Aaron Harris

I've been building something unusual at Magid over the last few years. I'd like help in continuing to build it. I'm hiring a Fundraising Strategist to work with me every day to change the way that founders approach venture. Job description below.

Working on robots is cool. Working on robots with friends is even cooler. Congrats on the launch @bsofman and thanks for giving me an excuse to watch videos of excavators for work.

Today, we’re announcing @TrustVanta's Series D and new valuation – $4.15 billion – led by @Wellington_Mgmt alongside @sequoia, @ycombinator, @CrowdStrike, @GoldmanSachs, @jpmorgan, @craft_ventures, and @Atlassian. Vanta’s mission is to help businesses earn and prove trust.

Fundraising should be hard. When fundraising is too easy, it tricks founders into thinking building a business is easy. It should be hard to convince someone to give you millions of dollars that you’ll probably lose.

Find an idea so good it doesn’t matter how often you screw up.

In the Bronx. #leica #streetphotography #nyc

Beware anyone bragging about how many investor intros they can make This is usually correlated with low quality introductions Intros are good when they are targeted and rare

Having seen many multi-billion dollar companies get started, I can confirm that many ideas look great right from the start.

Sankey diagram of the real life process to get 6 term sheets in a Series A. For a hot company. This is why process driven fundraising is important. If you want a term sheet, aim for 50 first meetings. That might mean starting with 100 investors. Sometimes this is easier. Will…

One of my favorite interview questions for founders: Who are you best competitors and what makes them good?

If you are doing user interviews, and the users keep asking if they can invest, you have the wrong users.

People gleefully posting about the end of @OpenAI because they lost a few extremely talented people seem to be forgetting that betting against @sama is a good way to lose money.

Don’t bring numbers to a vibes pitch

$100 million dollars, in cash, today, easily beats a theoretical $200 million dollars at some indeterminate point in the future.

Zuck is doing a great job demonstrating that cash and liquid stock can be a hell of a lot more compelling than paper valuations and infrequent tenders.

The still rare Jersey Shore Bald Eagle. It answers to Bruuuuuuuuuce. cc/@springsteen

Investors give open source companies precisely opposite advice: Monetize early to show revenue so that we can fund you. Delay monetization and focus on community so we can fund you. No wonder founders are confused about when to fundraise.