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Leadership:
So, who gets the money? In
the spirit of the new economy, you have started the company you’ve
always dreamed of launching – or you simply found a great opportunity
in an underserved market – and you are now the CEO of a fast growing
start-up company. Investors have put money into your company, and
you’re rolling toward meeting your first milestones. That’s
great, because it will bring the opportunity to tell your story to new
investors to raise that all-important next round of financing. You ask
your Board to find additional prospective investors, and you look to
your CFO or financial advisor for support in doing the projections and
developing the road show presentation. Then you go back to work in your
company – hiring people, monitoring R&D developments, guiding the
marketing program, keeping morale high among the troops, and waiting for
the term sheet to arrive. Everything is working fine, right? Uh,
maybe not. The
problem is, you’re not doing a key part of your job! You are in
charge of raising that next round! No
matter how much you rely on the skills and reputation of your
experienced Board, and your high-powered CFO (part-time or full-time),
they can never be more than the support team. You must lead the team,
and you must be the primarily contact point when those potential
investors appear. They want to talk to the chief, the person with the
vision, the person who is making this all happen. You are the person
they want to get excited about, and the person they want to hear from
about the exciting new product or service you will be offering the
world. You can’t delegate that role to anyone else, even though you
can’t imagine how you’ll get it all done and still run your company.
It helps if you diligently delegate to your team those fundraising steps
that they can carry out for you, such as:
But the person to make the sales call should be the CEO. The person to report to your Board on the fund raising progress should be you as well. Fund raising is the most important job in your job description, until the survival of your company is no longer an issue. If
you’d like more information tailored specifically to your company’s
situation, call or email our office and ask for Gene. At our company
that’s his job.
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