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@matijash what was the content of the follow up email you sent, was it updates on WASP, more data on traction, fundraising, ect? What did you say to prompt peop

@matijash what was the content of the follow up email you sent, was it updates on WASP, more data on traction, fundraising, ect? What did you say to prompt people to act? And did you ever pre-empt by just sending a SAFE (assuming the round is not priced) on a follow up email?

matijash 5y ago
At that time we were pretty much fundraising full-time, and given there were only 2 of us and the product was at early stage we couldn't really do a meaningful push on traction, so we mostly focused on the updates on the fundraising side. The basic format of the follow-up was "Hey, you mentioned you'd follow-up in X days so I wanted to check if you are still interested in investing?". Then I would, if applicable, also add a line like e.g. "since we last spoke, we raised another $X from investor Y" or "we almost closed the part of the round dedicated to the angels and have only $X available". I would send over a SAFE only if the investor agreed to invest and had completed the handshake protocol (https://www.ycombinator.com/handshake/ https://www.ycombinator.com/handshake/).
- xiaolingxiao 5y ago
  Ok this is very helpful yeah, there's this strange dynamic where people want to come by to take a look ( as if we're a vendor on the side of the street which we kind of are in this context ), but then no one wants to be the first to move. On Zoom everything is extra weird because ... Zoom.
  - matijash 5y ago
    yeah, definitely. The advice we often got was to either go fundraising full-on or not at all, because it's very hard without that momentum that takes time to build up (as you could see on our chart, in the end we had even more interest that we aimed for, but took time to get there). I never did fundraising pre-Zoom/covid so can't compare, but the advantage here was the sheer volume of meetings we could do in a single day. I guess that in-person it would be easier to build rapport, but Zoom was definitely an advantage when playing the numbers game.
    - xiaolingxiao 5y ago
      yeah that's good to hear, I feel like Zoom is just strangely efficient. On the momentum note, did you feel a sense of less interest from the investor-sphere after no's from certain investors? The implicit assumption is that investors are colluding with yes/nos.
      - matijash 5y ago
        Funnily enough, but it actually didn't feel that way at all. Investors definitely communicate and share their dealflow a lot (a lot of vcs told us they heard about us from others and wanted to meet us, although we mostly had no's.), but my impression is they are not discouraged by no's from others, if they like what you are doing. I assume that is because they understand there a lot of different reasons behind no's (bad timing, wrong stage, not excited about the area, ...) so it doesn't automatically mean something is fundamentally wrong with the company. On the other hand, getting yes is definitely a big signal for others and makes them move much faster. To me it all felt like a really fast game with a huge pile of deals on the table where everybody is just digging through and looking for something they like - no is here just a default answer and everybody has their own "filters" and premises they are going after. This is why it really helped us when we focused really narrowly on finding investors who are a good fit for us, that was probably the biggest factor of all.
        xiaolingxiao 5y ago
        ok this is really helpful. And overall def one of the most valuable threads in HN that I partook in. Thank you! Also, glad to see a Haskell (correct?) project in the wild. If you're ever in NY def visit Hack-NY, it's a great place to meet Haskell people.
        matijash 5y ago
        Wow, so glad you found it helpful! Yes, our compiler is written in Haskell and currently generates React/Node.js code. I will keep Hack-NY in mind, thanks for sharing!

matijash 5y ago

At that time we were pretty much fundraising full-time, and given there were only 2 of us and the product was at early stage we couldn't really do a meaningful push on traction, so we mostly focused on the updates on the fundraising side. The basic format of the follow-up was "Hey, you mentioned you'd follow-up in X days so I wanted to check if you are still interested in investing?". Then I would, if applicable, also add a line like e.g. "since we last spoke, we raised another $X from investor Y" or "we almost closed the part of the round dedicated to the angels and have only $X available". I would send over a SAFE only if the investor agreed to invest and had completed the handshake protocol (https://www.ycombinator.com/handshake/ https://www.ycombinator.com/handshake/).

xiaolingxiao 5y ago
Ok this is very helpful yeah, there's this strange dynamic where people want to come by to take a look ( as if we're a vendor on the side of the street which we kind of are in this context ), but then no one wants to be the first to move. On Zoom everything is extra weird because ... Zoom.
- matijash 5y ago
  yeah, definitely. The advice we often got was to either go fundraising full-on or not at all, because it's very hard without that momentum that takes time to build up (as you could see on our chart, in the end we had even more interest that we aimed for, but took time to get there). I never did fundraising pre-Zoom/covid so can't compare, but the advantage here was the sheer volume of meetings we could do in a single day. I guess that in-person it would be easier to build rapport, but Zoom was definitely an advantage when playing the numbers game.
  - xiaolingxiao 5y ago
    yeah that's good to hear, I feel like Zoom is just strangely efficient. On the momentum note, did you feel a sense of less interest from the investor-sphere after no's from certain investors? The implicit assumption is that investors are colluding with yes/nos.
    - matijash 5y ago
      Funnily enough, but it actually didn't feel that way at all. Investors definitely communicate and share their dealflow a lot (a lot of vcs told us they heard about us from others and wanted to meet us, although we mostly had no's.), but my impression is they are not discouraged by no's from others, if they like what you are doing. I assume that is because they understand there a lot of different reasons behind no's (bad timing, wrong stage, not excited about the area, ...) so it doesn't automatically mean something is fundamentally wrong with the company. On the other hand, getting yes is definitely a big signal for others and makes them move much faster. To me it all felt like a really fast game with a huge pile of deals on the table where everybody is just digging through and looking for something they like - no is here just a default answer and everybody has their own "filters" and premises they are going after. This is why it really helped us when we focused really narrowly on finding investors who are a good fit for us, that was probably the biggest factor of all.
      - xiaolingxiao 5y ago
        ok this is really helpful. And overall def one of the most valuable threads in HN that I partook in. Thank you! Also, glad to see a Haskell (correct?) project in the wild. If you're ever in NY def visit Hack-NY, it's a great place to meet Haskell people.
        matijash 5y ago
        Wow, so glad you found it helpful! Yes, our compiler is written in Haskell and currently generates React/Node.js code. I will keep Hack-NY in mind, thanks for sharing!