Only a "CEO-mind" will get these Top 3 Takeaways from the Event

Last week, I hosted a small group at my headquarters with 12 CEOs looking to raise between $10m+ each in Q2.

After nearly 48 hours of grinding on their deals, here are my top three takeaways from the event.

1. People like my son way more than they like me. One of the attendees not only gave him a stack of valuable hockey rookie cards worth ~$3K all together, he also got a signed photo of the Miracle on Ice easily worth $10k.

2. The free content I deliver in this newsletter is helping CEO’s crush some of their biggest fundraising problems. For example, Jason raised $1.2m last week - and I showed him why he needs to return $25k back to an a**hole investor and kick him out of the deal forever. (Nice work J!)
   
   In fact, If you’re one of the people who has already implemented some of the ideas I’m publishing eg. Never Be Needy, or Raise Money from $100K Checkwriters, and you are getting any sort of traction, would you do me a favor and send me an email? I’d love to have the chance to give you some recognition here in front of our community for taking action.
   

3. Live events create breakthroughs. While every single person who attended are all smart, hard-working, and capable people… and have collectively raised more than $75m in the past 12 months… I had multiple attendees tell me if they had the F.A.S.T Funding Method a year ago, they would have raised a lot more, a lot faster, on better terms.

I’ve been talking a lot about raising capital from small balance checkwriters lately – who they are, what they want, and why YOU want them in your deal.

“But knowing who you want in your deal is only half the equation.”

The real question you need to ask yourself now is this…

“If I think about my company as a financial product - am I offering a product that investors want to buy in this market?”

Let’s dive in.

-Oren

P.S. It’s always a bit of a rollercoaster prepping for my live events, being up on stage for two-straight days, and then doing all the follow-up…

But it’s also hugely energizing to get to work with great founder-led companies and watch them have those huge breakthroughs where the dots finally connect… and they start taking action and getting results.

We’ve got another 4-weeks of post-event support for this group of 12 CEOs… and which means I’m currently preparing for my next working group sometime in May/June.

For my next live event, I’m putting together a “Revenue Accelerator” cohort for companies looking to optimize their current operations and build a more compelling KPI track record before they go out for funding.

The point is to juice your actual growth rates and operating margin so your Pro Forma assumptions are more believable.

And of course, I’ll continue to host our “Capital Raising Accelerator” programs throughout the year.

If you’re interested in either of those programs, send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Work with Oren” and someone on my team will follow-up with you and see if you’d be a good fit to work with me.

What types of businesses REALLY get funded?

Last week, I asked you an important question…

Are you what real business people would consider a REAL CEO?

Not surprisingly, most of the people who answered, most think they have a proven track record in executive roles and are solid candidates for “Real CEO.”

That’s all fine and good. Most entrepreneurs have super strong egos or they wouldn’t be able to face the kind of day that CEO’s step into every morning at 9am.

But what you think is a “real CEO” and what investors think it is can be very different.

The purpose of Pitch Anything Playbook is to help you develop key executive skill sets that put you on the path towards being a REAL CEO in the investor’s eyes(if you aren’t already)...

But the real thing you need to understand is how to investors perceive you in the leadership position.

How investor perception of who you are impacts
the type of capital you have access to
and under what terms you can get it.

I can boil this topic down to just 76 words:

“Describe your 5-year financial proforma to an investor using a blend of these topics:

• Key assumptions about revenue growth

• Cost-to-Acquire-a-Customer at scale

• Costs to deliver product/service (cogs)

• Average Contract/Sale Value

• How “More Cash” would improve growth rate

• Projected Net income by year

… Because ONLY this will give you the chance to be taken seriously as a CEO who is potentially capable of using other people’s risk capital to build a valuable company and make a return for everyone. “

If you cannot do that - the 6 bullet points above - Then you’re basically a high-functioning marketing guy with the CEO-title, who needs help from someone else to explain to anyone what’s really going on in the company.

Next email, I’m going to break this down a little more tightly and tell you if you’re specifically:

• Persona “C”, the CEO who investors laugh at.

• Persona “B” the CEO who investors will give small checks to and carefully monitor with an ankle bracelet and keylogger :-)

• or … Persona “A” the person who can get any amount of money they want, whenever they need it.

Or maybe you already know with brutal honesty that you’re a little closer to Persona C “laughed at” than you want to be, but you want to be a straight-down-the-middle A-payer who gets “anything he wants”, in which case, stat, let’s get you moving up to the next level.

Make sure to let me know if you’re coming to the next event and from my side, I’ll send you that email about “Persona A, B, C”.

Oren