Over the past month, I’ve had to cope with the fact that fundraising for HeartThis has wreaked havoc on the team’s overall productivity. Instead of cranking out code and hiring new recruits, my time has been spent tweaking decks and pitching investors. When initial meetings go well, my co-founders also have to take time out of their duties to join the next round of meetings. Fundraising is an important (and necessary) process for many startups because capital is the lifeblood of a new business. However, I strongly recommend that you prepare yourself for the massive productivity disruption it can cause.
If you’re the point-person for fundraising (most likely the CEO), then assume that while fundraising you’re not going to have time for anything else. Make sure your team knows this and has the resources they need to keep moving forward with minimal input from you. Prior to starting fundraising in earnest, the HeartThis team had an intense hacking week where I was able to crank out a lot of code and see our product move forward in a tangible way. Over the last 3-4 weeks I’ve barely done any coding, and I have found myself frustrated with the lack of progress. I have to constantly remind myself that by raising funds I’ll have the resources necessary to bring on more developers and we’ll more than make up for any “lost” time. It can be particularly disheartening when meetings end in rejection because it feels like the epitome of wasted time. In reality, even meetings that don’t lead to checks can be extremely fruitful. Whenever an investor decides to pass, I push them to be specific about their reasoning. Sometimes it’s not anything actionable (ex. you don’t fit into their portfolio’s investment thesis), but occasionally I’ve gained insight into an underlying weakness in product or vision (or more often a weakness in how I convey the product or vision). In addition, the multitude of investor meetings has yielded valuable contacts for later funding rounds or even later companies.
There are some steps you can take to try to minimize the reduction in your own personal productivity while fundraising. Because of the multitude of meetings, it’s hard to find large contiguous chunks of time to tackle tasks. Instead, I have to be ready to get things done whenever I have a few spare minutes. This is far from my ideal work style. I strongly prefer getting in the zone and working nonstop with minimal distractions. In order to still be effective in the short blocks of time between investor meetings, I try to keep 3-5 small, high-priority tasks in my work queue at all times. As soon as I find myself with a few spare minutes I immediately start working on something of importance without wasting time wondering what to do. Even with this process in place I’m still not getting a huge amount of work done outside of fundraising, but it’s better than nothing.
There’s really no way around it: fundraising will kill your productivity. Just remember that it’s vital to the growth of your company, commit yourself to it fully, and when the cash is in the bank you can get back to building an awesome product. Good luck!