👋 Hi my name is Roslyn, I’m a founder and executive coach. I help purpose-led founders scale their impact without burning out. Learn about working 1:1 here.

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Hi there,

This is our last weekly newsletter on fundraising! 

If you’re new here and interested in learning more about fundraising, we covered everything from how to run a fundraising process to cultivating belief in yourself while you raise. You can find all the past issues here.

Next week we’re shifting gears to the outer and inner work of building startup teams with integrity. We’ll get into everything from hiring and onboarding for values-alignment, to navigating hard conversations, to letting go of perfectionism so we can go from doing to leading.

Today, we’re talking about the importance of managing your time and energy while you’re fundraising. 

We’ll cover:

• How to prioritize and set your team up for success before kicking things off

• Designing your ideal calendar and setting boundaries to protect it

• Scheduling time for rest and stillness in the midst of the chaos

Something new: I’m experimenting with a new recommendations section below. Reply to this email and let me know how you like it. I value your feedback so highly.

Let’s dive in.

Where we go deep on the outer work or the inner work of building a startup.

How To Protect Your Time & Energy While Fundraising

Fundraising truly is a full-time job in terms of the time, energy and emotional capacity it takes.

It can be easy to fall into a reactive loop — letting investor meetings, follow-ups and pitch prep take over your entire schedule and energy.

But it’s important to also keep your company running and your traction building so that you can demonstrate momentum to the investors you’re pitching. 

On top of that, in order to cultivate that magnetic energy that will attract the right investors, you can't be in a state of burnout, and so you need a way to balance efficient productivity with rest.

So how the heck do you balance everything? 

5 STEPS TO MANAGE YOUR TIME & ENERGY WHILE FUNDRAISING

1. GET CLEAR ON YOUR PRIORITIES

Fundraising is a huge undertaking, so you’re not going to be able to accomplish all of your usual tasks AND fundraising tasks at the same time. If you’re expecting to be able to do so, you’re setting yourself up for failure in both areas (and that disappointment in yourself can contribute to burn out).

Instead give yourself grace and get strategic.

What are the things that absolutely must continue to get done and what can fall away or be postponed until after the raise? 

Get ruthless here. 

Define which metrics need to continue to grow in order to illustrate momentum to investors. 

And decide which metrics or operations are okay to simply maintain or even slip during this period.

For instance, if you’re telling investors you have strong early interest based on customer growth, you’ll want to continue investing time in the tactics that maintain that growth.

2. SET YOUR TEAM UP FOR SUCCESS

If you know your team is going to have to step up to fill in for you, set them up for success ahead of time. 

Make the priorities and expectations abundantly clear. What are their goals? What does success look like? How is it being measured? Who is accountable for what outcomes?

Arm them with additional information they can use to make decisions without you. Clearly document or create videos (Loom is great for this) explaining processes they’ll need to carry out. 

You can even give them guardrails to empower autonomy without your input (e.g. “you can make any decision under $1k or that doesn’t affect another team”).

Empower your team — this is an opportunity for them to step up and grow.

If you don’t have a team to delegate to, take some time before your fundraise to see how you might be able to automate, outsource, postpone or eliminate non-priority tasks entirely.

3. DESIGN YOUR IDEAL CALENDAR (AND STICK TO IT)

Before kicking off your fundraise, decide which windows of time you’ll dedicate to fundraising activities (outreach, pitch prep, updating materials, etc.). 

Outside of those blocks, protect time for attending your business’ needs, team management and rest. 

Aim to schedule investor calls in set windows (e.g. 10am-2pm on Tuesdays-Thursdays), allowing you to stay in “pitch mode” and avoiding context switching. 

It can help to create an “ideal calendar” where you lay out time blocks for specific categories of activities. Consider when you have the most energy throughout the day and match that time up with your most important activities.

Layer the ideal calendar on top of your actual calendar and as meetings and tasks come up, try to schedule time according to the blocks in your ideal calendar.

On Sunday evenings or Monday mornings, take some time to evaluate your week’s priorities — both fundraising and regular business — and schedule time blocks to advance your top priorities to ensure they’re getting done.

4. SET BOUNDARIES

Use tools like Calendly to set windows when specific groups of people can book time with you (e.g. investors for certain windows, team members for other windows).

