Money is the lubricant for any business. It’s what makes things work, move forward. It’s what makes the magic happen. Sure, you can be the most amazing business person in the world, but without money, at some point in the game, your ideas are basically just that. Ideas.
But when the time comes for you to raise money, either to get off the ground or to pursue growth and expansion. You need more than ideas. You need a plan, you need investment, and you need people willing to believe in what you believe in and help you make the change.
And this is where a lot of startups, especially, can fail. They have the ideas and the goals, but they don’t have the blocks in place that can secure them the funding they need to take the next step. And that’s the difference between success and failure: the blocks, the groundwork, the effort you put in before you even make a pitch, so you can get the money you need to keep doing or to start doing what you do best.
If you want funding that sticks, here’s how to prep before the pitch deck even gets opened.
Get Your Financials In Order
Every single investor will start with the numbers; that’s a given. It’s not the idea they’re interested in immediately, nor the products; it’s the numbers. You will need up-to-date income statements, cash flow projections, and a clean cap table that actually makes sense.
Many statistics show that cash flow issues are the number one cause of business failure, and if your finances aren’t in order, that’s exactly where people will presume you’re heading. To failure. Plus books that are a bit iffy; they look like you’re hiding something.
They don’t need to be perfect; they just have to make sense. Each figure needs a reason behind it, a justification, not “we’ll figure it out later”. You want to be able to walk someone through your numbers and be able to defend them with the kind of clarity investors notice.
Strengthen Your Strategy Narrative
Once the numbers line up, you need a story that stands behind them. Not a pitch full of buzzwords, a genuine story that proves you understand the market you’re walking into.
And this is where many founders get caught out. They can talk for hours about what makes their product or idea great, but they don’t know how they’ll reach customers or how they can scale without burning cash.
This is where someone like Fractional CMO Matthew Bertram can make a real difference – a strategist who steps in part-time, strengthens your messaging, maps your funnel and shows investors you’ve got more than just enthusiasm behind you.
Build a Team That Can Execute
It’s one thing to have a good deck behind you, but if the team backing you up isn’t looking great or isn’t capable of backing you up, it all stops there. Investors back people first, product second.
You don’t need an army, you just need a few people who actually know what they’re doing– who can handle the messy parts without falling apart. You need an operations lead who is on top of marketing and customer traction, and of course, a solid founder.
And cash flow isn’t the only reason businesses fail each year – those without the right people in the right places also crumble. So now is the perfect time to document who owns what, where the gaps are, and what kind of hires you’d make next to keep moving forward. Again, perfection isn’t required; you just need to prove you’ve put thought into the next steps.
Tighten Operations and Systems
Investors can smell chaos. They look past the story fast and will start asking questions about how the company actually runs on a daily basis. Who tracks progress? How do you measure results? Where does the data live?
You don’t need enterprise software or polished dashboards, but you do need order. A shared timeline. A way to show that deadlines get met and metrics get tracked. When an investor asks for performance data, you need to be able to pull it up in minutes, not chase things across 10 spreadsheets.
Plus, clean internal systems say a lot. They say “we’re ready to scale”. It’s not the most glamorous part, and it’s definitely underrated, but it’s integral.
Prove Market Demand, Not Market Size
There’s a massive difference here. “Our TAM is $1.2 billion”. Great. But investors don’t care. They want traction, and they want evidence that someone wants what you’re selling.
Pre-orders, pilot results, and early customers. These are what prove the market is real. This is where you need validation in the form of case studies, testimonials, signed letters of intent — anything that turns your claim into proof. Market size is what tells investors what could happen; demand is when it tells them it’s already there.
Lockdown Legal and Compliance
The moment things start getting serious, you can expect investors to start running due diligence. And if you haven’t crossed your T’s and dotted the I’s, then you’ll be in trouble.
Double check everything, your incorporation, your contracts, who owns your IP. If you’ve ever used freelancers or early contributors have rights and ownership been transferred? Deals are lost every year because developers or designers still technically own a piece of the codebase.
And the legal and compliance isn’t the most fun aspect but if you’re serious about attracting the right investor these things will be checked so sorting them sooner rather than later will give you and those interested added peace of mind.
Build The Right Momentum
Good funding rounds don’t just happen from nowhere. They’re built slowly. Investors talk, they watch your updates, they see progress long before you pitch.
So start early. Keep your milestones visible. This is things like posting product updates, funding news, growth metrics, whatever shows motion. You want people to know your name before you ever send a deck. A warm intro always beats a cold one.
