300 Applications later! Here is what I learned.

[mynu]

@scarletbeast Any advice I can look into for fund raising ? I can’t open source my product so can’t get traction there nor is my product fully built to be deployed in enterprise.

 

[scarletbeast]

@mynu get ONE paying customer paying you monthly. I wouldn't even think about raising before, and having a few customers will dramatically improve your odds of landing a pre seed cheque

 

[mynu]

@scarletbeast That’s the goal once we finish production, go heavy in getting customers

 

[suedorsett1]

@mynu Get the customer before going to production. How do you know any customer wants what you’re putting into production?

 

[villek]

@mynu not even done with production and looking for seeding? lmao your get laughed outta most VCs

 

[mynu]

@villek Well we have MVP done and demo product is what we are using to show and tell. We are close to launching our beta stage to the public. It’s not like we are just using an idea to raise funding which most incubators and investors are funding

 

[lewisr]

@mynu I hope you’re spending this much time making something people want

 

[celticpiping]

@mynu Quite the goal, hope you make it to 500.

So have you been accepted to an incubator or accelerator? If so, will you stop applying?

 

[mynu]

@celticpiping Thank you, I haven’t been accepted yet and only being rejected from 2 of them, I had 3 interviews so far and more to come. I recon by the time I get an acceptance I should be done with all the list. Then I’m gonna visit conferences and pitch my product there. If everyone knows they all talk and competition to get to you increases.

 

[cap1975]

@mynu Would love to check out your pitch deck though! I'm sure a bunch of learnings in there! Thank you

 

[prinzleczy]

@mynu All the best. I would have certain goals to talk to customers instead.

 

[desired001]

@mynu Enterprise B2B cyber founder here. Similar story, except I declined capital from an incubator.

The most undervalued skills in this world are grit and hustle!

 

[mynu]

@desired001 Grit and hustle I have in spades, I would love to hear your story

 

[gracefulsongonfire]

@mynu I’m a little late to this post but…

I did something similar and applied to hundreds of accelerators.

I got into a few and ended up raising a few million in Seed funding afterwards.

What I learned is that:

1. Most accelerators suck.
2. The hardest ones to get into are usually the best - but not always.
3. If you’re not Ivy League or FAANG, your best bet is to find a new, unproven accelerator, and come across as both confident and open minded.

I wouldn’t say what you did is a waste of time necessarily - but only if you actually got into one.

Otherwise, the time likely could have been spent on more productive activities - not just building your business, but even connecting on LinkedIn with people in your industry, going to events, etc.

 

[sassnnbide]

@mynu DM linkedin

 

[mynu]

@sassnnbide Done

 

[sassnnbide]

@mynu Thank you, good sir

 

[seekingknocking21]

@mynu Send me a DM. Would love to connect on LI.

 

[herprayer]

@mynu I applaud you on realizing you want to get over your fear of rejection. This definitely helped you, but the others in the comments are also right: you need some traction before you funded.

I built, grew, and sold, a software development consultancy. We worked with some well known software companies in teh Bay Area.

We also invested, or wanted to invest, in some of the "ideas" that came to us to pay us to help them build them.

I could tell you with 99.9% accuracy who was gonna make it. And I also could tell you who we wanted to invest in by 1 metric:

If they had a working product, whether it be cobbled together with excel or just some lite-weight prototype they cobbled together with some code, and that they had at least 1 person paying them for it.

Like the others said, you seem motivated, but if you don't have the pedigree of Google/Facebook/Harvard/Stanford, you need to be building and selling, not trying to get funding just yet, VCs don't throw money at just anything. They want to see you've either got some schooling behind you (because it's the network you can distribute to), or you've worked for a tech company thats great (because again, the network you've grown while you were there, so you can push your product to them)....

If you're a regular Joe Schmoe, you're kinda fucked and you need to build and sell. Focus that rejection energy on getting rejected from customers instead of retard VCs

 

[johnw87]

@herprayer Your comment made me laugh. Thank you.