"Bring the action.
When you hear us in the club,
You gotta turn the shit up,
You gotta turn the shit up,
You gotta turn the shit up.
When we up in the club,
All eyes on us,
All eyes on us,
All eyes on us."
-- will.i.am and Britney Spears
This blog is the result of three things that have highly impacted my thinking over the last year or so.
Firstly, the mindblowing reversal in the performances and results of the England cricket team(!!). About 18 months ago, the team changed their coach and their captain (from Joe Root to Ben Stokes). They immediately and completely transformed – from a team that had won 1 out of the previous 17 matches. To a team that won 7 out of the next 8. And from a team that played extremely negative, defensive cricket. To one that brought maximum aggression, and just attacked all the time. All the players stayed the same. They just had a total mindsight shift. And immediately started winning.
Secondly, this podcast about Napoleon. (Founders is my favorite ever podcast by the way — after Adventure Capital of course... But this episode especially is a true gem). David Senra (the podcast host) narrates that when Napoleon wanted to achieve something, he focused all his energy on it. And marshalled all his resources to go at it with maximum aggression. This is actually a Marc Andreessen quote, but it’s mentioned in the episode as something Napoleon would subscribe to: “the world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think.” In the same episode, David quotes LBJ: “If you do everything you will win”. Or as Napoleon put it: “All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.”
Thirdly, our Founder Secrets Product Hunt launch last year. Sometimes (actually probably very often, maybe always) it takes you experiencing something yourself to really “get it”. I have peripherally watched hundreds of founders run community rounds over the last five years. But personally texting 250 people on a Thursday evening was viscerally eye-opening for me in a new way. I posted on social media, I sent a “mass email”. But it took me personally reaching out to people to move the needle. And it took me blocking out hours on my calendar – with discipline – to carve out the dedicated time to reach out to 250 people.
So the culmination of these three ideas is this – founders launching community rounds on Wefunder should go hard.
They should dedicate as much of their time and energy as they can, to raising as much capital as they can, as quickly as they can.
Do all the things:
Incredible Wefunder page
Incredible video
Blog post about why you’re doing it
Social media campaign
Personalized outreach to hundreds of investors and community members — by email, text, phone calls, meetings
Getting your broader team to support the effort
Getting virality going — get your community to share the community round on their social media, etc.
Investor webinar
Wefunder updates
Email marketing blast
Banner on your website
Add the community round to your post-checkout confirmation email
Press outreach
Influencer outreach
Etc. etc. etc.
And of course, in fundraising, psychology and “optics” are critical. If founders focus on a great launch, and a great marketing campaign, they will come out of the gates more explosively. Which is a better signal. And generates investor FOMO / scarcity, which then further accelerates fundraising momentum.
Of course, founders are busy people. “I don’t have time to spend 30 hours on this Wefunder launch. I’m swamped as it is”.
But this is a great blog post by Mathilde Collin (founder of Front) about prioritization. And how founders need to ruthlessly prioritize what’s most important, all the time. Maybe fundraising isn’t a top priority right now. In that case, maybe you shouldn’t be diluting your focus with a community round that you can’t dedicate sufficient time, energy and resources to.
If fundraising is a top priority, then you need to figure out how to dedicate enough of your time and effort to make it a blowout success.
(Caveat – there are always exceptions. E.g. Substack or Mercury can just send an email and raise $5M in a day. It’s not “effort” for them. Maybe some founders are fine with Wefunder being an “evergreen” fundraising tool that’s just permanently on in the background and not a major focus. But I’m talking about the vast majority of founders in this post).
Another hack here is to “buy” support (and hours), e.g. from a third party fundraising agency like Capital Department.
Or to dragoon members of your team to focus their time and energy on executing on the community round. “Marshall all of the resources at your disposal” is a nice Napoleonic quote here.
And as well as helping founders raise more capital more quickly, there’s a second reason to “go big” with your community round — this should be the best marketing campaign you have ever run.
There is no better way to delight your customers, than by letting them invest in your startup.
There is no better way to build community, than by letting them become owners.
This is a once in a company-lifetime opportunity to engage your customers and supporters as owners and investors in your startup. So go all in on it. Leave everything out there on the field.
Maximum energy. Maximum aggression.
Marshall all your resources.
Go big or go home.