- The video features four women founders introducing themselves and their companies.
- Talia Frankel is the founder of Elle, a company that makes safe and natural personal care products. They raised over $2.5 million.
- Caitlin Gleason is the founder and CEO of Eligible, a healthcare infrastructure company. They raised $1.6 million and recently raised over $20 million.
- Aarti Ramamurthy is the founder and CEO of Loomwide, a try-before-you-buy service for gadgets. They have raised about $3.5 million and are closing another round soon.
- Liz Wessel is the CEO of Way Up, a marketplace for college students to find jobs and internships. They have raised over $9 million.
- Caitlin bootstrapped her company for the first year and focused on building a prototype and getting deals to create value before raising money.
- Aarti faced challenges in raising her first round of funding, but persevered by reaching out to numerous investors and eventually closing a $1.2 million round.
- Talia faced initial awkwardness when talking to investors about her company, but emphasized the market opportunity and profit margins to overcome their reservations.
- Liz prepared for fundraising by knowing her numbers well and being able to answer any question thrown at her.
- The video ends with a discussion on how to get the first introduction to an investor for early-stage founders.

- The speakers in the video discuss their experiences with raising funds before and after Y Combinator (YC).
- They emphasize the importance of personal connections and introductions in securing funding.
- The speakers mention that participating in YC's demo day helped attract investor interest.
- They highlight the need for learning and understanding deal terms and terms of raising capital.
- The speakers recommend asking questions and seeking advice from experienced individuals in the industry.
- They suggest being selective about fundraising and only doing it if necessary, based on the business's metrics and goals.
- The speakers advise being graceful and not getting angry or upset when investors initially say no, as they may change their minds later.
- They caution against waiting for investors who are giving indirect rejections and suggest moving on instead.
- The speakers stress the importance of maintaining good relationships with investors and avoiding getting nasty or confrontational.
- Confidence is seen as crucial, and it involves talking about accomplishments, being efficient with time, knowing when to negotiate, and knowing how to gracefully exit a meeting.
- Preparation is key, and it helps to speak succinctly and engage in a conversation with investors rather than just talking about the company.

- It is important to know your key performance indicators (KPIs) and be able to communicate them quickly and effectively during pitches.
- When pitching to institutional funds, it is important to convey how your company has the potential to become a billion-dollar company.
- The speaker shares a story about a negative experience with an investor who called their business a scam, highlighting the emotional impact it had.
- The speaker advises not to take investor feedback personally and to stay logical and focused on the numbers.
- The importance of perseverance and not giving up despite challenges and doubts from others is emphasized.
- Entrepreneurs should remember that they are the experts in their own business and should be confident in their own knowledge and decisions.

- The video features four women founders introducing themselves and their companies.
- Talia Frankel is the founder of Elle, a company that makes safe and natural personal care products. They raised over $2.5 million.
- Caitlin Gleason is the founder and CEO of Eligible, a healthcare infrastructure company. They raised $1.6 million and recently raised over $20 million.
- Aarti Ramamurthy is the founder and CEO of Loomwide, a try-before-you-buy service for gadgets. They have raised about $3.5 million and are closing another round soon.
- Liz Wessel is the CEO of Way Up, a marketplace for college students to find jobs and internships. They have raised over $9 million.
- The founders share their experiences with fundraising, including challenges and strategies.
- Personal connections and introductions are emphasized as important for securing funding.
- Participating in YC's demo day is mentioned as helpful in attracting investor interest.
- Knowledge of deal terms and capital raising is recommended.
- Selective fundraising based on business metrics and goals is advised.
- Maintaining good relationships with investors and avoiding confrontation is stressed.
- Confidence, preparation, and succinct communication are key in pitching to investors.
- Knowing key performance indicators (KPIs) and potential for growth is important in pitching to institutional funds.
- Perseverance and not taking investor feedback personally are highlighted.
- Entrepreneurs should be confident in their own knowledge and decisions.

L. founder Talia Frenkel, Eligible co-founder Katelyn Gleason, Lumoid founder Aarthi Ramamurthy, and WayUp co-founder Liz Wessel discuss fundraising in this panel, moderated by Y Combinator partner Kat Manalac.

So I'd love for you to each introduce yourselves.

And if you could introduce yourself and your company and what it does, what batch you went through YC, and how much money you've raised or the stage.

