I recently got on a call with a potential coaching client who asked me the best way to create momentum during the fundraising process. And it got me thinking… “what’s been true in my own successful fundraising experience… as well as the 150M raised by those I’ve mentored/advised?” Turns out, there were some consistent (and repeatable) markers that can make the difference between a fast and effective fundraising round…

I’ll never forget one of the first times I pitched an investor. I was literally pacing in the back alley of a SF coffee shop with one of those ugly pre-2007 cabled headsets plugged into my iPhone. I had a warm intro to the investor. Things were going smooth. But with just ONE single misstep, I got those gut-wrenching words no founder ever wants to hear:

Back in 2008, Warren Buffett was approached by a struggling insurance company. He asked them to fax over their financial data to the hotel he was staying in (in Edmonton, Alberta)... Within just a few hours he was able to put together a proposal to acquire them. How did he do it?

Can we talk about your MRR for a sec? If you’re like most founders I coach inside SaaS Academy, chances are you: Obsess about growing it Overcomplicate how to do it Truth is, if you’re experiencing a plateau in your MRR, it probably has much less to do with your company’s growth potential, and everything to do with how you’re over-complicating the process of tapping into it. In this week’s episode, I cover the 6 things you can do TODAY

Want to know the quickest way to kill your company and team morale? It’s super easy. Invest tens of thousands of dollars and man hours in building your software, only to find out after the fact that your market couldn’t care less. Done. Now you can happily go back to whatever world you just left behind. On the flipside, if you want to launch your startup the smart way by pre-selling your product BEFORE you build it…

I first met Matt Goldman - serial entrepreneur & CEO of Churn Buster - 3 years ago in San Diego just after selling Clarity.fm. I was invited to speak at the local co-working space and Matt saw that I was in town, so he asked me to come on his Rocketship.fm podcast. It was a super fun conversation and I realized this guy was talented. Fast forward a few years and Matt sold his previous company, bought Churn Buster and

I’ve nerded out to over 1,000 business books. Of course, there’s the *obvious* classics like Traction, Scaling Up, and Good to Great. But there’s also this little-known, underground classic that I REFUSE to let any of my private coaching clients do without. It’s so *under the radar* that at last count, it had a whopping total of 9 Amazon reviews (all of them 5 stars by the way...)

“Facebook ads don’t work for B2B SaaS” Raise your hand if you’ve heard that one before (or have been the one to say it). I hear some spin on that one multiple times per week. Usually from a jaded SaaS founder who went “all in” with Facebook only to burn through their Amex card with nothing but a stack of air miles to show for it. There’s a reason that Facebook is such a polarizing channel in the SaaS world.

If nobody’s pushing back on your pricing… That’s a problem. You might be thinking: “But Dan.. isn’t it a good thing that everyone’s saying YES to my price without resistance? Why would I want to rock that boat?” Simply put:  

Ever hear of a guy named David Sacks? He has a crazy gift. Essentially, he doesn’t know how to get involved in a startup and NOT have it turn into a billion dollar success story. We’re talking about… … Paypal (sold to ebay for 1.5B) … Yammer (sold to Microsoft for 1.2B) … dozens of companies he was an angel investor in (Airbnb, Facebook, Uber) He’s as close to a “tech oracle” as there is…