2024 was a consolidation year for Fulcrum. After our 7th cohort of Fundraising Mastery competed late last year we took a step back and moved into a more bespoke model of advisory services for entrepreneurs raising larger seed rounds. After 5 years of working with mostly pre-seed entrepreneurs, creating the...

Fulcrum Venture Accelerator, the startup accelerator for mission-driven entrepreneurs, announced its seventh cohort today –  comprising a select group of exceptional companies poised to make a significant impact. “We are thrilled to announce the highly anticipated seventh cohort today,” said CEO Will Sacks. “The journey to this point has been...

I had a conversation with a founder today about fundraising during the summer, so I thought I’d write out some thoughts. As you might know, the venture capital world experiences a slow down in August every year as investors take vacations. So what are fundraising entrepreneurs to do? The reality...

Raising money is a highly asymmetrical process: Founders do it only a few times in their careers, while Angels and VC’s do it all day every day for years. This results in a massive information, knowledges and skills gap between founders and investors. Watch this session (held on June 14th...

How do you as a founder orient to the current challenges and opportunities that are showing themselves in the market? Tough economic times present challenges, but they are also when billion dollar unicorns are born. As part of our mission to help founders succeed regardless of what’s going on macro-economically,...

Entrepreneurs, are you struggling to catch the attention of investors in today’s competitive market? Don’t worry, our pitch deck workshop (held on May 10th 2023) will give you the edge you need to succeed! Learn from our in-house Venture Partner & All-Star Pitch Deck creator, Melanie Platt, as she shares...

After a rigorous selection process that involved reviewing hundreds of companies we have handpicked our sixth cohort of promising companies and innovative startups, all set to graduate in June 2023. Our cohort companies are selected based on the founder and potential to make a positive impact. We are excited by...

This morning we were forwarded a Wired article about how Natallia Miranchuk (a founder from our December cohort) just closed a seed investment from super model Natalia Vodianova. Having founded a femtech company myself I know how impactful they can be so this warms my heart. This is a big win...

Are you a Founder looking for resources to raise capital over the next six months? The Fulcrum VA team hosted a Virtual Open House session on March 1st. They went into depth on our program design, our Mentor and Investor Network for growth, and our approach to working with founders...

AI is potentially the biggest technological breakthrough in the history of the human race. So how can founders adjust and integrate? Watch an open discussion on how investors are preparing for AI technologies and what startup founders should be considering when implementing tools like ChatGPT. Guests: Jeremy Burton, Platform Studio...

In this market, getting the attention of VC’s is harder than ever. On average, investors are spending a little more than 2 minutes reviewing a deck before they move on… Watch our Venture Partner, Melanie Platt break it down and get the do’s and don’ts on creating a pitch deck...

It’s no secret that in 2023, global economic changes are drastically affecting all aspects of our lives. Join us for both an Investor and a Founder perspective. Guests: John Albright, Relay Ventures, Managing Partner Dylan Robbins, Lucra Sports, CEO & Founder

After reviewing hundreds of applicants, we are thrilled to announce our fifth cohort of promising young companies set to graduate in March 2023. We select companies based on their market potential and likelihood to make a positive impact on our world. After spending time with these incredible founders listed below,...

Take a peek at our Open house webinar where you can watch our successful alumni and mentor, Daniel Nordberg (CEO – Playground.tv) and Fulcrum Founder Will Sacks show you around our flagship program Fundraising Mastery. –

A few weeks ago we held another Investor Roundtable event with 3 prominent investors: Aaron Stachel from First Mile Ventures, Angela Lee from 37 Angels and Liam Randall from Relentless VC. If you get a chance I highly recommend you watch the recording because it was a very lively and...

Watch the Fulcrum team and prominent investors for a frank and honest discussion about how founders can close seed funding in 2023. –

Here's a proven method to handle investor objections and finish meetings with investor commitments. Today let's talk about handling investor objections.An "Objection" is a concept from sales, and since fundraising is sales, objections are very relevant to raising capital from investors. In fact, I believe it's crucial for every founder...

A glimpse inside Fundraising Mastery, our 3-month fundraising accelerator program for seed-stage mission-driven entrepreneurs with successful alum, Alexa Barker, Program Director Mike Schroeck & Fulcrum Founder Will Sacks.

The world we live in has problems and needs solutions, and I believe a lot of those solutions will come from entrepreneurs like you. But in order for those solutions to actually get into the hands of the people who need them, funding is often critical. And the sad reality...

It’s always fun to report on the success of our alumni, and that’s definitely the case with Nori, a company with the grand mission to solve climate change. We met Paul Gambill, Nori’s CEO in the pre-seed stage during the pandemic, and it’s been wonderful to see him integrate his...

As I’ve been doing interviews for Fundraising Mastery this week (We launch in 2 weeks!) I’ve found myself having a recurring strategy discussion with founders: The topic that has come up multiple times is what to call a specific raise. ie. what’s the difference between a “seed round” and a “pre-seed...

