Most founders would agree that having a vibrant startup community is good for all founders. Learning and sharing with founders who have faced similar challenges is invaluable when there’s no clear roadmap to success. Every startup has taken a different path and has faced their challenges in a different way.
One of the places that’s most evident is fundraising. This is a hurdle most startups will have to face along their journey – usually more than once. But it’s the area where founders have the least amount of data to fuel their decision making. It’s one of the reasons DocSend exists.
We realized through our own fundraising process that some of the traditional wisdom about fundraising is incorrect. Not only that—some of it is flat out counterintuitive. For example: VCs are likely to spend less time reading your deck if they want to invest in your company.
The fundraising research report
A few years ago we completed a fundraising research project and released a report so other founders could use those insights to make their fundraises more successful. I also speak extensively on this topic to up-and-coming founders who want an edge when they start sending out their pitch decks.
We’ve gotten amazing feedback about the impact our research has had on the founder community.
“DocSend’s research has changed the game for founders. We now have much more insight into what happens on the VC side after we send a pitch deck, and we can make informed decisions about where to spend our follow up time,” said Astrid Schanz-Garbassi, CEO and cofounder of Agni, Inc.
How you can help
This is why, once again, we’re kicking off our fundraising research project to bring more insights to the startup community. Not only are we looking at data from pre-seed to series C companies, we’re also examining how institutional investors raise money. We’re using this research project to determine the key things that will make a fundraising deck successful.
You don’t need to be a DocSend customer to participate. If you’ve gone through the fundraising process in the last few years (successfully or not), we’d love to have you fill out the survey (it’s all aggregate and anonymous). Your input will help us provide trends and learnings around the fundraising process that everyone can benefit from.
“We were happy to participate in DocSend’s fundraising research. Any insight or advice we can pass on to the next founder helps the entire startup community,” said George Arison, cofounder and co-CEO at Shift.
If you want some free press when we release our research results, I’m happy to mention your name. Just give us an email address when you take the survey and we’ll reach out with any opportunities that come up!
If you used DocSend for your fundraise, you’ll also have an option for your (aggregate and anonymous) deck data to be included in the research. This is entirely optional and we won’t view or use your data without your express permission (see our privacy policy here).
We really appreciate your help with our fundraising research, and the entire startup community appreciates it as well.
“Anything we can do as founders to help new startups gain insight into the black box that is the fundraising process, we’re all for. It’s one of the reasons we participated in DocSend’s fundraising research. The more information we have, the more we can all be successful.” Alap Shaw, Co-founder and CEO of Sentieo.
Again, all of your data is anonymous and will be averaged with those of many other entrepreneurs. Help us continue to keep the startup community growing.
