Founder Unfriendly : What Investors Won't Tell You about Getting Funded.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Donnell, Charlie.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Investments.

Venture capital.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (269 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Newark : John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2026.

Summary:

A strategy guide for founders who want to understand--and influence--the behavior of venture capitalists and investors so they can get their companies funded In Founder Unfriendly: A No-Nonsense Guide to How Investment Decisions Actually Get Made , veteran venture capitalist Charlie O'Donnell walks you through what actually happens after you leave.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Foreword by Ben McKean, Founder and CEO, Hungryroot

Introduction

Chapter 1 Free Your Mind: Dispelling Myths About Startups and Venture Capital

Should I Raise or Should I Go?

Famously Irrelevant

Choose Your Character

Green Light

Yellow Light

Red Light

Winning Mindsets

Resourced Drivers

Underresourced Drivers

Resourced Passengers

Underresourced Passengers

Level Setting and the Fundability Scorecard

Chapter 2 Show Me the Money: Who Gets Funded and Why?

Soul-Crushing Numbers

The Hard Thing About Biased and Hard Things

The Other Side of the Table

What If It's Not?

Want to Make a Million? Start with Two Million and Lose Half of It

Who You Know Is What You Know

Who Are These VCs We Put on Pedestals?

The Junior Folks

The Hustling Emerging Managers

The Industry Icons

The Old Guys

Dysfunctional Firms, Dysfunctional Experience

The Unequal Partnerships

Decision Paralysis

Partner Churn

Misaligned Incentives

Boardroom Chaos

Chapter 3 I'm Putting Together a Team: Attracting Help and Support

The Network Upkeep Problem

Be Curious

Cruising Without a Destination

The Flywheel

The Heartbeat Habit

Why It Works

Who to Send It To

How to Structure It

Style Matters

The Payoff

Roster Construction: How to Build a Team

Finding a Co-Founder

Finding the Right Mix of Employees Within Your Budget

Pressure-Test Your Plan

You Wouldn't Happen to Know Anyone Who Wants to Get Rich at This Startup with Your Exact Skillset, Would You?

Don't Pre-Reject Yourself

Be Careful with Equity

Hack: The Pro + Rookie Model

How to Run It

Examples

Comp Guardrails

The Hiring Checklist

No Bored Meetings

The Business Modeler

The Insider

The Lifeline.

How to Run an Efficient, Thoughtful Meeting

Chapter 4 You Can't Handle the Truth: Being Rigorous and Honest with Yourself

BD DOA

All Clique, No Buy

But My Mom Likes It

The Best Kind of Feedback

Ask the Right Questions

Why Hasn't This Been Solved?

Strong and Wrong

The Venture Vultures

Founders Are Saying . . .

Founder Time Is Money Too

Chapter 5 There's No Crying in Baseball: Doing the Hard Work

No Excuses

How Good Is Good?

Hairless Ideas

What Counts as "Hair"?

Chapter 6 Keep Your Friends Close: The Importance of Trust

The Varying Levels of Trust

Your Raise Started in High School

Chapter 7 To Infinity . . . and Beyond! Going Big

Gooooooooooals!

What Your Ask Says About You

The Ownership Question

The Secret to Owning More

Fast Doesn't Have to Mean Stupid

The Psychology of Caution

Execution Earns Belief

The Math of Speed

Reframing Risk

Conviction, Earned in Advance

To Model or Not to Model

How to Build a Stage-Based Financial Model

Stage 1: Build and Test

Stage 2: Founder-Driven Sales/Limited Go to Market (GTM)

Stage 3: Gas on the Fire (Post-PMF)

Why Stage-Based Models Work

Chapter 8 Sell Me This Pen: Getting Ready to Raise

About Those VCs

Venture Math

Pitching 101

Creating FOMO Without Getting Your Bluff Called

Who Controls the Purse Strings?

Pull the Rip Cord

For the Love of the Raise

How to Talk Big

Team and Hiring Strategy

How We Frame the Mission

Sandbagging

All Gas, No Brakes

Down to the Penny Doesn't Impress

Chapter 9 These Are Not the Droids You're Looking For: The Pitch

Be an Insider from Day One

Start with Interviews

Swing for the Fences

Peer Groups FTW!

A Seed by Any Other Name

"Getting Off the Ground" Rounds

Friends and Family

Pre-Seed

The Pitch to Earn a Pitch.

Team. Team. Team.

Blank-Check Teams

No-Brainer Meetings

Everyone Else

Markets Make "meh" Founders Look Like Geniuses

To the Moon!

An Idea Is Like a Virus

The Hook

Higgs Bono

Give Me Two Good Reasons

The Game of VC Partner Meeting Telephone

It Has to Be Idiot-Proof

It Can't Be Easily Dismissed

It Has to Feel Big

Go with the Flow

What You're Up Against in the Meeting

How to Fix It

Remember the Purpose

The Five Ds of a Pitch Meeting: Dodge. Duck. Dip. Dive. Dodge.

You Hear This Pitch? It's the Sound of Inevitability

Chapter 10 Dogs and Cats, Living Together: Mass Hysteria! Getting Yeses and Nos

When Interested Is a No

How to Turn Interested into a Yes

What Leading Really Means

Fund or Get Off the Pot

When It's a Real Yes

Don't Count the Money Until . . .

What If They Don't Say Anything at All

What to Do If It's a No

What a No Really Means

Rejection as Market Research

Don't Argue, Don't Vanish

The Long Game

What If the Raise Actually Fails?

Flipping the Script

Final Thoughts

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Index

EULA.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-394-36988-3

1-394-36989-1

9781394369881

OCLC:

1586548661