A Guide to Preemptive Funding Offers
<i>To be clear, an offer is only an offer if it is a term sheet. Anything short of that is an attempt to get a founder to reveal more information.</i><p>Good succinct point that I think gets lost in the shuffle of founder optimism when fundriasing.<p>That said, my entire mindset around funding a company has shifted after having gone through the spanking machine a few times.<p>I&#x27;m convinced that the entire process of hot intro &gt; send deck &gt; partner pitch &gt; term sheet &gt; shop the term sheet &gt; revise deal &gt; do deal &gt; press release etc... is basically a waste of time if you want to build a massive paradigm shifting company.<p>It&#x27;s just a process for the founders to grow their network and build the signals for major corporate acquirers. You&#x27;ll get market standard terms and have spent a ton of time away from your product. You&#x27;ll go back to work, build up the team, get enough traction in a niche need to look good for a acquisition by FANG.<p>It&#x27;s basically the process for being in the feeder league for being a rookie in the Big Leagues. If that&#x27;s what you want, then great.<p>If you intend to completely upend how business is done, there will be a lot of these preemptive offers, IMO it&#x27;s the best signal that you&#x27;re on to something completely massive.<p>Said another way, if you aren&#x27;t getting preemptive offers, your best long term outcome is likely a middling acquihire.