Is the Business at a Fundable Point?
Think about your startup development in terms of milestones, which serve as anchor points for fundraising.
Even startups, which are a good fit for venture capital, are not fundable during the vast majority of their lifetime. That is because making an effective pitch requires some sort of a special milestone, which makes it easy to effectively communicate that there is an exciting opportunity to grow the business 10x in the next 12-18 months.
That milestone could be based on hype - e.g. repeat founders doing something again and/or a hot space. Or it could be based on traction - e.g. hitting an inflection point for growth or achieving superior monetization. In practice, every pitch is a mixture of hype and traction, with early rounds typically being more heavy on the former.
Beware of basing your fundraise on a newly released feature or a recent expansion, which are yet to be proven. That creates uncertainty, which plays right into the natural desire of investors to wait to get more data. I discuss this topic further in Roadmap Planning.
Getting to a fundable point is hard and rare and often the result of months of advance planning and focused work. Developing your judgement for whether the business is a at a good fundable juncture requires experience. The good news is that you can borrow from the expertise of others, which I talk about in How to Network with Entrepreneurs.