Why Startups Need at Least 8 Weeks to Prepare for Fundraising
After writing 200+ decks, we've learned that startups need at least 8 weeks to prepare for fundraising—and this article breaks down the how and why.
Here are the milestones that any startup can aim for to fully prepare their deck for fundraising in just 8 weeks.
Week 1, Start with financials
Build (or rebuild) your financial model based on what you're fundraising for. It's a time to reflect not only on what revenue streams are working, but what future revenue streams you want to expand to next. It's a good place to start because between collecting all the data, figuring out your key assumptions, and crunching the numbers, this can take up to 8 weeks all by itself.
Week 1-2, Move onto research
Size (or resize) your market opportunity, validate your key drivers within that opportunity, and refresh your competitive analysis and exit strategy. A well-prepared founder knows what the market looks like today and what the latest projections are (and not just the figure from the last time they raised).
Week 3, Craft your story
Once you have all your data and tables in hand, you can move on to brainstorming the high-level story that you want to tell investors and all the slides that you will need to fully tell that story. This will serve as the scaffolding for your short-form and long-form pitch.
Week 4, Outline your deck
By now, you have the story you want to tell and the questions you know you need to answer. Now it's time to fill in the blanks, to go from more abstract elements like "Vision Slide" to more detailed diagrams of how the story will be told from beginning to end.
Week 5, Write your deck
And then it's finally time to put pen to paper. No more placeholders: go in and write the copy that actually tells your entire story in a concise and compelling way.
Week 6, Design the deck
Your first fully written deck probably isn't going to be pretty (and it doesn't need to be). Now it's time to go out and find a designer to make the visuals pop. We recommend specifically finding a designer experienced in investor decks (as there's a massive difference between crafting slides for investors versus making something look pretty).
Week 7-8, Revise the deck
Revise, revise, revise (but without having too many cooks in the kitchen lest you end up with a Frankenstein deck). And, just as important, remember there's no such thing as a perfect pitch deck, and that it's not worth it to endlessly delay and revise trying to get there.
The Caveat
Remember, 8 weeks is the minimum.
This doesn’t include the time it takes to: a) put a qualified list of investors together or b) practice the short and long versions of your pitch.
If your team has the experience and has become good at building investor decks in-house, this timeline for getting the deck completed shouldn't be a problem. But, if your team generally struggles to complete projects like this, there are two good routes for moving forward:
Hire an investor deck expert, or
Extend your timeline to 12-15 weeks.
If you haven't already, read our latest article on why summer is when you're in the best position to invest this time into fundraising.
This article is the second part of a series by Pitch Genius that unveils some of the secret sauce for how founders & startups can best prepare for fundraising. The next article focuses on why entrepreneurs should stop listening to everyone's advice on their pitch deck.
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