Email remains one of the simplest gear for startup fundraising. Does the query maximum have what to send? This series of e-mail templates makes it fantastic clean to leverage this loose verbal exchange technique to raise the money entrepreneurs want to launch and gas new ventures.
The Power of Email
Having been involved in numerous startups, receiving pitches, and consulting founders on fundraising, I can inform you that electronic mail nevertheless works. In fact, it can be the most effective and high ROI tool in your field.
Consider that more than one marketer has raised tens of millions of dollars from Mark Cuban by myself by using emails like those.
In January 2016, a high school dropout obtained a $ 3M funding from Cuban due to a chilly e-mail for his vehicle insurance startup. Adam Lyons ended up remaining his Series A round for $17M. He has raised over $21M to date, including investments from billionaire investor Mike Maples Jr. Who become additionally concerned in Twitter and Lyft.
In 2015, two engineers cold emailed Shark tank’s Mark Cuban and obtained over $500,000 for his or her modern 3D printing startup. Founders Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone went on to elevate over $eight.4M because of that.
Email is still a favored medium for communicating with the aid of savvy and busy angels and executives. Whether you’re just formulating plans for starting a brand new project or are strategizing a brand new collection of investment, these email templates that I initially shared in a seminar for my book, The Art of Startup Fundraising, can assist get rid of the guesswork and velocity you along to the next milestone. In truth, many of the founders that attended such seminars have used them to raise tens of millions of bucks from investors. Now you could use them too.
This is the first e-mail startup marketers need to ship. It can paintings each for following up with investor contacts they were brought to, and for pitching ability investors, they haven’t met yet.
Note that founders must have frolicked constructing an investor listing well earlier of their funding desires. This e-mail is specially designed to work after securing a lead investor, even though maybe tweaked for in advance tiers as properly.
This electronic mail is designed to be despatched as a observe as much as the first electronic mail. Two to 3 weeks is a good time period to attend is among first and 2d messages. This is essential to maintain momentum with investors you have already spoken or communicated to and fro with based on your initial email.
It’s also a great way to attain out once more if the first message becomes neglected and to stay on the radar of capability traders for additional rounds, even supposing they fail to participate in this one.
If you haven’t closed with all of your top investor selections inside any other to a few weeks, ship this to encourage them to get worried in the spherical.
It is a remarkable final notice to create urgency and get extra commitments. Again, it’ll still be precious, although they don’t take part in this spherical. The extra you can stay at the top of their minds, without spamming and becoming traumatic, the higher.
If you get hold of a reaction for your emails, use this message to observe up speedy. If you use a devoted email account for this project, you could even automate this response so you in no way pass over an opportunity or forget a crucial investor. Electronic signature device alternatives include DocuSign, HelloSign, Adobe Sign, and PandaDoc.
Be certain to attach your pitch deck. Your electronic mail might be your in, but whether or not you get funded or no longer continues to be going to rely upon the strength of your deck. I am precise about sharing your pitch deck with Dropbox or by creating the deck immediately on Google Slides.
For those still not assured in their displays, the pitch deck template with the aid of Silicon Valley legend Peter Thiel is an exquisite instance of easy tale-telling in slides to help you get funded (see it here). The right tale and slides help you conquer any demanding situations, just as this pitch deck ended in $400M in funding for an Uber competitor.
Best Practices for Sending Emails to Investors
Copying and pasting, and hitting the ship on an electronic mail are straightforward. Though there are some artwork and technology to making sure your messages hit domestic, are opened, and get the preferred outcomes.
Quick suggestions:
Do your homework and recognize what interests your potentialities, and now not
Be certain you may again up your claims
Research powerful electronic mail situation lines
Know which days are more likely to bring about opens than others
Understand that these days’ inbox clutter can mean a single message is effortlessly misplaced within the mix
Consider the quality time of day to ship your message. Trying to email Mark Cuban inside the center of a Dallas Mavericks game might be no longer going to paintings
I am a serial entrepreneur and the writer of The Art of Startup Fundraising. With a foreword via ‘Shark Tank‘ big-name Barbara Corcoran and published by John Wiley & Sons, the ebook became named one of the high-quality books for marketers. The ebook offers a step-by-step guide to… MORE