Acquiring vs. maintaining relationships

Many inexperienced Founders forget one of the most important rules of fundraising 🤝🏻…

Maintaining your current relationships is as important as building new ones.

In the earliest stages of your company, your most important assets are your relationships.

It can be hugely beneficial to have a large network of friends, peers, and advisors.

The biggest mistake that I see new Founders make is trying to meet with dozens of investors, only to go silent for months after the first call.

That’s not a “network” or a “relationship”. Those are acquaintances.

And, an acquaintance will have no reason and no desire to help you when you’re hiring, fundraising, or expanding.

Maintaining good relationships is like selling — You want to keep in periodic touch with the investor (keep the prospect warm) for when you’re ready to raise.

The key is communication.

Because, with consistent communication comes trust. You can:

- Send out periodic updates or monthly investor updates.
- Send detailed quarterly updates.
- Reach out to individual investors to solicit their feedback or ask for advice.
- Forward interesting, newsworthy or relevant articles on what is happening in your industry.
- Ask them for ideas on how else in their network might be worth connecting with in the future.

To sum it up in a few words: Communicate often, do what you say you’re going to do, and do it repeatedly.

That’s how you maintain your relationships.