Thread by @businessbarista

Today's Founder’s Journal is about how Morning Brew raised money.

It was highly unorthodox to say the least.

We raised $750,000 from 28 individuals.

Time to share the original investor deck with a hint of commentary.

Read on 👇

𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗦𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲:

1) We were very clearly not designers

2) That very quickly became our old logo

𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮:

This could be the world's longest agenda.

In hindsight, 75% of this was fluff.

All our investors really cared about was our business plan & how we planned to use their money.

𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:

It's amazing how consistent our vision has been since Day 1.

All that's changed is the manifestation of that vision.

Started with 70k subscribers.

Now it's 7 products and 3 million people in-ecosystem.

𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗦𝗶𝘇𝗲:

This is a very stupid slide.

𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻:

This is the slide investors cared about.

For two 20-year-old, first-time founders to convince investors, we had to show our maturity with a clear plan.

What's wild is this plan was spot on.

Just took 5 years not 5 months to achieve.

𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟳 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲:

To my last point, first-time founders are REALLY BAD at predicting timing early on.

We said we'd launch a new vertical in October 2017.

That didn't happen until March 2019.

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺:

We haven't worn a suit & tie since.

𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗹:

We ended up raising $750,000 (not $250,000) from 28 individual investors.

It was a great group of people, who believed in us throughout.

The one challenge: wrangling documents from 28 people was a nightmare.

And that's Morning Brew's fundraising story!

If you want the full story check out today's episode of Founder's Journal about our fundraise: apple.co/3aeMYtX

And follow me on Twitter for more threads about entrepreneurship, business, and media: twitter.com/businessbarista