Raising £1.5m to change an industry, by flipping the script

I think your whole approach has been the most professional and well thought through I’ve seen in the 6 years I’ve been angel investing. Tony Bolland, Most Excellent Ventures

I asked Tony Bolland if I could publish that quote in my story. Not to place in the “massage my ego” pot - much - but because I really believe in transparency; as will soon become apparent.

I don’t really know how to be anything else. I’ve got my love for Disney to thank for that, so it’s well within peoples rights to confuse it with naivety. So much so that it’s gotten me into trouble (quite a few times thinking about it). But this is a great opportunity to reflect on what we’ve just done as a team while at the same time potentially being valuable to others. It’s worth it (even if I do get into trouble).

So, in true heart-on-my-sleeve levels of openness, I wanted to tell you how challenging I found raising money in 2024 and what I did about it.

Spoiler alert; like all Disney stories (except maybe Bambi) this one has a happy ending. We ended up raising £1.5m with a round led by Mercuri VC; a B Corp fund that held unwavering conviction in our mission, had unparalleled levels of experience, and spoke to us like actual real life people. Oh, and the founder is a Manchester United fan which is always a necessity bonus.

For those that want the bullets, the two minute version if my journey is:

• I created “the best deck anyone had ever seen” (according to six people) against my will
• I quickly got deal fatigue from answering the same questions over and over again. So much so, I snapped!
• I did something about it - creating a process that helped both us and any potential investor.
• And even though I received 72 “no’s”….
• I went on a failed feedback-seeking mission and continued to optimise our stories and narratives that resulted in 7x offers

This is my fundraising story.

Chapter 1: “The best deck I’ve ever seen”

I don’t believe in decks.

I couldn’t understand why investors are obsessed with decks? They’re one-way pieces of communication that focusses on pixel-pushing and design rather than story.

I knew that if I wanted to raise some money and pawn myself to the big-bad world of VCs, it would be with a narrative. Something that, if written well enough, was structured, and compelling, adding context and drips of excitement.

Story telling is where its at; says the biased 36-something year old who likes Disney that little bit too much. Don’t let me try and convince you otherwise, I’ll point you in the direction of the clarity of this post that explains why the best managers are the ones that write, or Andre Albuquerque who talks about well structured narratives over “lazy” decks. Beliefs that are better told in the book Working Backwards by Bill Carr and Colin Bryar, and their stories of the power of memos at Amazon.

So I wrote, restructured, wrote, edited, wrote, re-crafted and produced the perfect <1,000 word piece why any investor should invest in the self-confessed brilliant vision of Made With Intent.

No one read it. (it was at this point where Athol, one of my NEDs, would say “I told you so” 🤣)

Investors are time-poor and entrenched in a way of working that works for them. Despite all its flaws, there was no need for me to try to reinvent the wheel. So in classic “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality, I leant in. Sort of.

The deck we ended up creating was one designed to tease and intrigue. It wasn’t a deck that gave too much away, but in <10 slides explained who we were, what we were doing and why. I took inspiration from Andy Raskin’s “The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve ever seen” story (that’s 7 years old by the way and still holds true)

As a Family Office Principal for over 15 years, I have read a huge number of investment propositions, and have learned to identify the rare opportunities that stand out from the crowd. MWI is one of those, the prospective investment documentation and supporting documents demonstrate a thorough and professional approach and it's no surprise their recent investment round was massively over-subscribed Athol P Haas , Investor and NED

https://docsend.com/view/e7c7bdwinhki5asa

It was well complimented. I tested it on friends, team members, and some VC friends I know to iterate and optimise and, before going on holiday (Disney World, of course) sent this to 16 funds to see if it was of any interest.

All 16 got back to me wanting to learn more 👀😱

Chapter 2: Getting and solving deal fatigue

David made saying no exceptionally hard - he was polite (to a fault), not at all pushy, highly responsive and the detail / data he provided was some of the best i've ever seen.  Alex Sainty, co-founder at swiftscale

Coming from someone as experienced as Alex, that’s one hell of a compliment right there. I’ll add that to the ego massage pot alongside of Tony Bolland.

The best he’s ever seen? (Spoiler: he still didn’t invest though 😂) What made it the “best”?

I think it was the failure that came before it.

4 weeks into the process of courting and being courted by investors, I was sick of being asked the same questions over and over again. I could almost guarantee the structure of every session would go along the lines of some mini-Dragons Den style script. With an impatient Peter Jones figure in the room only ever asking about commercial traction and a shrewd Deborah Meaden wannabe tapping her fingers waiting to get to the only question she cares about: “what competitors do you have?”.