Elle makes unquestionably safe and natural personal care products that give back.

We raised our seed round shortly after just over $2.5 million.

Hi, I'm Caitlin Gleason, the founder and CEO of Eligible.

We're a healthcare infrastructure company that processes medical eligibility and claims.

At that time, I had raised about 1.6 million, grew the company to profitability, and have just raised a little over 20 million recently.

Loomwide is a try before you buy service for gadgets, consumer electronics.

Since then we've done a couple of rounds.

We are going to be closing another round pretty soon, but not announced yet.

I'm 1 of the cofounders and the CEO at a company called Way Up.

It is the largest marketplace for college students to find jobs and internships.

So if anyone's looking for interns or new grads, check out wayup.com.

We've been around for about a year and a half.

So I'm gonna start out with a question for each 1 of you and some more general questions that I think all of you could answer.

Caitlin, you bootstrapped for the first year of your company's life.

How did you make the decision to bootstrap and what advice would you have for women in the audience today who are bootstrapping?

I was optimizing for a fast and efficient fundraising process.

I had been warned repeatedly that a long, drawn out fundraising process can absolutely kill a company and I was very afraid of that.

I had seen a couple of companies do it and didn't want to repeat that problem.

So I essentially had to focus on things that I knew I was good at.

I didn't go to school for engineering, I didn't have a technical cofounder, but I could sell.

So I focused on building prototype, getting some first deals, really making some money, and then once you're in a position where you're actually creating value and you've created a product, people are much more inclined to invest money in you.

We were talking backstage about how you got your company to profitability before you raised a

I raised 1.6 and for 3 years I took that 1.6 and obsessively built the company in a way that was probably not really healthy.

I have 10 best girlfriends that I went to high school with and I couldn't attend 1 of their weddings.

It is the reality of what the startup is.

But in doing so, I was able to bring on what we do is we connect hospitals, radiology centers, laboratories with insurance companies.

So I was able to land some really key large deals on that 1.6.

I brought the company, we grew 8.4X in 1 year.

When I sat down to raise money, I didn't need the money.

I could walk away if it wasn't a deal that made sense to me.

So Arati, I remember you saying once that you emailed 250 investors before you got your first check.

So talk to us a little bit about what was your lowest point and what was it that gave you the faith to keep going?

Our first round straight out of YC took so long for us to raise.

It was incredibly brutal on me, on everybody on the team.

I have 1 other person, our head of operations is here.

And it just took us a really long time to not just close the first check, but close the first round.

We mailed, I had mailed about 250, maybe more investors just had this giant spreadsheet of like this is a person, this is their background, here is what you need to focus on.

First round of conversation, phone call, second round, where did it go?

And I think of all of these guys, I think I met 85 people.

And Ultimately, we closed our first round, which was 1.2 million, about 8 months later.

By that time, I basically now, if you bring an investor's name, I probably have spoken to them.

I think since then, it has given me a lot more confidence.

Like building the company is not such a big deal.

So what was it that made you certain that yes, like we'll be able to do this?

Like, there is no, you can't take no for an answer.

And they say no, and you find another person, and it's just investment, you know?

It's Whatever they say, it depends on the time of day, what their beliefs are.

They have a valid point from their perspective and you do too.

Talia, there are a lot of interesting elements about Elle and what you are building.

It is a consumer packaged goods company, a social good company.

What was that conversation with investors like?

And our second product is 100% organic tampons and pads.

So whether it's talking about sex or menstruation, it's 2 topics that are shrouded in mystery for most investors.

I mean, there's awkward laughter here in the audience, and it was a little awkward at first.

I think that what's really important is bringing it back, like kind of changing the tone of the conversation into, hey, there's some serious pain points.

You know, 50% of the population menstruates, and condoms are the most popular form of birth control.

So it's about speaking to investors in a language they understand.

I think on demo day it was the joke, 94% profit margins.

In terms of social impact, I think it is important when you have a social enterprise or a B Corp, it is important to talk about your social strategy or that bottom line as a business strategy and something that really inspires your consumers, it inspires the talent, you know, that you can attract for your team.

So that bottom line really kind of contributes to your financial bottom line.

And Liz, you among your batch were 1 of the most successful at fundraising.

What were things that you specifically did to prepare for the process?

