

Lessons Learned about Pitching Investors from a First-Time Entrepreneur - flipp
http://www.udemy.com/blog/udemy-fundraising/

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mkramlich
Why would something like Udemy need $1M investment? In a world where Django
and Rails exist, etc. Just start building it and doing customer development
bootstrapping it. Incrementally improve it as you go along. Keep all equity
and maximize simplicity. If you don't want to spend money on a designer try to
find one that will take equity. Exercise free promotion channels, also rely on
word-of-mouth. Rinse, repeat.

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gaganbiyani
Good question! The simple answer is that our cofounders are immigrants and we
need to support their H1B visa for them to be full-time. Unfortunately, we
cannot support their visa without funding. Furthermore, investment is a way to
accelerate growth. We're now able to hire additional team members and pay
ourselves salaries (I had $250 left in my bank account and $3K in credit card
debt when we raised money, so we were nearly broke).

Hope this helps! \- Gagan, Cofounder of Udemy

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arisey
Congratulations! Thanks for sharing your insights. Love to hear about your
customer acquisition story as well

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blacksmythe
They mention repeatedly the amount raised, I didn't see where it said at what
valuation. If they were left with 75% of the company, that would have been a
nice seed round. If they were left with 20% of the company, not so much.

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gaganbiyani
You're right - if we gave up 80% of the company, it would be an awful raise.
However, it's a pretty fair assumption that we didn't do that. We chose to
take in $1M instead of $300K (which is all we needed). Why would we take in
more capital if the valuation wasn't fair?

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sbanker
I'm very familiar with this stage and love Gagan's insights.

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gaganbiyani
Thanks man! Appreciate it...

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jer890
Good points. Agree!

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yosho
very nice read on fund raising

