Funding 101 - Fundraising Resources for Founders

Goal-setting #104

Written by Jason Kirby | Jan 14, 2025 12:00:00 PM

Hey,

The year is still shiny and new, and you've just set goals for your business. I  share my take on this and if you're on the right track to fundraise.

Also; 

📸 - Social Snapshot- Who are you building for?

📊  - PE forecasting for 2025

🎙️ - Bootstrapping to success w/ Connor Tomkies

🆓 - Your 12-month fundraising plan 


Welcome to issue 104.

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Your Pitch Deck Probably Sucks...

For most first-time founders, the idea of a pitch deck sounds easy, but I often get decks with "v43" in the filename, implying it's the 43rd iteration of a deck 😖

Don't be this founder. Collaborate with active VCs on your deck and pay a professional designer to eliminate the guesswork and make a strong first impression when you're ready to pitch investors. 

I use DECKO for my clients to ensure I'm getting the expertise we need to get a great deck turned around quickly. They're a group of active VCs who help founders with their decks, you can't go wrong. And you get 10% off with the link below.

Give them a try.

Upgrade Your Pitch Deck with Decko

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Social Snapshot

 
💰Who you should be building for by Amanda Robs on X.
Also:
⚰️ RIP to funding announcements by Katie McAndrews on LinkedIn

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From Bootstrapping to an Eight-Figure Exit with Connor Tomkies


In last week's episode, I sit down with Connor Tomkies. As the founder of SupportNinja, Connor scaled a bootstrapped business into a middle eight-figure success story.  After selling to private equity, Conor is building Operator Equity and Entrepreneur Cooperative, empowering founders to scale and exit with purpose. Check out his story.

Watch Now

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Data Corner


PE outlook for 2025

Private equity fundraising in 2025 is facing serious headwinds—unless exit activity stages a major comeback, according to Pitchbook.

Here’s the gist: fund closings are taking longer (16.7 months now vs. 10.9 months in 2022), fewer new funds are launching, and mega-funds—the ones pulling in $5B+—aren’t hitting their targets like they used to. Last year, the biggest mega-funds only secured 35% of their goals, compared to over 70% in 2023.

This slowdown marks the first big dip in PE fundraising in five years. The big question? Whether exits will pick up. Without more realizations, LPs are unlikely to write new checks. If you’re playing in the PE space, 2025 could be a grind.

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Raising Capital for your startup?

Thunder's mission is to guide founders toward the right path to reach their North Star, be it through securing equity or debt financing or navigating the path to a successful exit. 

Talk to us

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Goals for 2025

I've spent the past couple of weeks aligning with my team on goals and targets for this year. Always an interesting experience and we have some lofty ones (stay tuned).
Goal-setting can be a mixed bag. It’s either super inspiring or a total waste of time if you don’t do it right. So I thought I'd share some insights on the same and help you figure out how to prioritize what matters most. How do you align your team? And how do you know if you’re making progress?
 
Why You Need to Take Goal-Setting Seriously
 
Most goal-setting frameworks are a waste of time. Writing down fluffy goals like “grow revenue” or “become a market leader” doesn’t do squat unless they’re backed by specific actions and measurable results. Goals without focus are just distractions, and if you’re setting them just to feel productive, you’re already losing. It’s time to ditch vague aspirations and get brutally clear on what will move the needle in 2025.

When I was building one of my earlier companies, I didn’t bother with real goals. We chased “opportunities” as they came up, thinking that was just part of the hustle. Turns out, without a clear direction, most of what we did barely moved the needle. It wasn’t until we started setting OKRs that things clicked.  We had focus, alignment, and measurable progress.

Goals aren’t just a box to check. They’re how you create clarity in the chaos and ensure every dollar, every hour, and every decision counts.

OKRs vs. KPIs

  • OKRs: Big-picture, time-bound goals that define what you want to achieve and how you’ll measure success.
  • KPIs: Ongoing metrics that show how your business is performing.

Think of OKRs as your destination and KPIs as the dashboard gauges telling you if you’re on track. When Sundar Pichai was leading the Chrome project, he kept his team laser-focused with one OKR: make Chrome the most-used browser in the world.

The key results? Capture 20% market share and cut page load times by 50%. The team’s singular focus paid off—Chrome is now the king of web browsers. That’s the power of clear objective and measurable results.

How to Crush Your Fundraising Goals in 2025

Whether you’re looking to raise your first pre-seed round or land that Series A, the key to making it happen is clear goal-setting. Without a plan, you risk wasting time on investor meetings that go nowhere—or worse, running out of runway.

When I first started, I treated fundraising like a numbers game: take as many meetings as possible, pitch everywhere, and hope something sticks. It didn’t work. I wasted months pitching investors who weren’t a fit, and my business lost focus while I chased dead ends.

Things turned around when I started setting clear fundraising OKRs. Instead of just “raising a round,” we broke it down: target the right investors, close X amount in funding by Y date, and optimize the pitch process. Suddenly, everything clicked.

If you’re just winging it, stop. Fundraising requires strategy, focus, and measurable progress.

How to Set Fundraising Goals for 2025

  1. Reflect on 2024
    What worked last year? Did you build relationships with investors? Were your pitch materials effective? Did you hit your funding targets? Reflect on what went well and what needs to change.
  2. 2. Be Specific About Your Target Round
    Are you raising $500K or $5M? Equity or convertible note? Seed or Series A? The more specific you are, the easier it will be to create a focused strategy.
  3. Define Your Focus Areas
    Break your goals into manageable pieces. For fundraising, this could include:
    • Investor targeting: Identify the right VCs or angels for your stage and sector.
    • Pitch prep: Refine your deck, financial model, and story.
    • Pipeline management: Keep track of investor outreach and progress.
    • Negotiation: Optimize terms like valuation, liquidation preferences, and board structure.

Here’s how to translate your goals into actionable OKRs:

Objective: Raise $2M in a seed round by June 2025.
Key Results:

  1. Build a pipeline of 50 qualified investors by February.
  2. Book 30 meetings with VCs by March.
  3. Close 3 term sheets by May.

Share your OKRs with your team or co-founders so everyone is aligned and can contribute- whether it's on a tool like ClickUp or Asana, or just a Google Sheet, visibility helps.

Track Your Fundraising Progress with KPIs

Once you’ve set your OKRs, use KPIs to monitor your progress. Examples include:

  • Investor conversion rate (meetings to term sheets)
  • Number of new investor intros per week
  • Average time from first pitch to close

Review these metrics weekly or bi-weekly to stay on track.

Stay Flexible

Here’s the reality: no fundraising plan goes perfectly. Investors ghost. Markets shift. You have to be ready to pivot. I’ve been there—one year, we planned to raise $7M in 3 months. We got a term sheet on March 12, 2020, and it was immediately retracted on March 14, 2020. F*ck. We ended up raising $1.5m from insiders and friends to pivot the business to adjust to COVID-19, rallied the team, and exploded with growth to get an $11m term sheet by the end of 2020. Not what we had planned, but a win nonetheless.

For fundraising, the takeaway is clear: focus on one big goal (raising your round) and set key results that will get you there. Don’t get distracted by shiny objects or irrelevant investor leads. Plus, it isn’t just about the money,  you have to create momentum, build relationships, and position your company for long-term success. With clear goals, focused OKRs, and measurable KPIs, you can take control of the process and avoid the usual chaos.

So, what’s your top fundraising goal for 2025? Shoot me a reply- I’d love to hear what you’re aiming for.

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Free Fundraising Resources

As you set goals for the new year, here's my guide to planning out your fundraising over 12 months:
🗓️ Your 12-month fundraising plan- Download it here


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