Fundraising

Raising capital is where founders most often give away more than they realize, because the documents are written in a vocabulary they are encountering for the first time while the people across the table use it daily. A term sheet trades in two currencies at once — economics and control — and the terms that matter most for the eventual outcome are frequently the ones a first-time founder skims. Understanding the instruments is not optional literacy; it is the difference between negotiating from knowledge and negotiating from hope.

This part of the lifecycle covers the funding stack from pre-seed through the later priced rounds, and the mechanics of the instruments that move money: the SAFE and the convertible note and how they differ, the dilution math that founders routinely underestimate, the term sheet’s economic and control provisions, and the liquidation preference that quietly determines who gets paid what in an acquisition. It covers the cash-flow concepts every founder must hold in their head — runway and burn rate, with the sector benchmarks that make them concrete — and the timing pattern that determines how much leverage you bring to the table.

The investor mindset has shifted, and the entries reflect it. The post-2022 move from growth-at-all-costs to capital efficiency changed which metrics open a Series A, lengthened fundraising cycles, and raised the bar between rounds. A founder working from the previous decade’s playbook will misjudge both how much runway to raise and what story the next round demands.

This part of the book is descriptive, not advisory: it explains the standard forms and the terms most investors use, so the reader can read a document and ask the right question. The decision to sign one belongs with counsel.