Raising your first round
doesn’t have to suck.

Too many founders struggle with fundraising because they don't understand how the seed ecosystem works or how to fundraise efficiently and effectively.

To raise a quick, successful round, you need to understand how to navigate the seed fundraising ecosystem effectively, how to use the dynamics of a round to your advantage, and how to align your actions with the way investors make decisions.

Oversubscribed shows you how.

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This is the complete guide to raising a seed round successfully, written by two founders who have done it themselves. The content is comprehensive, the style is welcoming, and the narrative puts the nervous founder at ease about such a stressful process. Save yourself the trouble of reading a hundred Medium articles on the same topic—just get Oversubscribed.
—Tim Dingman, YC founder (W16)

Just some of what’s included...

The consequences of raising money, both good and bad, and whether you should raise at all
How to stack the chips in your favor so you can get momentum out of the gate
The different people who work at VC firms and how to engage each of them productively
How to create a sense of urgency with investors
Angel and VC investor business models and the implications they have for you
How to find the angels and VCs who you and your startup are most likely to resonate with
How a typical VC investment process works, and how you should build and manage your fundraising funnel
How to craft a compelling narrative for your raise
As the founder of an early-stage VC firm, I was both humbled and inspired to read Oversubscribed. There was so much information in the book I found useful and presented in a clear and fresh way, and inspired because the path they lay out will definitely increase the odds of success for any founder. We will be distributing copies to all our portfolio founders.
—Luke Armour, Founder & Managing Partner, Chaac Ventures

Our Story

We met in Detroit in 2013, as early members of Venture for America. By 2014, we had each started our own companies. As first-time founders, we faced the new challenge of fundraising. At first, we were terrible at it. Which is no surprise—fundraising is really hard!

Although both of our companies eventually failed, we ended up becoming pretty good at early-stage fundraising along the way, raising a combined $5M from all sorts of investors: famous ones like Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, and Y Combinator, but also tons of smaller angels and VCs you’ve probably never heard of.

Over the years, as other founders started coming to us for fundraising advice, we realized that there wasn’t a good source for the kind of guidance we’d have wanted to see when we were raising our companies’ first rounds.

And lots of the best advice out there came from VCs (who weren’t exactly neutral parties) or was written for people who already had connections. There wasn’t much out there that felt targeted towards typical first-time founders like us.

This book is the guide we wish we’d had when we were first starting out.

—Mike Wilner and Max Nussenbaum
The next time someone asks me how to raise money, I’ll save myself (and them) an hour of stammering explanation, and just send them here.
—Mike Tarullo, COO, Banza
Oversubscribed isn't just about funding sources, but about the psychology behind those sources. An excellent must-read for new entrepreneurs.
—Will Herman, angel investor, and startup mentor
Oversubscribed is a quick and dense read with actionable advice on how to get your seed round closed methodically and quickly.
—Jim Hau, angel investor
Max and Mike offer a practical, accessible take on raising money learned from their own experiences in building their businesses.
—Taylor Davidson, founder, Foresight

Oversubscribed

A Founder’s Guide to Seed Fundraising

by Mike Wilner and Max Nussenbaum

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