Eva Dobrzanska - Founder - Fundraising Playbooks

Breakfast with founders 🥐 Today I met with Eva Dobrzanska

THE champion of fundraising, Eva is the director of Fundraising Playbooks - a no-BS service that coaches founders into understanding how better to reach out to investors + A LOT more..!

Being intentional and clever with cold outreach is far more effective when you take the 1% of tangibles.

We spoke about:

- Coaching and supporting founders into becoming better fundraisers vs. fundraising for them. At an early stage, like many areas, founders should actively be involved in fundraising and not outsource to anyone. I personally would not be interested in any early stage opportunity that comes to me pitched by an introducer or non-founder.

- Understanding the basics of networks and relationships can have a mighty impact on the outcome of other activities. Being intentional and clever with cold outreach is far more effective when you take the 1% of tangibles.

- The difference in the UK/EU and US ecosystems with the pros and cons of both. We have a thriving ecosystem in the UK, despite the regulatory and tax challenges we continue to see.

- Do your due diligence on your potential investors. It's easy to feel like the money is there and just to take it. We share some horrifying stories here.. including a term sheet that came off the back of a potential arms deal. Not all dollars were created equal..! 

- Learning to say 'no' when the idea just isn't right. Sometimes a bit of 'tough love' feedback to founders is far more valuable than trying to make something work at the gain of a client. A difficult to fund idea now might not get easier even with the best investor outreach and narratives.

Eva does a lot of great things for the ecosystem, so be sure to follow and get yourself to one of her events or webinars soon! And who knows, we might even see a Fundraising Playbooks x Squared collab soon 👀