Startup founders, here's why you need to fail as fast as you can

As a startup founder, failing fast is a crucial strategy for having a shot at survival. Sounds counter-intuitive? Here's how to think about it: Time is your most valuable asset, and by failing quickly, you can figure out what doesn’t work without wasting precious resources. This lets you pivot, adapt, and tweak your product or business model more efficiently. Think of each failure as a step towards success, giving you insights that help steer your startup in the right direction.

Plus, failing fast helps build a resilient and constantly learning team. It creates a culture where experimenting and taking risks are encouraged, which is key for developing groundbreaking ideas. Accepting and learning from failures quickly creates an environment where your team isn’t afraid to try new things. This approach speeds up development and attracts people who thrive in dynamic, learning-focused settings. Embracing failure as a way to get quick feedback keeps your startup agile and ahead of the competition.

Design your experiments. Figure out how you can make them fail as quickly as possible. Then come up with new experiments.

This week’s Pitch Guide deep dive

Every startup needs to display traction to hook investors. But traction can be tricky if you’re a pre-revenue company with no money coming in to show that you’re heading in the right direction. There are decent measures of traction that you can use pre-revenue, but it’s a case of finding the right ones. So often, I see founders falling into the trap of using vanity metrics to suggest that they are making things work. I’ve explained what vanity metrics are, and how to avoid them, so you don’t get sucked into the whirlpool of traction oblivion.

3 top fundraising tips

1. How much should you raise?: Working out how you should raise is a balancing act. Asking for too much means that you could find yourself giving away more equity than your startup can sustain. Don’t raise enough and you won’t be able to accomplish your milestones in a reasonable period of time. You’ll be back on the fundraising bandwagon without pausing for breath. Learn how to get your fundraising ask just right.
2. What about unit economics?: As your company grows, your costs of doing business will change. This is something that you will need to build into your pitch deck as your unit economics, showing the impact on your finances. It’s a vital part of the puzzle of your startup to show you understand how its finances work.
3. Was that a soft no?: When you’re sending out your pitch deck to potential investors, deciphering their feedback can feel as if you need to be a codebreaker. There’s a lot you can learn about the questions they ask and the way that they say no. In particular, knowing if they’ve given you a soft no is important.

Events!

We have three upcoming events that you might want to put in your diaries.

Women-only get-together

Wednesday 31 August 2024

08:00 Pacific | See your local time here

Fundraising is hard. And it’s especially hard if you’re a woman founder. To give a bit of extra support to women founders, and so that they can meet each other, we’re having a women-only session. It’s free to attend, you just need to sign up to Pitch Guide.

Daniela is hosting it, so please do come along with your experiences, your tips, and any questions you might have.

Live Pitch Deck Tear Down

Friday 19 July 2024 

08:00 Pacific | See your local time here

Join me as I look at two pitch decks and analyze them with my investor hat on. You get to see in real time what works and what doesn’t work when a VC looks at a deck.

This event is open to all Pitch.Guide members. Sign up here.

And if you want a taste of what a live tear down looks like, you can see the June tear down here.

Subscriber Q&A

Thursday 1 August 2024

08:00 Pacific | See your local time here

Get together with other Pitch.Guide subscribers for a Q&A session with me. I’m on hand to answer questions ranging from how much is too much to raise to what should I do about soft nos? 

This is a Pitch.Guide subscribers-only event. You can subscribe to Pitch.Guide here (a bargain at $29.99/month) and to the Q&A here!

Need some tailored support?

If you are raising money for your startup, and you want a private pitch deck review from Haje, that’s possible! See haje.pub/pdr for more information. Because you are a newsletter subscriber, we’ll even give you a 10% discount! Use the booking link and promo code NL10 to claim your discount!