Hey friends, it’s Jorian—welcome to Into the Ring. I’m a startup fundraising coach and have worked with 60+ founders who’ve raised over $270M.

Rob Snyder (creator of the Pull framework, Harvard fellow, coached dozens of founders to $1M ARR) has invited me tomorrow (Wednesday) to share my entire fundraising playbook live. It’ll be a 90min session, jam-packed on the topic of how top founders run an end-to-end fundraise in 2-4 months instead of 5-8 months. We’ll record the session - if you want to join us live or get the recording, register here: https://luma.com/b97xwosf - come hang with us!

For today’s newsletter, I’ll share a 1min take on the World Cup water breaks (I told myself I can do non-fundraising topics once in a while), provide a rundown of the Tier 1 VC deals from the past two weeks, share my recommended VC essays & podcasts, and do a deep dive on leading your round with angels.

As always, thank you for being part of this Into the Ring tribe of 2.0K+ startup founders and operators/investors from OpenAI, Anthropic, a16z, Lightspeed, etc. If you think someone else might like this newsletter, they can sign up here.

Now onto today’s newsletter!

If you’re like me, your eyes have been glued into the World Cup recently (and of course, I love watching Freddy from Germany getting to try out Waffle House, meet JJ Watt, and go to Buc-ee’s).

And if you’ve been watching the World Cup, you probably have seen the hydration breaks 22min into each half that essentially turn the match into quarters.

…I’m going to be controversial and say that I love them. There, I said it - I love the new hydration breaks.

I love how these hydration breaks help change the momentum throughout the game and increase the suspense. If a team is behind and has a hydration break, they have a chance to recoup and come out with renewed strength.

As a fan, what more can you ask for?

What do you think - are World Cup hydration breaks good or bad for the game?

p.s. if anyone has an extra ticket to a match they want to sell, DM me

p.p.s. I promise we’re moving back to regularly-scheduled fundraising content after this section!

If you’re a top founder and trying to raise a $2M pre-seed, you might be thinking “I gotta start booking VC meetings”

Hold your horses.

If you haven’t raised any $$$ for your startup before, going directly to VCs can cause three problems:

Last year, I worked with a health-tech founder who faced exactly this predicament. They had a strong background, with prestigious education & healthcare experience. But no VC would bite. And so they spun their wheels for four months, with no VC willing to commit.

Things only turned around when this founder shifted gears to get investment from some angels. Suddenly they had cash to build with, a couple of angels making dozens of warm VC intros, and enough social proof that VCs weren't so scared to invest early.

In hindsight, I should have advised this founder to go to angels even earlier.

If you raise from any angel, there is one immediate benefit: you receive money in the bank, now.

As I mentioned earlier, VC processes can take months, and if you find an angel (or heck, family & friends) willing to support you, you can use that capital to start building. Which of course can bring you additional traction & momentum when you raise from VCs.

But if you get money from any angel, does that check fix problems #2 and #3 (getting you intros to VCs and giving you social cred)?

Not really.

Those two bigger prizes - getting VC intros and social proof - don’t just come from any check. They require the right angels.

So who are the right angels?

Ideally, these are people who have made at least half a dozen angel investments, if not many more. Angel investing is something they care about, and they’ve built real networks in the startup & VC community.

Otherwise, there are a couple other groups that can be solid angels:

I’ve talked many times before about the power of superconnectors - someone who can roll up their sleeves and intro you to 10+ VCs.

Most commonly those superconnectors are VC-backed founders, but don’t forget about well-connected angels. They’re literally invested in you and it’s in their interest to go to bat for you and make intros.

Remember that health-tech founder I mentioned in the opening? When they tried to get angel checks, they focused on getting the right angels. The angels who ended up investing in them were well connected in the SF and NY startup ecosystems, which significantly helped with their VC raise.

Founders sometimes worry that going to angels first can waste months before they even talk with VCs.

I’m not suggesting you spend months courting angels. What I recommend instead is doing this in a matter of weeks - if you’re that founder raising a $2M pre-seed, then trying to raise $200-400K in a multi-week sprint.

And what I would say is that spending a few weeks getting angel checks can often save you months when it comes to speaking with VCs.

To me, that’s a trade worth making.

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I’ve helped 60+ founders run high-quality fundraises and raise over $270M. Check out jorianhoover.com to read founder testimonials and learn more about my approach.