No network? Cold outreach can still work. Founders and VCs break down the cold emails that actually get replies and the ones that get deleted.
22 min
Rella co-founder Natalie Barbu documents exactly how she closed a $1M pre-seed round as a first-time founder: her investor pipeline, the number of meetings, how she handled passes, and the close.
21 min
A young founder gives a step-by-step retrospective of raising $5M: sourcing investors, sequencing meetings, creating urgency, and closing, with real artifacts from the raise.
11 min
Sheel Mohnot tells the story of raising his first VC fund — the LP rejections, weird meetings, and scrappy tactics — a mirror image of founder fundraising.
7 min
Michael Seibel's practical guide to cold-emailing investors: structure, brevity, credibility signals, and real examples of what gets a reply.
8 min
Jason Calacanis explains how to cold-email angel investors in a way he'd actually answer, with the exact structure and signals he looks for.
1h 30m
Long-form biography interview with Harry Stebbings on raising $800M in funds starting at 18: LP rejections, the grind, and specific fund-raise mechanics.
AIVA TECH co-founder Lucia Mari Sanguino details raising a $1.5M pre-seed: the funnel, the materials, investor objections, and how the round finally assembled.