One thing I wanted to do at Kindara, and that I think is natural for CEO’s to want to do is to outsource fundraising. After all, as a CEO I outsourced lots of things: Marketing, product, engineering, finance etc. But try as I might I could never manage to outsource...

In today's post I'm going to address the final step of the 7 step process of doing super effective investor meetings: The final close. As a reminder the 7 step process is: Step 1: Engage Step 2: Build Rapport Step 3: Qualify Step 4: Enroll Step 5: Handle Objections Step...

Over the last two weeks I've been writing posts to help you get better at doing investor meetings. Today I'm going to talk about how to close investors for your seed round using "test closes".

A webinar on common fundraising mistakes and how founders can use the Fulcrum fundraising process to close seed funding. Learn how to set yourself up for success in closing your round.

How do I leverage zoom to my advantage? How do I stand-out, spark interest, draw positive attention, and take what used to be an offline conversation and turn that into an online experience vs just yet another zoom conversation?

Fulcrum Alum Paul Gambill from Nori sent us a short video on how he used the Fulcrum process to close more than $5M in seed funding over the last 18 months.

Nori has a beautiful vision to reverse climate change and it was such a pleasure and an honor to work with the team to close their $1.3M seed round in January and assist with this current round.

In this session Fulcrum founder Will Sacks goes over 25 rookie fundraising mistakes that we see founders making over and over. Learn what not to do and what to do instead to succeed with your raise.

As many of us have learned, just because you have a solid concept, team, product, traction, and market opportunity, it doesn't mean investors will get excited. Because excitement is an emotion, and the language of emotion is storytelling.

Hey everyone, our founder Will hosted a webinar last Tuesday for the Founder Institute called “How to Fundraise Successfully During a Pandemic” We had over 350 people attend and it was a great session with about 40 minutes of founder Q&A about fundraising at the end. Will’s presentation focussed on...

  View this post on Instagram   I go over the stages of doing an investor meeting. Engage- Build Rapport – Enroll – Compel. FYI Our next cohort of the Fundraising Mastery accelerator is launching in a few weeks A post shared by Will Sacks (@willsacks) on Jun 15, 2020...

I felt sickened and overwhelmed this past week as I watched the ongoing police brutality and impunity in this country amid protests demanding racial justice. I also felt some hope as I learned about the positive changes that the protests are already helping make a reality And I kept asking myself the question,...

What does the coronavirus pandemic mean for you as a founder raising money? How do you navigate this new landscape? Will funding dry up? Or are there new opportunities being created?

Hi Friends, Many of you might be wondering what to do about the Covid-19 pandemic. Well here is a statement signed by many of the startup leaders here in the Colorado startup community that appeared on Feld Thoughts today. Remember if we do our job it will seem like we...

Hi friends, today I did a presentation for the Founder Institute’s Funding Lab class of 2019. In this video, I go over the winning psychology of fundraising and how to use it to do investor meetings that convert (i.e. how to get investors to say “yes”) If you like this...

For anyone who has a dream and wants to raise funding to make it happen, there’s three objections I hear the most. I don’t know any investors. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to structure the deal.   One of my missions in life is to...

Ok so you’ve decided to raise a seed round for your company and you are asking yourself the question “How much money should I raise?” Well here’s my answer: either raise twice as much as you think you need to get to Default Alive status, or twice as much as...

Note: this post was transcribed from this video. Today I’m going to talk about How To Overcome Founder Burnout. I have personal experience with founder burnout and I would define it as follows: Founder burnout is when you are working so many hours every week for so long, that you...

Note: this post was transcribed from this video. Hey guys, in this article I’m going to go over four more ways that you can meet angel investors. Let’s go!: So in the previous article (How To Meet Angel Investors Part 1) we’ve already gone over our Personal Network, Local Angel...

Today we’re going to talk about Co-founder Conflict. If there’s conflict with your co-founder, how do you know if you should ask your co-founder to leave the business, or stick it out? In my work with CEOs, there’s one issue that comes up over and over again, and that is...

(Note: This post was transcribed and edited from this video) In this article, I’m going to talk about how to get a lead investor for your startup. This is the process I used to raise multiple rounds of funding at Kindara. So how do you find a lead investor for your...

Hey guys, I want to talk for a few minutes about cofounder friction and what to do if you’re in a situation where you started a company with somebody and now it’s not feeling sweet or good and there’s friction and you don’t know what to do. I see this...

Today I’m going to give you 3 ways to meet angel investors. Let’s get started: First a few definitions: Angel Investors are often the first or close to the first external money into your company after the founder’s money and after maybe some friends and family money. After founders and...

Note: This post was transcribed from this video. Hey guys, I want to do some writing about how to get investors to say yes when fundraising for your startup. So you’re raising money, you’re got your stuff together, you’re out there pitching. How do you get investors to say yes?...

Welcome to GetFunded! our mission is to promote social entrepreneurship and harness the power of business to create the world we want. Too many entrepreneurs struggle with raising funds and we’re out to change that. Follow along as we work towards our goal of getting 100 companies funded over the...