Ever have a great conversation with a VC and then…crickets? If a VC is ghosting you, here’s what to do…
Nothing Is Real Until the Term Sheet Hits
A founder on Reddit is having this problem right now.
He had a good conversation with a VC who promised to get back to him. But he hasn’t heard anything for ten days.
Until you get a term sheet, keep pitching more investors. Never assume you’re going to get a check until the term sheet hits.
By all means, send a few follow-up messages. But don’t expect anything.
Keep Running Your Process
Here’s what you don’t want to do: suspend your raise because you think an investor is about to give you a term sheet. If they don’t move quickly, chances are they’re never going to invest.
Then you’ve lost months of runway. Your fundraise is back to square one.
Instead, just keep running your process until you get a term sheet.
You need a pipeline of 200 well-targeted investors to give yourself a good chance of closing a round. Keep moving through that list.
As you meet more investors, your odds of getting a term sheet go up. You might even get competing term sheets, which gives you incredible leverage.
Why Do Investors Ghost Founders, Anyway?
Why do so many investor conversations seem to go well and then nothing happens?
VC’s want to sound polite and positive. But they may not know how to tell you that they’re just not excited about your company.
We investors should be more straightforward with founders. But people aren’t perfect and they’re afraid of conflict.
So they give you happy talk, but don’t actually invest.
Wrap-Up
It’s annoying to waste your time on conversations that go nowhere. But like it or not, that’s part of raising money.
So long as you’re running a tight process with 200 potential investors in your pipeline, a few ghosts won’t matter. Just keep pitching until your round is full.
If they’re not opening their wallet, they just don’t matter.
More from the blog:
You Finally Closed Your Funding Round — Time to Panic?
Guest Post: I Accidentally Became the CTO of an AI Startup
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