How to Get Good at Fundraising

In April 2022 I didn't know anything about starting a company; when and how to raise, who to raise from, and how much to ask for. Fifteen months later I had raised $100M over three rounds of funding. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but also ended up in a pretty good spot for the company. This talk will share what I learned along the way from talking to other founders about their experience, doing hundreds of calls with VCs, and sheer necessity and dumb luck.

Speaker

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Jordan Tigani

Jordan is co-founder and chief duck-herder at MotherDuck, a startup providing a serverless data warehouse based on the open source DuckDB. He helped create Google BigQuery and spent a decade working on it as engineer, book author, engineering leader, and product leader. More recently, as SingleStore’s Chief Product Officer, Jordan helped them build a cloud-native SaaS business from zero to 10s of millions on ARR in under two years. Jordan has also worked at Microsoft Research, the Windows Kernel team, and at a handful of star-crossed startups. His biggest claim to fame is predicting world cup matches using machine learning with a better record than Paul the Octopus.

Event ended

Apr

Thu

in-person

WHERE
Seattle
WHEN
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
SPEAKER
Jordan Tigani

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Program

4:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Arrive and Check In

Connect with fellow attendees before the event kicks off—arrive on time to make valuable connections and start building relationships that could accelerate your founder journey. Speaker session starts promptly at 4:30

4:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Jordan Tigani: How to Get Good at Fundraising

Learn how Jordan navigated being a new CEO and what he learned on his way to raising over $100MM in just 15 months

5:00 PM - 5:40 PM

Preparing your Pitch Deck

What’s the ultimate goal of a pitch deck? What is the most compelling deck structure you’ve used? Any content changes for Angels vs VCs? What mistakes did you make along the way? How much information do you include in each slide, and the deck as a whole? What’s in the appendix?

5:40 PM - 6:20 PM

Finding the Right Investors

How did you determine the proper size and valuation target for your financing? How did you determine the proper capitalization strategy (debt, equity, angel, VC) Given the size, stage and type of raise, how did you find the right investors to pitch to? How did you hone your pitch over time?

6:20 PM - 7:00 PM

BYOT: Bring Your Own Topic

What's keeping you up at night? What could you use additional insight on? Tap the experience of your peers for guidance.

all founders,
not just ceo

People inclined to be Founders are a rare breed, and are hard to spot in society. We welcome ALL Founders, regardless of role, and generate proprietary profiles for every member so you can easily find your next team member or co-Founder.

current founders

Regardless of where you are on your journey, Founders share a unique set of challenges. Hiring, leadership, managing investors, developing products, handling customer issues, external communications, etc. This community exists to amplify your success.

TRANSITIONING FOUNDERS

So you’ve founded at least one company, and now you’re looking to refine your next great idea or find the perfect co-founder. Share and learn from a wide array of talented Founders in your area.

CURIOUS FOUNDERS

Congratulations! You’ve found success as a Founder and are now getting curious about doing it again. Now you need to find the right idea and co-founder to excite you. Share your wisdom and passion while forming new bonds within the startup ecosystem in your area.

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