Your best bet is to build a warm network of founders. Investors obviously know that you want something from them, so it’s harder to just network with them without a clear reason. The power dynamic is always going to feel weird—either you have drastically more power than them, or they have drastically more power than you, depending on where you meet them in your startup journey.
With founders, however, it’s different. You’re almost like equal peers, especially if they’re not competing founders—which most won’t be. So, you can easily build a strong group of founder friends.
On LearningLoop founder community, for example, we optimize to make this accessible to every member who signs up regardless of your location. This is only possible thanks to our rigorous curation process to ensure every member is a serious startup founder who’s playing to win. When you join, we build you a small peer group of three and actively help you form relationships with at least ten other founders within the first month of joining. I think that’s brilliant.
Building a strong network of founder friends who are also raising money is crucial because, when it’s your turn to raise, you can ask them for warm introductions. By the time you ask, they already know what you’re building, how you’re building it, and what your product is about. They also know you as a founder.
If they think highly of you and your product, they will make warm introductions.
You can even shoot your shot by cold messaging founders on Linkedin and trying to get feedback on your pitch. Many founders will make 15-30min time for you. By the end of it, if they seem impressed, you can ask them if they’d be keen to make intros.