Alexander Sainty - I hate to tarnish my squeaky clean reputation of being “polite to a fault”, but after 4 weeks of parroting answers, whilst on a call to a fund, I snapped.

“Forgive me for saying so chaps, but I felt like this conversation was more of an interrogation than a conversation. I’ve found it hard to crack a smile or an ounce of personality from both of you.”

… I said.

Which was met by a scoff and a very quick exit. I was sorry. I emailed Alistair after 24 hours apologising and explained how out of character it was, making the excuse that I was only human (despite what Alex in particular clearly thinks of me)

It felt like a pivotal moment in my journey that I wanted to prevent from happening again.

If investors, by en large, ask the same questions. And founders, by en large, respond the same. Surely those two things can match up?

Step 1: Transcribe and theme

After Alistair’s scoff and clean exit to stage left, I started to use Otter.ai to record and transcribe these highly repetitive conversations. This meant that I could interrogate all transcripts with questions like:

• Hey Otter, what were the core values for X when making an investment?
• Hey Otter, at what points did X find really interesting?
• Hey Otter, which funds supported Manchester United?

I interrogated the chat bo for the most common questions that were asked, asked it to categorise these, and then what was my amalgamated, persuasive response to those questions. For example, of the sessions I had:

• 80% of investors asked “What makes you different or stand out in the market?”
• 25% of investors asked “How defensible is this?”
• 15% of investors asked “What is your teams experience for solving this problem?”
• And just 8% asked my favourite question: “What do you want from an investor?”. More on that later.

Taking the answers to those questions, I soon realised this became my own shareable FAQ. A series of questions and already noted answers under the common prescribed categories: Innovation, Product, Go to Market, Customers and Use Case, and Raising.

Step 2: Place in Notion

Despite being forced into creating a deck against my will 😡 I was still very much on the “no deck” bandwagon. There was no need for a 40 page deck. Narratives still work better. Long-form content still trumps short-form. There was no way I was trying to cram our mission, our purpose and what we do into something that is limited to an A4 piece of paper.

I placed these questions and answers in Notion, our day to day collaboration platform, with an unnecessary amount of emojis and easy to access links for further reading.

This is what Alex meant when he said it was one of the best detail he’s ever seen. He wasn’t alone. We got a lot of compliments on this.

“David's investor FAQs were epic! They were definitely the most informative I've seen. The method of using the investor meeting transcripts to identify the most frequently asked questions not only made the answers relevant but also allowed investors to arrive at decisions much faster. Genius!” Charlie Weavers-Wright, Haatch

“All the business details were clearly laid out in front of me, easy to digest giving me the option to probe into areas of the business where I might have had questions. It showed me that Made With Intent knew what they were doing, had a clear strategy and were serious about the investment process. Their clear diligence helped me with mine” Oli Connolly , AWG Ventures

“We've reviewed thousands of companies over the last 10 years and the way David approached the fundraising was refreshing and quite unique. His use of Notion provided a level of detail and clarity that not many founders offer at the seed stage. This allowed us to move quickly through our diligence process, ensuring that when we spoke to David we used the time as efficiently as possible. It also demonstrated his complete obsession with the space! A pre-requisite for any successful early stage tech founder” Will Martin , Portfolio Ventures

“Performing DD on MWI was a rare pleasure. All the documents were easily accessible in Notion and were very noticeably live, especially the FAQ. It was a much more interactive process than a more static DocSend interaction. We were really impressed.” Timothy Marchant CFA CAIA , Moscar Capital

I didn’t quite realise the benefit this had for all parties:

• Placing it in Notion acted as a Wiki. If people wanted to read more, they could. We had all sorts of narratives for why we believe in product-led growth, or why we chose the mission that we chose already in place. It was just a case of linking to those narratives if the investor was drawn in.
• This level of detail helped investors with any investment committee paper that they had to present. All the details they needed were there. Point, click, copy, paste and we’ve done the majority of your work already. 👊
• It also helped qualify investors in or out, from both sides of the fence.From our side, we could tell if they took the time to read it, some of it, or most of it. It helped understand interest and conviction.Bonus: We ended up placing this behind a tracked DocSend link to see who opened it, and how long they read it for to help understand intrigue and conviction.From their side, it helped quickly qualify if we were a right fit for their portfolio.
• An unintentional consequence was that doing this showed organisation and diligence. It just so happens that I am both of those things so it’s a fairly authentic thing for me to do.
• It highlighted transparency. How much information can you really get from a few words on a deck anyway? We gave investors everything. I was once told recently about the amount of lying (yes, you read that right) that goes on in this process is scary. And how it’s so driven by FOMO that things can easily be skipped or overlooked. Nothing to hide here. No where to run.

