Preparing Your Company for Venture Funding + Capital: A Founder's Perspective

Session Description

Having raised four rounds of traditional VC funding herself, Hello Alice co-founder and GEN Board member, Elizabeth Gore, is here to help aspiring high-growth founders navigate their finances and pitch decks and offer personal insights into the fundraising process. 

Elizabeth will share personal lessons learned from the highs and lows of securing capital, offering candid advice on what works—and what doesn’t—in today’s competitive landscape. 

Whether you're preparing for your first round or looking to refine your approach, this session will equip you with actionable takeaways to accelerate your fundraising journey.

Note: Please bring your laptops.

Session Recap

Get ready to unlock the secrets to successful fundraising! In this dynamic and interactive session, Elizabeth Gore, founder of the financial technology company Hello Alice, shared invaluable insights gleaned from her decade of experience helping small businesses secure capital and navigating the challenging world of venture funding. Moving beyond traditional presentations, Elizabeth engaged directly with the audience, focusing on three core pillars essential for any founder seeking investment or loans: Money, Mind, and Mountains. The discussion covered critical financial literacy, the founder's personal readiness and resilience, and the ability to navigate external challenges and crises, offering practical advice and candid anecdotes from Elizabeth's own journey building a Series C-backed company. This session was designed to provide founders and ecosystem leaders with tangible tools and perspectives to enhance their fundraising efforts and long-term business sustainability.

Session Outline
• Introduction: Elizabeth Gore, founder of Hello Alice, introduced her background and the company's mission focused on equitable access to capital and small business financial fitness
• The Current Funding Landscape: Discussion on the changing dynamics of funding, including fluctuating valuations, tighter term sheets compared to the COVID era, and the importance of understanding various capital sources like loans and grants alongside venture capital
• Three Core Pillars of Fundraising: The session was structured around three key areas investors and partners evaluate:

◦ Money: Deep understanding of your business finances
▪ Knowing revenue projections and costs
▪ Understanding your market and industry opportunity
▪ Core budgeting, unit costs, taxes, and payroll
▪ Savings and rainy day funds
▪ Cash flow management
▪ Cost of customer acquisition
▪ Tax deductible expenses
▪ Understanding debt (good vs. bad debt, lines of credit)
▪ Opportunity cost

◦ Mind: The founder as the product and their personal attributes
▪ Presenting yourself effectively in pitches
▪ The importance of research on investors/partners
▪ Being concise and valuing their time
▪ Follow-up and persistence
▪ Learning from rejection ("nos") and not burning bridges
▪ Articulating why you are the best person to run the business (passion, background, drive)
▪ Addressing weaknesses or skill gaps and how you compensate (e.g., hiring talent)
▪ Handling competition and why you can push past them
▪ Being prepared for scrutiny of your personal and professional history (job interview aspect)
▪ How you give back (community benefit)
▪ Handling conflict and disagreements (with co-founders, investors, employees)
▪ Being coachable and adaptable
▪ Team dynamics and hiring people who challenge you
▪ Being resilient yet flexible

◦ Mountains: Navigating external challenges, crises, and macroeconomic shifts
▪ Financial preparedness for turbulent times (savings, loans, creditworthiness)
▪ Personal ability to handle crisis or "black swan events"
▪ Impact of macro factors (pandemics, natural disasters, policy changes, AI, climate change)
▪ Business plan readiness for mountains (pivot, iterate)
▪ Examples of external crises (SVB collapse, lawsuits, personal health)
▪ Handling crises with investors/LPs (communication, honesty, transparency)
▪ Having a succession plan for the founder's role in case of absence (health, vacation, etc.)
▪ Planning for business disruptions due to external events (natural disasters, power outages)

• Conclusion: Reiteration that while difficult, fundraising is a valuable process that forces founders to get their business in order and think critically about these core elements. Encouragement to regularly evaluate money, mind, and mountains readiness

Notable Quotes
• "Our primary focus is equitable access to capital, so loans, credit, grants."
• "The thing I wanted to focus on today are three things. Money, mind, and mountains."
• "You are getting married and even in a marriage you can get divorced. You cannot get divorced from a venture capitalist."
• "You as a human being are the product for so long... Your mind, your brain for years and years is what someone is betting on."
• "Resilient but flexible... you must not have a fixed mentality... be brutally unbiased and say what is the situation right now? How I can be more resilient? How we can make this business more resilient? And how I can pivot."

Key Takeaways
• Know Your Numbers Inside and Out: You must have a deep understanding of every financial aspect of your business, from revenue and costs to market opportunity and cash flow, before walking into any meeting
• The Founder is Critical: Beyond the business idea, investors are betting on you. Highlight your passion, background, resilience, and ability to lead and learn, while also being prepared to discuss your weaknesses and how you mitigate them
• Choose Your Partners Wisely: Selecting investors or partners is like a marriage with no divorce. Evaluate them as much as they evaluate you – look for shared values, helpful skill sets, and network connections beyond just the money they provide
• Prepare for the Unexpected: The world is unpredictable. Think critically about how your business and you personally would handle crises, macroeconomic shifts, or personal emergencies. Having financial buffers and a succession plan is vital for survival and demonstrating preparedness
• Leverage Non-Dilutive Capital First: Grants, traditional loans (like SBA-backed loans in the US), and lines of credit are often preferable early on compared to giving up equity prematurely, especially in the current environment where pre-revenue venture funding is less common. Partnerships can also serve as a valuable launchpad

Resources Mentioned
• Hello Alice: A financial technology company that funds small business owners
• hellis.com/funding: Website where current philanthropic grant opportunities ($8 million open during GEC) can be found and applied for, including with Jen Global
• Elizabeth GoreUSA: Elizabeth Gore's handle on social media for connecting
• Business Health Score (Hello Alice): A free pre-underwriting tool to evaluate business financial fitness; it does not sell user data
• SBA backed loans: Small business loans in the United States. Loan programs in South Africa, Chile, and the EU were also mentioned favorably

Action Items
• Regularly evaluate your readiness regarding Money, Mind, and Mountains for your business
• Pretend like you're applying for capital every quarter to force yourself to review and update your business plans, financials, and readiness in these core areas
• Lawyer up early and get your own counsel when signing term sheets or other investment documents to fully understand the rights investors have over your company. Ask if they will hold invoicing until the deal is closed
• Do extensive research on potential investors, partners, and competitors before meeting them. Talk to other founders and their LPs