How to get beginning farmers on the map

The story of the feudal land owner and the constrained farmer tenant is a tale as old as time. Over the weekend, the New York Times highlighted the obstacles Hudson Valley farmers face when seeking to purchase land, including sky-high premiums, competitive bids from urbanites with better access to capital, and misaligned expectations between farmer tenants and land owners who want the visual aesthetic of a farm without any of the smell, grit, and mess that inevitably characterize a working farm. While these wealthy landowners may have a ‘fairytale’ fascination with regenerative agriculture, these landowners have no interest in actually supporting a farm business.

We know this disconnect well at FarmRaise. Most of our customers are young farmers between the ages of 35 and 44 who dream of acquiring land to launch or expand their operations. Land ownership provides massive competitive advantages in farming, including a longer and healthier time horizon to reach profitability, agricultural tax credit cash flow, and realizable financial gains of sustainability practices that improve soil health. There are also unquantifiable benefits of ownership that farmers experience: cultivating a sense of place and a nuanced understanding of the biological community that underpins the land that they work. Time and experience brings these benefits into relief, and the typical short-term farming leases of a few years just won’t cut it.

Ownership can be a charged word in U.S. agriculture and land studies, especially given the historical context and diverse worldviews of the Indigenous peoples who lived in the Americas millennia before Westerners arrived. Sarah Mock and others advocate for a paradigm of more inclusive and shared land use in farming, and their work deserves more space and consideration than my short piece here. Today, I’ll focus on the incremental changes we can make within the existing system to bring opportunity and resilience to farming.

Acquiring land requires cash flow, flexibility, and speed. Today, when a cash-constrained beginning farmer bids against a wealthy urbanite, the urbanite will inevitably have faster access to capital to win the deal. As the New York Times reports, “such bidders often have a buyer’s advantage over farmers just starting out. That includes access to speedier loan options, whereas beginning farmers largely rely on slow-moving loans through the United States Department of Agriculture.” These loans are slow moving because the applications are complicated and require multiple steps, but they’re often great options for the farmer because they have lower interest rates than typical commercial loans. Fortunately, the speed challenge is one that technology can solve.

Instead of spending days calling around to different banks, getting rejected, and ultimately spending another week filling out farm records and an application for a USDA Farm Service Agency Loan, imagine if a farmer could — in less than 20 minutes — determine which loans they’re eligible for across several pre-vetted options, see their expected terms for their favorite packages, and submit a loan application. Once they’ve inputted that information, suddenly a whole library of funding programs and resources is available for the producer to access and invest in the land that they’ve successfully acquired through their initial loan. This is the vision we’ve hammered into a product over the spring at FarmRaise, and this product is the foundation we’re going to build upon to unlock new possibility for American farmers.

As you can tell, I’m really excited about how technology can change a small or beginning farmer’s experience, transforming towering constraints into tangible opportunity. This is just the beginning of a new fairy tale we’re writing at FarmRaise, a story in which the farmer is the protagonist and the sky’s the limit 🌱

Announcing VAPG Assist — powered by real humans — to help you navigate the Value Added Producer Grant (VAPG) and submit a VAPG application with confidence and clarity.

Every day, American farmers struggle to capture the value of the products they sell. Growing up on September Farm in Virginia, I remember sending our cattle to the local stock sale, and depending on the week, the financial outcome might be good or poor. Our cattle are sold at fluctuating prices that are influenced by big macro trends like politics and weather, factors far beyond my family’s control. This year, beef producers have experienced a tighter financial squeeze, but livestock farmers aren’t alone in their financial distress. Small and mid sized commodity and speciality crop farmers alike are wrestling with the challenge of turning a meaningful profit given increasing costs of production and fluctuating market prices. More than ever, American farmers need to capture more value from the products they produce.

One powerful way to capture value is to create value in a way that puts more control in the hands of the farmer. The Value Added Producer Grant, a $50K funding program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture supports farmers who want to invest in new ways of producing or marketing their products to grow and capture more value. Some examples of these value-additive processes include changing the physical state of the product in a way that makes it more valuable (e.g. turning cucumbers into pickles), pursuing certifications (like Grassfed, Organic or Free Range), or developing a marketing feasibility study to sell the farm products locally. At FarmRaise, we love the Value Added Producer Grant because this funding can grow the bottom line of farm businesses.

