. Writing this book took me through the extensive process of talking to entrepreneurs who have built tech companies with valuations above a billion dollars. While there is a tremendous amount of serendipity involved in any extraordinary success story, one recurring theme comes up in these case studies. I am particularly excited to share this nugget because it applies broadly to all classes of entrepreneurial ventures.

Bootstrap first, raise money later.

That’s what Fred Luddy did when he founded ServiceNow back in 2005. Leveraging his domain knowledge and expertise in IT ServiceDesk software, he rapidly acquired 12 customers before raising funding. Initially, he started charging $25 per seat and the 12 customers paid up. He raised $2.5 million in venture capital WITH 12 customers, and ample validation.

Soon they clocked $850,000 in revenues in their first year as a real company. In 2010, they had grown to $45 million annual revenue run rate with 350 enterprise customers. They ended fiscal 2013 with revenues of $424.7 million.

Prior to listing on the NYSE in 2012, ServiceNow was venture funded with $83.7 million in investments received from JMI equity, Greylock Partners, and Sequoia Capital. They raised $162 million in their IPO. Soon after listing, ServiceNow had touched a valuation of $3 billion. Since then, the stock has skyrocketed. It is currently trading at $234.03 with a market capitalization of $41.96 billion. Clearly, a mega hit Unicorn that started, however, by bootstrapping first.

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570th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Anupam Rastogi, Emergent Ventures

Anupam Rastogi is General Partner at Emergent Ventures, a firm focused on B-to-B tech investments.

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