Ask me anything - Founder with more than $6 million raised from top tier VCs

If you're a solid team ie founders with good pedigree and have worked at fintech companies then you're most likely to get pre seed/ seed easily.

If you're not then your proof of concept should speak for itself. Reach out to investors once you've first 10 customers (assuming that you're building something with high AOV).

Again this is very generic advise. Strategy to reach out to investors would be to do it via warm connect. Ask your founder friends who've already raised to give you an intro.

Every investor maintains a track. Depending on the track you're in they'll give higher or lower priority.

For mobile app have strong practices around utilizing analytics. Mixpanel gives first 6 months free. Push notification is critical. Good luck

It has always been a tricky and hotly debated question.

Ground rule- take your board into confidence before deciding.

Here are a few ways I've thought about it: 1/The salary you take from your startup should not be your way of creating wealth. Else you're just an employee. Your outcome should be tied to equity.
2/You take what is enough to sustain. This depends on what phase of life are you in - if you're married you may take a bit more, or have a huge emi, if you're single you may want to take a bit less. It's usually 1 percent of what’s available in the bank account that year.
3/Most of the founders lose money and come out poor from startup experience. I honestly don't mind that. Leverage and learning compensate for money.

VC money is like jet fuel. You either fly or crash. You can't be conservative, it is because of how the incentives are aligned.

If you want to have conservative growth and need a lot of time to figure out what you're building, try not to raise VC money or raise some patient capital via family offices or angels.

VC money is a lot of pressure. You honestly get involved in boardroom politics. And yes chances of you getting fired are high.

Naval wrote a book on it a decade ago - it's about how you want to have control of your company and your board. I can share the link if you need it.

Please share the link sir

Variety of ways you can look at the problems and talk about them confidently

1. Something you're building succeeded in other geo?
2. Your proof of concept got solid traction
3. You've deep expertise in the area, and investors take your word for the problems you're describing (especially if you're a second-time founder with your first successful exit)

Most of the time insights are simple but no one looked at the way you looked at it.

It is tough. I don't negotiate if they've another offer. It ideally means they already made up their mind.

I've raised enough to pay people according to market standards. Raises are generally based on company performance.

One thing you've to be careful about - is making them responsible for important line items, and giving them space to operate. Most of the cream talent doesn't like being micro-managed.

I am a fresher and have done BBA. Please tell me what the starting salary range should be for me.

I would very eager to learn and contribute in a startup ecosystem if the skill set required and vision of organisation matching. Have worked in top tech companies with mid level 5 years tech experience with a zeal to learn more on business sides of things and contribute and willing to contribute any stage of the startup. Reach out to me in case i can be of any help

That's not true. You can pull some reports of dilution at seed and series a stage. It is quite standard especially when you deal with top-tier vc.

Share what you've built.

Money in the bank is the runway. You get a runway for liftoff. Doesn't matter if liftoff happens in the very last month of your runway.

Go aggressive if things are working. Manage finances like it's your own money and not investors' money.