Today, applying for this grant is extremely difficult. The application can take dozens of hours and is filled with bureaucratic rules, checklists, and administrative steps that we all find very confusing. Members of the FarmRaise community tell us that they want to apply, but are overwhelmed by the paperwork.

Farmers, we hear you, and today, we’re excited to announce a new application tool on the FarmRaise platform: VAPG Assist — powered by real humans — to help you navigate VAPG and submit a VAPG application with confidence and clarity.

VAPG Assist offers a digital checklist and a real human on our Farmer Success team to help you hone your VAPG idea, stay on top of deadlines and submission dates, and provide you with templates, budgets and a project support letter to submit a strong application. This tool is available to every FarmRaise Premium member, and our team is ready to help you get your application in ahead of the March deadline. Read more about how VAPG Assist works here.

Our FarmRaise team is excited about VAPG because this program supports the profitability of small and mid-sized American farmers, placing more agency and profitability into their hands. Farmers are the heartbeat of our national food system and a critical part of our supply chain, and their profitability breathes vitality into American communities. Programs like VAPG Assist and EQIP are just the beginning of our roadmap at FarmRaise, and in the months ahead, we’ll add application tools for more grants that help farmers grow their resilience and profitability.

FarmRaise has a new grant for farmers was originally published in FarmRaise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I was a kid, my father and I used to plant clover seeds in the winter. I remember following in his big footprints across our pastures, scattering tiny seedlings across the February snow, my four-year-old brain wondering how anything could grow on that frozen, still landscape. The land looked dead, but deep beneath the ice, there was magic at work. Three months later, our fields erupted into a lush crop of clover interspersed with alfalfa and orchard grass, producing a big harvest that would feed our herd of Angus cattle for months.

At FarmRaise, we believe that seeds can bring a landscape to life. The vast potential of agricultural regeneration drives our vision of scaling vitality on farms across America, starting with financial access. In 2021, our team built a fintech platform that helps farmers apply for funding to make their farms more sustainable and profitable, and reduces days of research and paperwork to minutes.

9.5K farmers and $9M in funding applications later, we’ve secured distribution partnerships with Fortune 500 agribusiness companies Cargill and Corteva and closed our $7.2M Seed round led by Susa Ventures, with significant participation from Cendana Capital, Ulu Ventures, Pear VC, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Innovation for Impact LLC, Financial Venture Studio, Incite Ventures, The University of Chicago, Dash Fund, and Socially Financed Syndicate. We’re joined by an incredible lineup of angels including founders and operators like Kat Taylor, Tori Gonzales, Scott Cannon, Jackson Moses, Saumil Mehta, Levi King and Tom Shields, and farmers like Steve Welker and Zach Johnson (The Millennial Farmer).

We have big plans for 2022, including building 5 major programs onto FarmRaise to unlock funding for on-farm renewable energy, Organic and Grass-fed certifications, and market research to grow farm operations. Innovative cash flow features with margin-tracking tools will help farmers expand their businesses and benchmark their revenue. We’re laying the foundation for a digitized and scaled farmer cooperative that connects farmers with financial resources and education and mentorship to grow thriving and sustainable farm businesses. And now, we’re looking for teammates to help us make this vision real!

FarmRaise is chasing an ambitious goal: to scale up sustainable, regenerative farming practices across half of America’s cropland in the next decade. When I look around the table at our farmer-obsessed builders, investors and advisors, I know we have the right team to bring these seeds to fruition.

I felt a spike of excitement this week when I heard Farmers Business Network (FBN) announce their Regenerative Agriculture Finance Fund, a new lending vehicle that rewards American farmers who implement soil health-building, “regenerative” ag practices with a reduced interest rate. This announcement caught my eye because at FarmRaise, we’ve been working hard to connect farmers with innovative sources of funding. FBN’s pilot may be modest ($25M in available capital out of approximately $90B+ in annual farm loan demand), but to scale regenerative agriculture, we need these baby steps to test and build a model that links the cost of capital to soil health.

