Fundraising operations and alternatives
Should I Raise Venture Capital or Bootstrap?
A founder-first framework for choosing capital based on the business you are building.
Free tool
Diligence + Fundraising OS
This is the connective layer for the other five tools: a preparation checklist, a timeline you set your own dates against, a list of the conversations you are running, and drafting help for meeting notes and investor updates. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is saved, so closing the tab discards your entries.
What you get
- A checklist of what to have ready, grouped by area
- A timeline and an investor list you keep yourself
- Structured meeting notes and an update template
Keep confidential material out of this page
Do not upload or paste confidential legal, financial, customer, employee, cap-table, or investor documents. This V1 checklist and workspace are temporary browser tools and do not save your entries.
Data-room checklist
Work through what to have ready, grouped by area. Nothing is uploaded.
Not started
0 of 14 items, which is 0% of the list.
Company and governance
What the company is, who owns it, and which agreements would come up in a review.
Not started
Financial information
The numbers you already produce, gathered and defined so they hold still.
Not started
Product and customers
What you have built, who uses it, and what is in progress.
Not started
Team
Who is here, what they own, and who you plan to add.
Not started
Fundraising materials
The story, the assumptions behind the round, and what the money is for.
Not started
Still to prepare
Grouped by area, so you can see where the work sits.
Company and governance · 3 items
- Current company overview
- Ownership and capitalization summary
- Material contracts inventory
Financial information · 3 items
- Historical financial statements
- Current budget or operating plan
- Revenue or customer metrics definitions
Product and customers · 3 items
- Product overview
- Customer and pipeline summary
- Customer references you could offer
Team · 2 items
- Team and advisor overview
- Hiring plan for the period ahead
Fundraising materials · 3 items
- Fundraising narrative
- Current round assumptions
- Use-of-funds plan
Fundraising timeline
Six phases you set the status and your own dates against.
0 of 6 phases marked done
Working on: Prepare.
1. Prepare
Not started
Get your own material in order before anyone asks for it.
Where this phase stands.
A date you are setting for yourself.
The one thing that moves this along.
2. Build the target list
Not started
Decide who you are approaching, and in what order.
Where this phase stands.
A date you are setting for yourself.
The one thing that moves this along.
3. Start conversations
Not started
Open the conversations you have decided to open.
Where this phase stands.
A date you are setting for yourself.
The one thing that moves this along.
4. Run diligence
Not started
Answer what is asked, and produce what you said you would.
Where this phase stands.
A date you are setting for yourself.
The one thing that moves this along.
5. Make the financing decision
Not started
Decide what you are doing, based on what you now know.
Where this phase stands.
A date you are setting for yourself.
The one thing that moves this along.
6. Close or choose another path
Not started
Finish the financing, or take a different path deliberately rather than by default.
Where this phase stands.
A date you are setting for yourself.
The one thing that moves this along.
Investor CRM
A list of the conversations you are running, typed by you and kept in this tab.
This list is temporary
Nothing here is saved. The list lives in this browser tab only, is never synced to any service, and disappears when you close or refresh the page. Copy it out if you want to keep it.
No investors yet
Add a row and fill it in yourself. Nothing is prefilled, nothing is looked up, and nothing here leaves your browser.
Meeting notes
Turn what you recorded into a structured note you can keep.
Investor update
A template for a periodic update, built from your own words.
Start over
Clears the checklist, the timeline, the whole investor list, and both documents in one step. There is no undo, because nothing is stored to undo from.
From the publication
Read The Raise Memo
A daily note for founders raising capital—what investors notice, how conviction gets built, and what to do next.
From the Memo
Related reading
Diligence and closing
What Should Be in a Seed Round Data Room?
A founder-friendly checklist for the first serious investor questions.
Fundraising operations and alternatives
How Do I Build a Fundraising Plan That Investors Can Believe?
A step-by-step operating plan for turning fundraising into a focused company project.
Keep going