If you’d like to see the whole document, please reply FAQ Room in the comments.

Step 3: Iterate

7 offers, 72 Nos, and 112 total conversations. Is that….good? I don’t know.

It seems like we got a lot of “not right nows”. Interestingly, the majority of which were within a later stage of the process post-super efficient Notion FAQ document. The trend tended to be to go past the best teaser deck you’ve ever seen, past the best detailed FAQ room you’ve ever seen, past the David Mannheim waffle demanding a bit of personality on the other side of the screen, and into some level of pre-investment committee discussion whether this would suit their portfolio or not.

On receiving the no and asking for some feedback, I was able to take some of the answers for why people didn’t invest in us. According to the plaudits, we had everything. Previously exited founder, great knowledge of the industry, good connections, well respected, one hell of an idea that solves a real problem using first-principal thinking and a team that rivals the experience of most. And a beautiful deck that is only designed to act as a teaser and nothing else. What’s not to like?

A lot - apparently.

I really wanted to understand what the issues were from preventing any fund from continuing with the self-confessed opportunity of the decade. I took those answers, themed them, and got this.

The hard bit was getting the truth behind these answers. I know that at least half the real reason why these funds said no, is that either a) we didn’t fit their portfolio, or b) the business wasn’t compelling enough. Some didn’t even get back to me.

I needed context. Give me some real truth why we didn’t progress so I can build on that. Feedback is a gift.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce you to “feedback done well” by SuperSeed , ran by the beautiful Dan Bowyer

“Where we start being annoying is around the size of the opportunity for us. We, as VCs, think in very binary terms about ‘venture scale’ and ‘not venture scale’. We don’t think the opportunity in front of you meets the exacting criteria of ‘venture scale’. To clarify a little, I think you’re building a business that will make you a happy and wealthy man. You’ve done so much legwork already, and I think you’ll find pretty quick adoption”

Good Answer, Ferdinand Reynolds . He went on to explain:

If we invested £1m at £xm pre-money, to buy a 10% stake in the business, after we’d been diluted down to 3%-5%, our stake would have to be worth £30m+. That means a liquidity event at £999m-£1.6bn, and - with the greatest respect - we can’t see MWI getting (quite) there. My honest analysis is that someone will try to buy you for £100m+ when you reach £10m-15m of ARR, and in your shoes, I’d probably take that offer. Look after your equity, dilute as little as humanly possible, and own as much of an acquisition like that as you possibly can. I hope that’s not too much honesty.

No, Ferdinand. That’s not too much at all. I want more honesty like this in an industry that I feel gets a bed rep (VCs) because it lacks transparency. And whilst I appreciate I’m one of hundreds or maybe thousands vying for your attention and you’re short on time, it would be nice to acknowledge feedback within a sentence.

Despite all this, we were still able to get feedback from the Ferdinand's of the world and continually iterate on Notion FAQ document.

Step 4: Flipping the script

Throughout this process, I started to identify those that were and were not right for us on a subjective scale of how much I liked them, versus the progress they made.

Again, using Otter AI, I found two questions designed to ask investors, post-teaser deck, to qualify whether they were right for us or not to progress to the Notion FAQ document. These two questions alone helped me understand what type of fund they were. Those that bet big and ride the Unicorn, or those that are in it with the founder for the long(er) haul. Whilst I truly believe we could reach a stage where we are implemented in thousands of retailers - intent is the most foundational base of selling is it not? - I had no interest in the pressure of the former. So, the questions I always asked were:

• “What is the risk profile of their portfolio?”
• “What is your expected return from your investment?”

Chapter 3: The journey begins

…and so with 7x offers on the table, we chose Mercuri to lead our round and Mercuri chose us. The reason why we wanted them?

They were one of the 8% who asked my favourite question “What do you want from an investor?. They took my answer of “conviction” and absolutely ran with it.

Here’s a genuine email I sent to the team at Mercuri after closing the round and, in my own words, how I described why we chose them:

I was always a big fan of yours - and not just because Alan just so happened to support the right side of Manchester which should not be underestimated. Nor because of the amazing creds deck, a compliment I still stand by after being courted by many other VCs. But because of your human, empathetic approach to us. A bit of flexibility here, a dash of understanding there all bundled together with an unwavering belief that we’re going places. That’s all I could ask for.

I also summarised my experience with them in a single paragraph. That, after re-reading, I thought so poignant that I’ll use it to end my too-transparent, hopefully helpful fundraising story

I have to say; raising money is harder than I expected. Even with a great background, a killer product, with a very diligent (and handsome) founder, I found it more time consuming and challenging than I originally thought. I wonder what Im going to do with all this time back?!

Let’s go.