Yeah, so I would say we were working with a product that dealt with responding to a problem that no 1 would disagree with.

No investor, unlike what you just heard about, no investor doesn't understand how hard it is to get internships as a student.

Either they have kids or a little brother or little sister or something like that.

It's something that they've dealt with personally.

And so I would say I was able to talk about the story and tell the story really well in a way that could be personal to them.

I did my research where they went to school and could talk about the problems at their school, et cetera.

But I would say overall the number 1 thing that I think I prepared with that helped was just knowing our numbers, like down pat.

I would go to a meeting and any question they asked.

I felt like making a deck would be a big waste of my time.

And I thought I knew every single number anyway.

And if they don't want to talk to me because I don't have a deck, then so be it.

And there were a few investors who were like, please send me the deck ahead of time, it's our funds policy.

And I would say, okay, I'm really sorry, we don't have to meet.

So I would say overall, it was just like knowing my numbers down pat.

And when I walked into that room, they could throw any question at me and I knew exactly the number and would talk to them about the 3 numbers they should be asking about that they weren't.

So a lot of women in the audience have, you know, not raised yet and a lot of questions that I get from very early stage founders is how did you get your very first introduction to an investor?

And especially if you raised anything before YC, how did you get those kind of introductions?

My very first, I used to work at Google and I worked in India and I worked somewhat closely with the VP of Google India and his wife was an LP in, actually it's relevant to this, the female founders fund based out of New York City.

He and his wife introduced me to her and I almost worked at a venture capital fund and a woman there actually ended up, before Google, a woman there ended up introducing me to Box Group, which was David Tish and Adam Rothenberg.

The second we met with Box, they said we're really interested, come back.

They pretty much gave us an offer on the spot.

After that, they said we'll do the rest of the round for you.

To this day, they still help us with a lot.

So it was a mix of personal connections, but it wasn't like I knew any of the investors ever before.

And I think the demo day really, really helped.

When we got off stage, we had a few investors who were interested.

We didn't get any checks on that day, but we followed up and we kept at it.

And 3 weeks down the road, we got our first check.

And then that investor introduced us to his set of friends.

Once I got the first check in, it got a lot easier.

I could then go talk to their friends, and their friends, and the network just kept expanding.

My first checks were from women who cared about women's reproductive rights.

I got connected to them By basically talking about Elle all of the time to everyone I met.

And eventually people were like, well, you should really meet, and you should really meet.

And then, you know, eventually I spoke to these women.

Because at the time, we didn't have a product, we didn't have a revenue, we didn't have the partnerships we have today.

So it was really about them wanting to see something that exists in the world.

They took that leap with me and I felt really fortunate.

You talked about what you did to prepare for fundraising.

Is there anything you guys, the rest of you specifically did to help you get ready for the fundraising process?

a lot more to fundraising than valuation.

And I think there is a lot of terms and deal terms that I think guys shoot the shit on and girls don't.

So all things about just understanding that when you raise a large round you are likely going to give up board control and that is going to change the trajectory of how you make decisions in your company, right?

It's going to affect types of equity you grant to folks and it's going to affect how much money you can raise in the future.

And it's just things or if you're considering an acquisition, it may affect that.

So I think that it's just something, I did a lot of learning, I did a lot of reading, a lot of talking to people who have raised capital before successfully.

I mean, it's like the endless, amazing group of the smartest people at this time, right?

I feel like everyone is so willing to help, right?

Because they have either gone through it or maybe they have had a great experience or maybe they have had a bad experience.

I think asking questions is scary sometimes, but I think it actually gets you the farthest.

I think it's really helpful to talk to people who have gone through the process and ask them for their tips and feedback and advice and what went wrong.

Every Monday he put out a blog post that went over 1 specific term or 1 specific concept.

It does look so bad when you go into a meeting with an investor and they start negotiating a specific term and you don't know what it means and

you are negotiating because you don't want to say you don't know.

It was my seed round, and I actually said to him, I'm a first-time founder, and I'm going to admit right now that I don't

I don't know enough about that to be able to speak eloquently about it.

I always blame it on if I can't know the answer.

But usually he doesn't know what it means either.

This may be counterintuitive given what we're talking about, but tips for fundraising.

1 thing I do want to point out is not everybody needs to fundraise.

