

How I Met 75 Investors and Raised $650,000 - United857
http://aihuiong.com/post/45228990160/how-i-met-75-investors-and-raised-650-000

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lsc
1) Wear your Company T-shirt

heh.

I've actually thought about this a lot. I always wear a company shirt, yeah,
but I also tend to wear the same clothing all the time, too, on the theory
that it makes me more recognizable, and that being recognized is good.

My theory (which may, of course, be wrong) is that in branding? being
consistent and recognizable is far more important than looking good. But then,
I'm trying to generate word of mouth for small customers, not trying to get
investors, so the rules may be different... but it sounds like she has a
similar philosophy.

~~~
Mahn
Maybe it's just me, but I always thought wearing your company t-shirt makes
you look obnoxious, specially if no one has heard of the company.

~~~
gregpilling
it is just you (kidding). How would they hear of you? Why not wear a t-shirt!
T-shirts are a pretty low-cost investment in promotion. I can buy a black
shirt with a single color imprint for $3.50 in small runs. A good pen with the
company name on it would cost the same. (source: I have been buying giveaway
crud for 20+ years)

Giving away a metric ton of shirts can have some other interesting effects. In
the early days of my manufacturing company we gave away many shirts to people
within the industry. We started getting calls about 'our people' attending
events that we did not attend. It turns out that some of our customers really
saw other customers at trade events, but there were so many people with our
company shirt on that they impression was that we were attending in force - we
werent at the trade event.

After giving away 20,000 shirts in a four year period, our customers started
complaining about having too many shirts. So the technique does not last
forever. It did always amaze me the delight a grown adult would show when they
were given a $3 shirt. Almost always a better investment than a pen.

Best ideas: Have a decent looking shirt that people want to wear; change base
shirt colors so people can have an option. Some people like blue, some like
red. Give them what they want, it doesn't change the cost of the shirt.

~~~
lsc
well, for $3.50, you aren't getting a good T shirt, so it'd be better to
compare it to the $0.25 pens.

Personally, I spend about 3x that, maybe 4x on small runs, and get nice T
shirts. But then, it's rare I see people that I don't know/ that don't know
they will be seeing me wearing the shirts. (and I've only given out a couple
hundred) so it's possible that the 'blanket 'em with cheap shirts' strategy
works better.

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devgutt
Please don't get me wrong, but it seems a lot of work in the wrong thing
instead of developing and improving the product, even more wrong if you are a
solo. Just my opinion.

~~~
thatfloatingguy
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but $650k seems like a huge return on 3 months of
one person's work, which they can then pour back into the product, hopefully
improving it far more than they could've in 3 months without $650k.

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mikecane
This is the kind of thing independent filmmakers would do to raise funds.
There was no Internet or VC funds in those days to help. They'd pitch
professionals who needed to invest: doctors, lawyers, accountants, dentists,
and the like. Do people still go after them to raise funds for tech startups
too?

~~~
eterpstra
Spending so much time on sites like HN and TechCrunch, it's easy to forget
that there are over half a million businesses started in the U.S. per year,
with only a tiny smattering of those being VC funded tech startups.

Determined entrepreneurs get money however they can, but mostly pay out of
their own pocket or borrow from local banks or credit unions. VC funded
businesses are few and far between (except in SF), but seem to get a lion's
share of the attention.

Source: <http://web.sba.gov/faqs/faqindex.cfm>

~~~
intellegacy
Yea, if you venture outside the HN/500startups tech ecosystem, you notice that
there are many, many companies working on the same problems that YC companies
are attempting to solve. They just don't get any recognition on HN, which is a
little dangerous for HNers.

------
Smirnoff
"One thing Singaporeans love to talk about is FOOD and I made sure our
conversation was filled with that."

Isn't your company called LOVE WITH FOOD? Aren't you supposed to talk about
food regardless?

~~~
osirisnews
In the context of that quote, she was referring to how that particular
investor was from Singapore. So they might have talked about their favorite
foods from their home as an ice-breaker?

~~~
Smirnoff
Maybe but it wasn't clear from the post. I think a good take away is that
entrepreneurs have to relate to other people when they pitch.

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nowentrepreneur
Meeting 75 investors is a great indication of much entrepreneurs (here Aihui)
believe in what they are doing and ready to go to what extent. Rejections can
get on to you and worst is when they start making you doubt the very purpose
of what you are doing. It becomes difficult to fuel yourself with passion all
the time.

Some of the meetings even get you great feedback (along with VC boilerplates).
But alls well that ends well.

Congrats to Aihui.

~~~
intellegacy
It takes a special kind of person, or a fanatical belief in yourself or the
product/company, to handle rejection after rejection after rejection. Supreme
confidence in the company and the ability to channel that confidence to
investors can be as valuable as a great engineer.

------
robryan
Being a single founder how did the business travel during those 3 months of
what must have been near fulltime fundraising?

~~~
RyanZAG
I'd guess that she built some small prototypes first on a shoestring budget,
then used that to raise the funds over 3 months. Now that she has $650K, she
can probably hire a few extra people and work on it full time for a couple
years.

Fairly standard way to go. Putting the breaks on to acquire funding to
continue is common.

------
DustinCalim
It's the terms of that $650k that matter...

------
aihui
Thanks for all the comments and encouragement. Everyone has a different
experience and would love to hear other's fundraising experience.

I bootstrapped Love With Food 6 months before being accepted into 500
Startups. I'm a Rails developer and was able to build and market the product
all by myself. At 500 Startups, I hired 2 more people to join the team. We've
been very scrappy even after raising $650,000. Now we are a team of 8. The
funding has definitely helped our business scale to a different level.

------
namank
Congrats!

Concern: is 650k after 75 investors inefficient?

~~~
buro9
It's more efficient than 75 investors and $0.

Though seriously, there are no overnight successes and no-one is just going to
give you $1m regardless of what we read on HN.

I don't have my notebook at hand to cite the exact number, but Matthew Prince
of Cloudflare pitched to something like 60 or 70 investors. This was with
Project Honeypot in the bag, and a stack of existing users via that, and the
basis for what became Cloudflare tested.

My point is: Even with the idea and execution you're not just going to get the
investment.

I think the real thing that Aihui achieved in a short time was to demonstrate
determination, perseverance... and in the words of Mark Suster (
[http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/11/15/invest-in-
line...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/11/15/invest-in-lines-not-
dots/) ) showed that her company (led by her) is a line going up and to the
right, rather than a dot. It was most likely the weekly check-ins and constant
hard grind at the communication that helped her get the investment.

~~~
ryguytilidie
But is it more efficient than 0 investors and $0? It seems like if most people
doing startups are having 70 investor meetings they could be better spending
that time working on the product right? I think cloudflare is kind of an
outlying example here.

~~~
tempestn
If you don't have a business at all, its efficiency is somewhat irrelevant.
Not all startups can bootstrap their way up from nothing; some do require
initial capital.

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jakejake
That is some serious tenacity - love it!

------
xfour
Checked out her site, anyone else feel like she's outed the kool-aid man's
family on the icon pack?

------
friendstock
Congrats, Aihui!

------
rorrr
A) What did you give up for $650K?

B) $650K seems such a low amount of money, it's barely enough to hire 2-3
senior level developers for a year, and rent an office space. I have no idea
how you guys launch startups with such small amounts of money.

~~~
edu
Are you serious?

~~~
fuzzythinker
That's not far from the truth for locations like SF bay area.

