Every founder is bound to be turned down by multiple people, but that doesn’t mean their ideas aren’t great.
DocSend, now owned by DropBox, is one of our favorite fundraising tools. They recently shared a post by Max Fleitmann, Founding Partner, Wizard Venture. Max lays out some comfort food for everyone going through the agony of raising capital. It is truly one of the most difficult parts of being an entrepreneur.
“Rejection is one of the hardest parts of fundraising. As a founder, you’ll undoubtedly hear “no” far more than you’ll hear “yes,” and it can feel absolutely soul-crushing at times. As a serial entrepreneur, I’ve been rejected more times than I’d like to admit. Yet every rejection gave me an opportunity to get something else right the next time.
Once I knew what rejections offered me–a chance to course-correct and raise money faster–I looked to them as a means to strengthen my pitch and broaden my abilities. Here are five tips for using rejection as a tool to improve your fundraising skills (and ultimately raise a successful round!).
Tip #1: Find out why you were rejected
Tip #2: If it’s not a “yes,” it’s still a “no”
Tip #3: Sometimes the best thing to do is hit pause
Tip #4: To get different results, do different things
Tip #5: Above all, don’t take it personally”
