5 lessons from raising close to $1M
Announcement of Pandatron’s funding round and reflections on the journey traveled thus far
1. Why (not) to raise
I am the CEO of Pandatron and with this article, I am happy to announce that just last week we closed the pre-seed round of $621K. We gathered investors from all over the world, with major checks being from Gorilla Capital, angels Dirk Freise and Martin Ostermayer, and Business Finland. Throughout the history of the startup, a total of $882K was raised.
This might sound somewhat ironic as my most popular article to date spells “Don’t raise money. Don’t hire. Don’t build. Sell.” However, what I tried to say there is that we got it backward: startups start with sales, not with an investment. And I still believe that investment is only a proxy for success and a dangerous one at that.
Money is not “good” or “bad”, it is a catalyst. If the engine is working well, it will accelerate progress. If there is no product-market fit, it will only make the downfall harder to escape.
2. Why should anyone invest in you?
To be honest, when I co-founded a startup 5 years ago I knew almost nothing about how the “game” works. I didn’t know why certain things were more…
