Mindset Shifts Fundraising Success

Jack Smith shares a story about how a mindset shift transformed his roommate's ability to raise funding for his startup.

"I was living with my roommate who was 35 and trying to launch a business. He couldn't raise any money at all. His mindset was stuck feeling sorry for himself, saying things like 'I read on TechCrunch about 18-year-olds getting into Y Combinator, but nobody respects me even though I have way more experience.'

At some point, he had a complete mindset shift. He said 'I realize I haven't been going all in because I'm scared that if I don't raise funding, I'm going to look like a failure to my network.' He decided 'From this day forward, if I do not raise funding for this business, I'm never going to try and raise funding again. This is my one shot.'

He looked up all his connections on LinkedIn and wasn't embarrassed about rejection anymore. He decided to ask every single person in his network for investor intros. Within a month, he raised an amazing seed round. His business has now raised over $25 million because he just went all in. People could tell he had the conviction. He wasn't feeling sorry for himself anymore - he was telling them 'I'm going to raise funding and this business is going to be huge.'

If an investor rejected him now, instead of seeing it as reaffirming that he wasn't good enough, he would just think 'Oh well, I guess this guy wasn't a fit' and move on to the next one. The rejections didn't distract him from his path anymore."