Every month, it seems a new agriculture think tank study or op-ed makes the case for tying soil health to the cost of farm capital. It’s infinitely rarer for an organization to pilot a lending model that accounts for how regenerative practices reduce the riskiness and improve the profitability of farm businesses across the United States. FBN is making the tough but crucial leap to validate that soil health practices can favorably impact a farm balance sheet and is proving that farmers will use and benefit from this model.

As I chewed on the news, my excitement gave way to unanswered questions. To translate initial hope into meaningful, industry level action, the entire agriculture community — and farmers, in particular — deserve answers across the categories of scale, standardization, and stacking of capital.

Scale: this needs to be accessible by every American farmer

Farmers are inundated with announcements of agriculture startups, NGOs, and Fortune 500 companies committing capital, forming partnerships, and launching markets related to sustainability outcomes, but most farmers haven’t accessed these opportunities because the programs haven’t yet scaled. Change is slow, but in the U.S. agriculture industry, I’ve seen companies announce regenerative agriculture actions more effectively than they execute on them.

Getting a field report in real-time from the FBN pilot could boost morale and stoke farmer interest more than a press release. How does a 50 basis point interest rate reduction make a difference in a farmer’s bottom line? How is the reporting component of the loan impacting the farmer’s day-to-day operations? Has the farmer recommended the program to a friend? These are actionable insights that other farmers can evaluate to decide whether they want to sign up, and a bellwether for the rest of the industry to learn what’s working. Meaningful progress toward scale of these programs will be a breath of fresh air in a world of sustainability hype.

Standardization: who is the source of truth?

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) developed the metrics that FBN will use to measure sustainability on the farm, validated via FBN’s agtech platform Gradable. When it comes to industry standards, the EDF is one of the best-equipped organizations to define sustainability at the farm-level, but their voice is joined by many other credible organizations trying to set the standards for what farm sustainability means. In May 2021, the NGO LandCore announced a partnership with Compeer (a Farm Credit Association) to develop metrics that link the cost of farm loans to soil health. Add to this mix the Patagonia-endorsed Regenerative Organic Alliance developing benchmarks for a regenerative ag certification, and there’s a chorus of standards competing for press and farmer attention.

We need a leading standard so that farmers aren’t faced with ambiguity across lenders and markets. In the absence of a leading standard, this ambiguity could lead to a greenwashed “regenerative agriculture” redefined by every organization in the manner that best suits their interests. The U.S. Department of Agriculture may be the best poised actor to set this definition and eliminate competing standards before the term“regenerative” loses its power and meaning.

Stacking: show me the money

Each year, billions of dollars in public capital are allocated at the district, state, and federal level to further support farmers in transitioning to regenerative practices. A regenerative agriculture loan will go considerably further when stacked with these public opportunities. I’m biased because this is what we do at FarmRaise, but regardless of how a lender chooses to stack funding, this is a massive opportunity for both the lender and the farmer. Soil and Water Conservation District funding for soil health practices like cover crops goes unallocated annually, and FBN would be smart to empower farmers with these additional resources to enhance their existing sustainability practices, implement new ones, and further de-risk their soil health loans.

The bottom line

Zooming back out to FBN’s original press release, these considerations may seem granular, yet my questions — and, I suspect, those of my agriculture colleagues who also reacted this week — stem from eagerness to engage and support this transition. This announcement is a great first step, but I hope that as an industry we can build momentum toward developing scale, standardization, and stacking of public and private capital. These traction signals will attract more farmers and partners to translate our regenerative ag goals from concepts into meaningful impact.

As a farmer’s daughter, I am shocked by how often farming is misunderstood. When my co-founders and I set out to build FarmRaise — the full-stack financial services platform for agriculture — we were bombarded in pitch meetings with questions like:

“You’re a woman. Farmers are mostly male. Will they buy a product from you?”

“Farmers are hard to reach! How will you go-to-market?”

“Isn’t your market too small?”

“Farmers are slow to adopt technology. Will they balk at sharing their sensitive data with an app on their phones?”

Although agriculture is one of the biggest sectors in the world, and farm finance alone is a half-trillion dollar market, farming is misconstrued by many venture investors. We were fortunate to find some early believers in the likes of Better Tomorrow Ventures, Pear VC, Stanford University, and Financial Ventures Studio, and raised a pre-seed round of capital to prove our concept.

