How to Prep for your Series A

I had a blast helping plan the “How to Prepare for Your Series A” Panel with Milton Vescovacci from Gunster, Luba Lesiva from Palumni VC, James Sullivan from OneSeven Tech, and Andres Barreto from Techstars.

JPMorgan and OneSevenTech co-sponsored this event hosted IRL at Techstars Miami. It was a great networking opportunity to meet VCs and founders in Miami.

Any founder knows that raising a Series A can make or break a startup. While a seed round is about vision, a Series A round focuses on traction, metrics, valuation–and a working demo.

This panel delivered great tips on what to look out for when preparing for a round.

Here are some key takeaways from the session:

“Fundraising is like making a new startup: you’ll spend 16 hours a day working on it until the money is in the bank. Quit your startup so you can raise for your startup full-time”. Andres

“Please don’t try to be cute and mail the product in advance. It’s creepy”. Luba

“Don’t be sloppy with your numbers: Make a clear distinction between your services and product revenues and sales. Be clear about what you are charging the client, what‘s’ recurring, and what‘s’ not.” Luba

“You must have a succinct statement, no matter how complex your product is.” Milton

“Don’t burn bridges with relationships that don’t immediately pan out. Circle back with them and show progression.” James

The event was sold out, margaritas and tacos were plentiful supporting local, delicious business Coyo Tacos and the room was all around vibing.

My favorite feedback of the night was from an attendee who said, “You don’t see many of these types of events in Miami. You know ones with a specific topic, bringing expert panelists, into a room that isn’t a loud bar.”

It was an all around success and we are already planning the next one.

Our intention is to address founder pain points bringing together experts, into a thoughtful space, to leave you with nuggets of gold when it comes to running a startup.

Drop a comment for any future topics you’d like to hear about!