Last week, I told a friend my favorite fundraising advice: “Make fundraising friends.”

Startup founders often treat fundraising as a solo sport. They guess when to raise money, how much, and how to go about it. They craft their pitch in isolation and reach out cold to investors, which leads to wasted time, ignored emails, and missed opportunities.

Fundraising, when done right, is a team sport.

You learn the market conditions from other founders and investors. You get feedback on your pitch, investor leads, warm intros, and recommendations on investors as potential partners. You vent to trusted founders who remind you that the struggle is normal. You negotiate and close with support from your fundraising friends, investors, and lawyers. Almost nothing in fundraising is truly solo.

I always tell founders to lean into this team aspect of fundraising. Make “fundraising friends.” At any given time, there are always founders raising or who have just finished. Find them. Create a group.

Being part of a small group of founders fundraising at the same time is one of the best things you can do. Your pitch will improve, you’ll 10x your investor pipeline, and you’ll feel less alone during one of the hardest parts of building a company.

Here are some additional fundraising links I frequently share.

Run a process.

• Andrew Farah (Density) has a great video on running a process.

• Travis Kalanick (Uber) on running a process.

• Watch all the YC videos on fundraising.

• Paul Graham on how to raise money.

• How to get intros from friends?

Keep your deck simple.

• The Sequoia pitch deck template and investment memo on YouTube are great inspirations for creating a simple and concise pitch deck.

• Vinod Khosla gives a great talk on pitching the way VCs think.

• Kevin Hale on designing a better deck — What are the 5 to 7 most important ideas people should know about your startup?

• How to pitch your seed stage startup via Michael Seibel — "A lot of people think that they need to bring a bunch of energy and pizzazz and sizzle and shark-tankiness to a pitch. You don't. You actually stand out by being concise and easy to understand.”

• YC Series A Memo Template

Send investor updates.

• Send investors updates every month. Here’s a simple template from Dan Romero.

Last week, I told a friend my favorite fundraising advice: “Make fundraising friends.”

Startup founders often treat fundraising as a solo sport. They guess when to raise money, how much, and how to go about it. They craft their pitch in isolation and reach out cold to investors, which leads to wasted time, ignored emails, and missed opportunities.

Fundraising, when done right, is a team sport.

You learn the market conditions from other founders and investors. You get feedback on your pitch, investor leads, warm intros, and recommendations on investors as potential partners. You vent to trusted founders who remind you that the struggle is normal. You negotiate and close with support from your fundraising friends, investors, and lawyers. Almost nothing in fundraising is truly solo.

I always tell founders to lean into this team aspect of fundraising. Make “fundraising friends.” At any given time, there are always founders raising or who have just finished. Find them. Create a group.

Being part of a small group of founders fundraising at the same time is one of the best things you can do. Your pitch will improve, you’ll 10x your investor pipeline, and you’ll feel less alone during one of the hardest parts of building a company.

Here are some additional fundraising links I frequently share.

Run a process.

• Andrew Farah (Density) has a great video on running a process.

• Travis Kalanick (Uber) on running a process.

• Watch all the YC videos on fundraising.

• Paul Graham on how to raise money.

• How to get intros from friends?

Keep your deck simple.

• The Sequoia pitch deck template and investment memo on YouTube are great inspirations for creating a simple and concise pitch deck.

• Vinod Khosla gives a great talk on pitching the way VCs think.

• Kevin Hale on designing a better deck — What are the 5 to 7 most important ideas people should know about your startup?

• How to pitch your seed stage startup via Michael Seibel — "A lot of people think that they need to bring a bunch of energy and pizzazz and sizzle and shark-tankiness to a pitch. You don't. You actually stand out by being concise and easy to understand.”

• YC Series A Memo Template

Send investor updates.

• Send investors updates every month. Here’s a simple template from Dan Romero.