Since raising our last round, we’ve achieved product-market fit and reached tens of thousands of farmers. We’re now scaling rapidly at a ~10% weekly growth rate and want to share FarmRaise’s story to demonstrate the magnitude of the opportunity in agriculture innovation.

Myth 1: farmers are slow tech adopters

It’s time to put the parable of the American farmer who eschews a cell phone, gleans knowledge from local hoedowns, cooperatives, and church, and drives a 1970s John Deere relic to bed.

Today, farmers mostly communicate by iMessage, glean knowledge from YouTube and Facebook groups, and operate some of the most sophisticated technology in the world to plant, harvest, and steward their produce. Some aspects of running their business — like finance — have yet to be digitized, but these components are the minority. Farmers are no more averse to tech than the average non-farming American, and likely more prone to tech adoption given their reliance on machine innovation to achieve higher efficiencies in their field.

Be the product first

At FarmRaise, we set out to prove that farmers would not only use a fintech product, but that they would pay for it. Before we put hand to code, we tested our first product — a software solution that digitizes the process of applying for and managing finance — by using a white glove approach, offering farmers help with every application they’re eligible for and submitting these documents by hand. The farmers liked our service so much that we couldn’t manage the farmer inbound; we were blown away by the number of funding opportunities to access month over month, and couldn’t keep up with the deadlines. It was time to scale back white gloving and build a real product.

We started by integrating our white glove learnings into minimum viable products in Typeform and once we saw farmers engaging these prototypes, we began coding the actual product. When we shipped the first version of the product, our growth rate doubled and our farmer engagement rate accelerated by 6X. Unlike our white glove solution, our tech product could handle the growth. Farmers are interacting with our product at least once per week on average, and this engagement continues to climb as we build new features into the stack.

We came to the table convinced that farmers would use technology — but we had to prove that our specific product would work. Our product today was built on weeks of white gloved diligence which allowed us to de-risk this tool before putting hand to code. Once we knew we had product-market-fit, the next step was proving that we could get our product into the hands of tens of thousands of farmers.

Myth 2: farmers are impossible to access

The farmer is perceived as the Bigfoot of customer segments: elusive, hidden, inaccessible. Investors worry that there’s a long tail of farmers that startup founders simply cannot reach. Growing up in the farming community, I watched how farmers shared knowledge about products: they talked about them on the phone, wrote about them in newsletters from farmer organizations, and shared tips over meals. The most popular brands seemed to have strong organic growth through word of mouth. Today, that knowledge sharing has migrated to the internet and more specifically, to Facebook groups.

Certified Organic Growth

At FarmRaise, our number one customer acquisition channel today is organic (Google Search and word-of-mouth). We started this movement through a digital community that spread like wildfire, reaching farmers via Facebook groups rather than paid advertising. We joined dozens of agriculture Facebook groups and created our own group centered on farm funding, posting new articles that would attract farmers back to our site. This group wasn’t just about getting farmers to buy — it was about posting our content and watching farmers engage with it, give us feedback, and share their experiences with other farmers. This group informed our product roadmap and go-to-market strategy.

Diversifying our go-to-market strategy via regenerative agriculture tailwinds

As FarmRaise scaled organic growth, we were approached by large agribusiness companies to provide tools and services for the farmers in their supply chain. 2021 is a historic moment in agriculture as companies commit to supporting sustainability on the supply chain farms, and our conversations with these companies soon converted into a second go-to-market channel: agribusiness partnerships. By mid-2021, we’d landed an official referral partnership with the largest ag company in the world: Cargill. Partnering with companies that have hundreds of thousands of farmers in their supply chains helps us get to more farmers faster and will be key to scaling our long-term growth

Myth 3: farmers won’t pay

The myth that you can’t capture revenue from farm businesses is the toughest to bust, because farmers’ cash flow is cyclical and big purchases must be expertly timed. Because there are only 3.4 million farmers in the U.S., we had to prove that we could capture significant revenue — thousands of dollars — from our customers each year.

