"Founder VS Investor" Author Elizabeth Zalman’s 5 Fundraising Lessons

Elizabeth Zalman​ is a serial entrepreneur and co-founded Media Armor, which was later acquired by Nomi.

Here are five of the most essential lessons on fundraising capital from her novel, Founder vs Investor: The Honest Truth About Venture Capital from Startup to IPO (co-authored with Jerry Neumann):

• Fundraising is a full-time job: “Fundraising is your new full-time job. You no longer have another job. That should be you: exhausted and on the verge of tears because you are pushing that hard to get a term sheet.”
• Don’t pitch associates: “Never talk to associates… Associates have no power. They can only say no, never yes. Only partners can say yes, and most often they have to get other partners to agree with them.”

• All co-founders on the call with investors: “You are more powerful together as co-founders than with a hero CEO. Tag team each call. Someone pitches, someone observes and takes notes and chimes in when something isn’t hitting. The story is a dance that the two or three of you create.”
• Control the narrative, don’t send decks cold: “Never send a deck out over email…A demo video is great, but nothing more than three sentences on your business in writing…Why give someone the chance to say no? You, the founder, are a master storyteller. You can only control the narrative live.”
• Anticipate investor objections: “Always answer the question you want to answer…I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I live and die by this rule, even to the point where I will call out objections before they’re raised because if I do that, I control the narrative…Answer a question with a question until you’ve figured it out. You can’t do your job unless you understand, much like a diplomat.”