Set your Slack to ‘Do Not Disturb’ and add a note to say when you will be available to answer slacks (e.g. I’ll be online to answer Slack messages from 9-9:30am and 2-3pm weekdays). 

Block specific times in your calendar to attend to things like emails and admin, and don’t get distracted with those things outside of their dedicated blocks. Close down those tabs when not in use.

Add things like breaks, coaching/therapy, and exercise to your calendar to protect that time.

Give a heads up to the people in your life that you’ll be less available during your fundraise window. If you have a partner at home and you anticipate you'll be less able to contribute in your home, give them a heads up as well. Telling people you’re going through an intense push at work can reduce guilt in the moment of having to say no to invitations or contributing less to your household.

5. KEEP YOUR FUNDRAISE WINDOW TIGHT

Ideally you want to be pushing hard for the shortest amount of time possible. This supports building fundraise momentum and also reduces the probability of you burning out from having to juggle fundraising and building your company for an extended period of time.

Make sure all your materials are ready to go before scheduling outreach, including a full investor pipeline, so that you can focus on investor meetings and iterate on your materials as you go (versus creating things from scratch). 

Try reaching out to investors within a tight 2-3 week window.

6. SCHEDULE TIME TO REST AND RECHARGE

Fundraising requires a lot out of your nervous system. It’s not uncommon for it to become dysregulated in such a mentally and emotionally intense process. Rest and recovery will help you stay grounded, sharp and emotionally resilient.

Block off time for exercise, walks in nature, therapy/coaching, journaling, nervous system practices, getting outdoors and anything that allows you to turn your fundraising brain off.

Remember, a resource nervous system enables you to show up with magnetism, presence and calm confidence in high-stakes moments and throughout the fundraise process. 

It’s not selfish to slow down and take care of yourself – it’s a requirement for your success.

For more on how to build nervous system resonance, check out this recent newsletter.

1. Which company metrics am I prioritizing during my fundraise process? Which ones am I intentionally deprioritizing?

2. What strategies will I implement to sest my team up for success while I’m fundraising?

3. What information does my team need in order to make decisions without me?

4. What does my ideal fundraise calendar look like?

5. What boundaries do I want to set for while I’m fundraising? How will I communicate them and enforce them?

6. What are three restorative activities I can use while I’m fundraising to regulate my nervous sytem and recharge? How will I ensure I’m following through on them even when things get really busy?

I’m trying something new this week where I recommend a few things I’ve been into lately. 

GO DEEPER

• Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell, specifically “Chapter 7: Playbooks” goes into detail about how to create SOP’s (standard operating procedures) for your team so they can execute without you. The entire book is extremely valuable but you can also watch this video.

HEALTH

• When I experienced founder burnout, I also suffered from chronic fatigue for an extended period afterwards and I'm still building back to my fully healthy self. I’ve recently been very inspired by Alisa Vitti, the author of Woman Code, and inventor of Cycle Syncing, a method of aligning your daily routines, including diet, exercise and work, with the four phases of your menstrual cycle. 

• She just launched a newsletter on hormones, biohacking and women’s health (backed by studies that focus on women specifically!).

READ

• I just finished reading Burn Rate by Andy Dunn — the co-founder of Bonobos — in 7 days. I couldn't put it down. He shares a very real and raw account of how he built Bonobos while battling manic depression and bipolar disorder. I deeply admire his vulnerability and love how he’s destigmitizing mental health struggles in entrepreneurship.

If you’re currently fundraising and feeling overwhelmed by the weight of tasks, emotions and decisions that come with it…

I would love to support you in staying grounded, strategic and connected to your power through the highs and lows of the process.

Here are the areas I support founders who are fundraising with 1:1 coaching:

• Clarifying your vision and messaging to help you pitch with confidence and magnetism

• Developing a fundraising plan and reviewing fundraising materials so you start with a strong foundation

• Discovering and challenging limiting beliefs and stories keeping you stuck

• Holding a safe space to process the difficult emotions so you can proceed with aligned action

• Helping you stay connected to your power and values

• Holding structure and accountability that support your positive momentum

If you’d like to learn more, you can book a call with me here.

I hope you have a beautiful week.

With love,
Roslyn 💚