Let the farmer decide

As we built our product, we ran a parallel pricing test by offering farmers a sliding “pay what you want” pricing mode. The prices they selected helped us identify our current revenue model: an annual subscription fee and a 10% take rate on funding unlocked. This model scaled with our user base, and we’ve just begun hearing back on USDA funding decisions for our customers. The average fee for success unlocked is thousands of dollars per farmer annually, confirming our hypothesis. Our pricing works because farmers told us what they wanted — an affordable pricing model aligned with their cyclical cash flow needs.

So what now?

As farmers demand capital for sustainability practices and investment funds prepare to deploy capital toward regenerative agriculture outcomes, FarmRaise is the bridge. We will raise additional capital to add more products onto our stack and scale our solutions — in the process decreasing farm businesses’ cost of capital — and demonstrate to venture investors that agriculture is a flourishing market in which portfolio companies can achieve stellar outcomes. Join us!

— — — — -

Farm Service Agency loans through the USDA have some of the lowest interest rates out there, and farmers are paying attention. These loans can cover operational needs (inputs, machinery), land ownership (buying farmland), and conservation (promoting soil health or clean water). But how do you know if you can qualify for these credit opportunities? Here are some of the main boxes that every farmer should check:

1. You’re a U.S. citizen
2. You have no criminal record related to growing, trafficking, or possessing controlled substances
3. You’ve got an acceptable credit history. While the FSA doesn’t check credit scores, they will want to know if you have a decent repayment track record with other creditors (including the U.S. government). If you have no credit history, don’t worry, this won’t necessarily disqualify you. That said, you may be disqualified if you have a history of debt forgiveness with the Farm Service Agency or if you are delinquent on federal debt (other than IRS tax debt) at the time of the loan closing
4. You haven’t violated Federal Crop Insurance policies
5. You’ve got at least 3 years of farm managerial experience within 10 years of your application date. That said, you can substitute 1 year for those 3 if you have post-secondary education in an ag-related field, a lot of business experience, or leadership/management experience while serving in the military
6. You can’t get farm credit elsewhere
7. You’re the owner-operator of a family farm after the loan closes

Do you check the boxes? Ready to apply? Reach out to your local USDA service center to get started, or apply through FarmRaise!

Am I eligible for USDA farm loans? was originally published in FarmRaise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Remember the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) that offered direct payments to farmers during CFAP 1 and CFAP 2 sign up periods last year? This program is back in the spotlight as a new round of funding has been announced for eligible producers. It’s official: CFAP 2 is reopening this month.

We’re seeing an uptick in farmers posting about CFAP 2 on social media: am I eligible? Should I apply? These are important questions, and we’ve been scouring our sources to get farmers answers. Here’s what we’ve learned!

When does CFAP-2 reopen?

April 5th is the date that the USDA officially reopens its application portal. We hear it’s going to be open for at least 60 days, but as we generally advise producers, it’s smart to get your application in asap.

If I already applied for CFAP-1 or CFAP-2, can I get any money?

If you’re a cattle producer who applied for CFAP 1, you will likely be eligible to receive a “top up” payment between $7-$63 per head of cattle depending on the animal’s life stage and purpose of production. In addition, eligible row crop producers who previously applied for CFAP 2 will likely be eligible to receive a “top up” payment of $20 per acre. We’re hearing that you don’t need to reapply to CFAP to get these top ups; rather, word in the field is that these payments will be directly deposited into your bank account starting April 10th.

What if I haven’t applied for CFAP before? Can I apply now?

The good news is that if you haven’t applied for CFAP before, you may be eligible to submit an application when CFAP 2 reopens on April 5th. Eligible production types can include:

• Broilers, eggs, pullets
• Wool
• Aquaculture
• Dairy and livestock
• Row crops and specialty crops
• Floriculture and nursery crops
• Tobacco

How do I apply?

You can apply online through the USDA’s web portal! You can also head over to FarmRaise and we can help you apply, answer questions about your specific eligibility, and even help you estimate your total payout.

The bottom line

CFAP 2 is coming, many producers are eligible, and if you want to apply, get your application in asap!

CFAP 2 is back! What does this mean for producers? was originally published in FarmRaise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Are you a farmer working a portion of land that’s tough to farm? Maybe it’s on a steep hillside or it’s extra wet or it’s challenging to physically navigate. Perhaps you’ve asked yourself “I wonder if there’s a better way to manage this part of my land in a way that builds my farm’s profitability?”

