First Round of Funding: When Should a Founder Go Raise
I. Introduction The Critical Decision Point for Raising the First Round of Funding In the crazy journey of entrepreneurship, one decision often stands out as pivotal – when to raise …
My Journey
I built my first startup GuideBuddy in 2013 while starting a Ph.D. I lost 2 years and made $0 from it.
I didn’t know how to build a product that my customers really wanted. I wasted 100s of hours building the wrong features, and talking to the wrong people.
I shut down Guidebuddy in 2015 and vowed never to make the same mistakes.
In 2017, I finished my Ph.D. and started SIERA.AI with a $50,000 grant from the US government.
I spent over 3 months just talking to 100+ customers and learning their true pain points.
Over the next 5 years, I went on to raise ~$7M of venture capital (without any prior network), built a team of 30+ people across 2 continents, launched 2 unique AI and Robotics product lines, scaled a go-to-market program, and onboarded over 60 enterprise customers (several of them in the Fortune 500). The largest deal we sold was worth over $300,000.
Taking all the lessons from over a decade of working in and building startups, I built a playbook to codify the exact systems that helped me raise millions from top-tier investors, build 2 highly desirable products, and sell 6-figure B2B deals to Fortune 500 brands like Pepsi and John Deere.
Now I’m on a mission to help 100,000 other ambitious founders like you build wildly successful businesses.
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Testimonials
5 Out of 5 Founders Recommend Working With Me
Saurav has been absolutely fantastic. He has helped me figure out how to market my product and services effectively, how to find product market fit. He's just been an absolute wealth of information and support. He always comes incredibly prepared for all the meetings and we leave with actionable next steps. I cannot recommend Saurav enough and he has been absolutely fantastic to work with.
Saurav has been instrumental in our journey to helping us really strategize with talking to VCs, securing investors, and being able to help with certain areas of product development, and also just overall the overall business strategy.
It was great, indeed. Sometimes, when you are stuck, it is good to go back to basics. I would recommend anyone launching and growing a business to get in touch with you. So good advice at every step. Thanks!
As an investor in Siera.ai and advisor to the company, I have always been impressed with Saurav’s persistence, adaptability, vision, and willingness to listen and learn. He stays calm in the face of adversity and finds ways to succeed. He is a strong communicator, has great work ethic, and has become a trusted friend. I will 100% back him in future pursuits!
I have really enjoyed working with you. I really appreciate your help in better understanding how to present information without stepping on landmines or opening up a can of worms. After making the initial changes you are able to keep refining the investor deck in a very good way.
The best thing about working with Sawruv that he was a founder himself and understand the founder mindset well.
Saurav and I worked together at SIERA in multiple roles. He is a visionary founder with "never-give-up" mentality.
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