The Mintround blog
Practical writing on fundraising, pitch decks, and investor outreach for early-stage founders.
11 cold-email mistakes that get founders marked as spam
Eleven concrete cold-email mistakes, from unverified lists and generic blasts to the wrong ask, that get founder outreach ignored or marked as spam.
The investor CRM spreadsheet: a template that actually works
The columns that matter in an investor CRM, how to run the pipeline through them, and how to seed the whole thing from a verified CSV export.
How to research an investor in 15 minutes before a meeting
A 15-minute checklist to research an investor before a call, covering portfolio, thesis, recent deals, socials, mutual connections, and what they pass on.
Angel or VC: who should you email first at pre-seed?
How angels, micro-funds, and institutional VCs differ at pre-seed, and a practical order for who to email first so your round builds momentum.
How many investors should you contact to close a round?
The funnel math behind a raise, realistic conversion ranges, and why a list of 15 to 30 investors is almost never enough to close a round.
Build a 200-investor target list from scratch in one afternoon
A step-by-step to go from zero to a focused 200-name target list - thesis fit, portfolio mining, stage and geo filters, verified emails, one clean sheet.
Why investors pass, and what a 'no' really means
Most investors you pitch will say no. The real reasons behind a pass, how to read vague feedback, and when a no is actually a not yet.
Run your fundraise as a process, not a scramble
Momentum closes rounds. How to batch your outreach, create real competition, and run a tight timeline so investors move on your schedule.
What traction actually means at each stage
Traction is not one number. What counts as proof at pre-seed, seed, and Series A, and the metrics investors trust over vanity figures.
How to find the right investors for your startup
Targeting beats spray-and-pray. Build a focused investor list by stage, sector, and cheque size, and skip the funds that were never going to say yes.