It's something that everyone gets pushed into, especially in the Valley, where it's like, how much have you raised?

And it's this buzzword that everyone loves to throw around.

Not all businesses need to raise right now or whatever stage you are in or right at the beginning or halfway through.

If you don't need to raise, and you can get to that answer by looking at the metrics, by figuring out what the bottom line is, don't raise.

Like, there are plenty of really, really successful businesses that haven't had to raise money and have built it out into profitability, have either been acquired or gone public.

You don't need to do it just because everyone else is doing.

You don't have to, you know, fundraise Just because all of us here are talking about it doesn't mean you have to go back home tonight and start fundraising.

It doesn't work that way, you don't need to.

The other thing I wanted to bring up, which Ushma said, was when you talk to investors, be graceful about them saying no.

I think this is something I learned much later.

We've had investors who said no in the beginning and I'm like, I'm going to say, I'm going to prove it to these guys and I'm going to come back and this is going to be so successful that you're going to regret this.

And it doesn't really help being so angry and upset all the time.

And a lot of these guys, like what happened was, initially they didn't see the traction, you know, we didn't have the traction, we were very young, very early, And then month over month we were growing, you know, whatever percent.

And then 8 months later, 10 months later, we'd meet them somewhere and they'd be like, so how's it going?

And we'd show them the numbers and then they'd be like, oh, do you still have some allocation left?

Allocation is the key word, learn that you guys.

If you're, sounds smart, allocation, You just need to know that.

But they would come in and be like, can we then invest?

And we've had a lot of we've had At least 3 investors who said no once.

We've had 1 investor who said no like 3 times.

And then the fourth time they were like, I'm going to be an idiot to not invest.

The first No doesn't always mean a no forever.

Can I counter that with a lot of the time?

But on top of that, most smart investors will not say no, but they mean no.

So a lot of the time, they're going to say, I've been rejected a bunch of times, but I don't think I've ever been told no.

Can you come back to me when you have someone else leading it.

I really will have to talk to my partners about this, and then they don't get back to you.

Any of those things mean no, and don't wait for them to switch.

Dating someone who's flaky and scared of rejecting you.

the beginning and I had a real journey in learning that that is not the way to go.

This is my baby and you were telling me it wasn't a big enough market.

So I think just remember that I think you both said this wonderfully.

They're going to say yes a year from now.

You have a lot to learn from these people.

I was just going to also add that I think confidence is really important and people talk about confidence a lot, especially in the context of being a female investor, walking into a room, and it's really confusing, or I think it was really confusing for me at least, what that means or how you embody confidence.

And some things that confidence means is just, you know, talking about your accomplishments, not wasting anyone's time, knowing when to negotiate and when not to, knowing when to say no, knowing how to leave gracefully.

So I think also maybe preparing yourself for how you want that meeting to go before going into it.

Were there specific things you did to prepare yourself or did you have to sort of learn on the fly?

Like you sort of learned from experience?

1 thing that really helps because you have to speak really succinctly when speaking to an investor and you're really passionate about your company and you want to tell them everything that's amazing about it because you want them to feel the same way that you do.

So I think it's really important to know what your key performance indicators are.

And then if the conversation shifts in other directions, be prepared.

I think 1 other way to get prepared that I don't think enough people do, and I felt that way, especially about my batch when we were practicing fundraising pitches on each other.

I felt like all of us struggled with this is being able to tell the story of how you're going to build a multi-billion dollar company.

So it's 1 thing to talk about like here is how I'm going to hit this KPI within the next year but talking about how you are going to, and you don't have to necessarily be the next Google, but how you are going to be a billion dollar company.

That's important for if you are pitching any institutional fund.

I remember 1 fund, 1 of the top funds in the country said to me, we love your business but we don't know if this could be a billion dollar company.

So I went back, this is during YC, to 1 of the partners who is 1 of the smartest people I've ever met in my life, Ali Rogani, and I was like, help me figure out how to pitch this as a multi-billion dollar company And he asked me well What do you think and I laid it all out and he helped me tell that story and that was when my pitch suddenly went From like fine to you're not gonna walk away without giving me a term sheet

So what During your processes was there anything that went really wrong?

What is the craziest story that you guys have that you can tell?

See all Y Combinator transcripts on Youtube

Fundraising Panel at Female Founders Conference 2016