Enter the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP for short)! This is a competitive, federally-funded, voluntary program that pays farmers to conserve environmentally-sensitive land instead of using it for ag production. The government offers rental payments and cost-share assistance to farmers enrolled in CRP over a 10–15 year contract period.

So who is eligible to apply for CRP?

Individual farmers, LLC’s, corporations, and land trusts may be eligible to participate. The applicant must have operated the land from February 12 2020 onward (at least one year prior to the contract sign-up deadline of Feb 12, 2021) or have inherited the land through death or succession. The applicant also must prove their control of the land for the entire duration of the 10–15 year contract (this can be shown through a lease or statement signed by the landowner) and be amenable to developing a conservation plan with the USDA to manage the contracted land.

What type of land is eligible?

Cropland that has been in commodity production at least 4 of the 6 years between 2012–2017 and that is physically and legally able to be planted with an ag commodity in a normal way (as determined by the Farm Service Agency) may be eligible. If you have an expiring CRP contract, you may also be eligible to apply.

How much money will I get per acre in rental payments?

This depends on your soil type. Reach out to our team at FarmRaise and we can share average, per-acre rental payments for your county so you can ballpark your payment.

How are CRP contracts awarded? What increases my odds of getting one?

This is a competitive program! You’ll be competing for these awards with farmers across the U.S. and will be ranked by the USDA according to an Environmental Benefits Index or EBI.

The EBI has 6 environmental factors that determine your land’s overall ability to produce high environmental outcomes. These factors include:

• Wildlife habitat (if you’re willing to plant more diverse cover on your land, you’ll likely increase your odds of securing the award)
• Erosion reduction (steeper land can be competitive)
• Water quality (does your project improve clean water outcomes?)
• Air quality (dust reduction and carbon sequestration benefits could enhance your odds)
• Enduring benefits (will the cover you plant on CRP land endure beyond the CRP contract period?)
• Cost (does your project optimize the environmental benefits per dollar of CRP payment?)

This list is not comprehensive! Check in with your local FSA office to learn more.

How do I apply?

Apply soon, because the deadline is coming up fast on February 12th. You can reach out to your local FSA office to apply or check in with our team at FarmRaise to help you navigate next steps.

More resources

History of CRP

USDA Fact Sheet

Get FarmRaise

What’s up with the CRP? was originally published in FarmRaise on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m a first-time founder, and our startup FarmRaise just closed its initial round. The fundraising ride can be jarring; it’s an emotional rollercoaster full of ambiguity, adrenaline-infused sprints, and weird feedback from near-strangers. Despite the grind, I loved fundraising because it forced me to think hard and holistically about our big company vision and the steps we are taking to get there.

For other first time founders, underrepresented founders, or anyone hustling to fund their dream with outside capital, I’m going to share five takeaways that I hope can make your ride smoother and steadier.

Ask: “What does winning look like?”

Take space to explore what type of investors will best serve your company. Would you benefit from several angel investors who are mostly hands-off but willing to make intros when it matters? Do you want an involved lead investor who will brainstorm with your team every other week? Do you need a blue-chip VC backing you today to raise a Series A tomorrow? Is there subject-area investor expertise that could add value to your startup? Write down what you need, and reference this criteria throughout your fundraise. It’s a north star that will direct your focus amid inevitable distractions.

Next, figure out how much capital you need to achieve your core milestones. Conventional fundraising wisdom tells us to frame these milestones in terms of “key risks to address” over the next 12–18 months. In practice, we found that some VCs appreciated this framing while others pushed back with comments like, “Yeah, okay, but who are you going to hire?” However you decide to frame it, be sure you’re clear on your milestones, and why you chose them.

Once you know your dream investor and your 12–18 month KPIs, it’s time to craft a pipeline of 30–40 funds or angels who meet your north star investor criteria (unless you’re adept at Google Sheets, a CRM can make your life easier here). You’ll grow this list as you go, but this number is a good starting point. A mentor once told me that first-time founders need roughly 30 investor meetings before they receive a term sheet, and our experience at FarmRaise mirrored this pattern. Once you have the list, the next step is to start investor outreach.

