8 Hard-Earned Insights Into Raising Startup Capital

Approaching investors for the first time is a daunting exercise for any startup. Regardless of whether you’re raising venture capital, approaching angels or still trying to figure out where to get started, it’s critical to stay level-headed about what you’re really pitching – and what it’s actually worth.

The best way to do that is to leverage the hard-won experience of real-world startup. So we asked a panel of eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) about their startup funding successes (and failures) and the lessons they learned.

Turns out that while every startup is unique, they share some common difficulties in trying to find just the right strategies and tactics for funding their companies:

1. Ask for what you need – and nothing more.

“Funding is an exhausting experience, but worth it. My biggest failure during this experience was that I did not trust my instinct. I relied on someone who convinced me they had more experience, and by their advice, I asked for too much money from the start. This made things difficult because it puts you in a place that is hard to backpedal after you realize that you need to be realistic. I did recover from this, but when you start the funding process, evaluate exactly what you need to do to get to the next steps and how much that will cost. It is always good to think big, but it sometimes takes smaller steps to achieve a larger goal.”