Build your fundraising team

The best way to get intro’d to your dream fund is through another founder in the VC’s portfolio. Two other good ways to get connected is through a well-connected advisor or mentor who knows someone at your target fund (or works at the fund themselves) or through pitching at a demo day that the investor attends.

It is essential to build a community of other founders and mentors as part of your informal company ‘team’. These folks can intro you to your dream funds, and are often poised to connect you directly with the fund partners who make final decisions. This is where support groups, school networks, accelerators/incubators, and cold outreach comes into play. You might not know the right mentors or founders today, and that’s okay, but now is the time to start identifying and building those relationships. Search your alumni directory if you have one, and if not, find your dream advisors on LinkedIn and send some cold outreach asking for a Zoom coffee chat.

You should kick off the fundraising process (e.g. getting intros and talking to VCs before you’re officially fundraising) 9–12 months before you run out of cash. Building these relationships well before you ask investors for money helps to establish a human bond between you and your potential investors that isn’t defined by a transactional moment. You can get to know one another and give yourself time to discern if this fund is really the right partner for your team. Without immediate time pressure, you’ll find it’s much easier to get to a ‘yes’ down the line when you’ve built that trust and rapport.

Make it personal

You’ve discerned what winning looks like, built your target investor funnel, and have lined up some intros. Now you can build your pitch deck. It’s important that you check all the right boxes (company, market, and traction) so that you make it hard for an investor to give you a straight out “no”, but you also need to take your pitch one step further. As an early stage company, you’re first and foremost selling yourself. Embedding some aspect of your life, story, or personality into the pitch (whether through a personal narrative or well-timed humor) will bring your passion to life.

I struggled with how much of my own story to reveal in our pitch, and ultimately chose to lean into it, even including a picture of my farmer father as the first slide on our deck. It felt weird telling near-strangers about how hard my dad worked, his day beginning and ending in the darkness, but it also brought his experience, and the big problem we’re solving at FarmRaise, to light. Seeing his face on our deck in every pitch also energized me, almost as if he were in the room right there with us, cheering us on.

Put the fun back in fundraising

Unless you decide to become an investigative reporter or go back to school, fundraising is a unique life season that affords new connections and stimulating conversations about your greatest passion with some smart and (generally) objective people. Rather than dreading this season as a cross-examination from intimidating financiers, try approaching fundraising as a fun, intellectual exercise to share and discuss our life’s work with other people who care.

Many investors go into venture because they are innately passionate about (and often experienced in) entrepreneurship, tech, and transforming society as we know it. They read a lot, they tweet a lot, and they’re hungry to help ideas grow. Many investors won’t ‘get’ your idea, but you can still relish your discussions with them, solicit their feedback, and keep the relationship warm.

Some investors will be critical of your company to your face. Others will gossip about its weaknesses to other VCs behind your back. You will likely get dozens of ‘no’s’ for every yes, along with contradictory feedback that leaves your brain spinning. At the end of every fundraising day, I often wanted to lie flat on the ground because I was so emotionally drained. It’s crucial that founders don’t take this criticism personally, and view all investors — even the ones who have drained your emotional bank account — as allies, helping you and your company be stronger.

Most important, create space to recharge during this process. Do things that help your mind relax, wander, and be present, whether it’s an hour of informal playtime, calls with family, or ten minutes of meditation. Drinks lots of water and eat protein. Checking in with yourself, caring for your body, and staying rooted in the truth of who you are will help you show up fully when the pitches resume.

Seek the spark

When we found our lead investor, the conversation flowed. From our first discussion, we were brainstorming how FarmRaise could grow, how we could get farmers into our funnel, and how we could better automate our tech. It was like a first date in which we just couldn’t stop talking to the person across the table; it was comfortable, fun, and energizing.

Every founder deserves investors who get you and care about you, your company, and your vision. My parting hope is that you hold out for the person or fund you truly connect with and who shares your vision for building the future. Look for the spark. Wait for it.

Until you get there, keep your north star in mind, lean hard on your team, remember who you are, and enjoy the ride. And if you don’t stick the landing perfectly this time, don’t worry: review what you learned and move forward with hope!