Should You Hire a Fundraising Advisor?

0:00 The Funding Table: GoldCapital Consulting podcast

[Cold open - highlights from the episode.]

Max: Welcome back to The Funding Table, episode number four. For those of you that are new here, this is a show all about venture capital, startups, and raising money, with the hope that you avoid some of the costliest mistakes we made on our own journeys. At the time of recording it is Friday, September 11th, and we'd love to honor those who lost their lives in the September 11th attacks with a brief moment of silence. [Moment of silence.] As always, welcome back to the show. We have a very interesting - and the most controversial - episode to date. I always say controversial, but this one really is, because we're attacking ourselves and our entire industry on this one. If you're returning and getting value from the show, we'd appreciate you hitting the like button, subscribe, and the bell - it's free and takes five seconds. We appreciate you.

1:52 Max Goldberg, Mike Spidaliere, Sam Poon, Cam Owen

Max: Before our segment, let's go around the table for brief bios so you know exactly who you're hearing from. As the host, I'll go first. My name is Max Goldberg. I'm a two-time exited startup founder, Techstars alum, and former investment banker, and currently the founder and managing partner of GoldCapital Consulting, where we help early-stage startups raise capital. If you're returning, you know my second rotation - welcome back, Mike.

Mike: Appreciate it. Mike Spidaliere, multi-time founder. I started First Time Founder Capital, where we work with early-stage founders to get them to the point where they're both investable and investor-ready.

Max: And we have been doing a lot of that lately. We're joined by your partner in crime, none other than the resident VC, Sam Poon. Welcome back.

Sam: Glad to be here, thank you so much. Like Mike and Max mentioned, I was on the venture capital side before I joined Mike - sourcing startups, running their diligence, taking them all the way to the investment committee before we actually sent the check over. This was in a pre-seed to Series B, early-stage, generalist, global capacity, with general partners who have done this for over 40-plus years - folks who were the earliest and biggest investors in your Facebooks, Uber, Venmo, Beyond Meat, and actually out of NASA as well.

Max: Out of this world, Sam. And for those who haven't noticed - we've upgraded our video quality, and soon our audio will be revamped too. Thanks for sticking with us as we figure this whole thing out. Last but not least: Cam Owen, my partner and COO at GoldCapital Consulting. Welcome back.

Cam: Thanks for having me. I feel like I led the charge there - if you watched last week's episode, I was, as the kids say, camera-mogging you guys. I was in 4K; nobody else was. I'm Cam - a bootstrapped and exited founder, COO and partner here at GoldCapital. I spend most of my days talking with startups about where they are in their rounds, and I bring the questions they bring to me to the funding table.

4:17 Can anyone guarantee startup funding?

Max: Let's get straight into it with a quick gut check. Assume you're back as a founder - Sam, you've never started one yourself, but the three of us have. You open your phone and there's a DM or cold email, a little sketchy, saying they can guarantee funding for your startup - guaranteed - but you'll have to pay them $10,000. Mike, what's your reaction? Believable? Do you respond?

Mike: Do I respond to a message that says "I can guarantee success with investors if you pay me $10,000"? Absolute scam. You can't guarantee success with any given investor. A lot of people come in claiming they can guarantee your round gets done, but no one can see the future, and no one can understand market dynamics day to day, hour by hour. Guaranteeing your round gets done in a month, two months, three months - that word itself should disqualify them.

Max: Couldn't agree more. Cam - on the front lines, you talk constantly with folks who believe a firm like ours should guarantee a raise. Do you agree with Mike?

Cam: If they DM me saying "I guarantee I'll get your round done if you pay me $10,000" - I'm sure they also have some oceanfront property in Arizona, and they can throw the Golden Gate in for free. That's a little homage to a song. No - absolutely not. To Mike's point, guarantees are the easiest way to see that someone has no clue what they're doing. I can't guarantee the sun rises tomorrow; weathermen are lucky to be right half the time. No one on earth can guarantee you a raise, and if they do, they're snake-oil salesmen. Run for the hills.

Max: Sam - your reaction as an investor?

Sam: Guaranteed funding for 10K? I'd say that's a crock. You're full of it - I'm just going to say it - because they don't control the outcome, like Mike said. No advisor sits in the investment committee room, and market dynamics change. If they could actually guarantee it, why would they only ask for ten grand? Come on now.

Max: Fair point - and fair warning to keep the kids in a different room when you listen to The Funding Table. This idea of guarantees has come to dominate marketing agencies and a lot of online offers, and you should be very wary of anyone who feels the need to guarantee something this high-value. At minimum it's overcompensating for the value they can actually provide - especially for something as genuinely low-probability as raising capital. It's very hard to do.

7:48 Should I quit my job before raising VC?

Max: Kicking things off, Mike - you had a little moment of fame this week. Quick round of applause. You read a tweet that pissed you off, took to X and LinkedIn, spoke your mind, and it's taken off. Tell us what you read, what you posted, and whether you expected it to take off.

Mike: This was the first time I ever went quote-unquote viral, so it's been interesting. I saw a tweet and LinkedIn post by an investor - I won't name them - that effectively said: "If I'm speaking with a founder and they tell me they're going to quit their full-time job once the funding comes through, it's an automatic no for me." I just think that's so disheartening - an antiquated idea that needs to be scrubbed from the investor mentality. You have no idea what that individual founder is going through. They may be keeping their job to support their family, feed their kids; they may have a kid on the way, or medical bills. There are a thousand reasons a founder would keep that bit of security while still going after their dream. I've met a lot of founders with full-time jobs who put their kids to bed and then build from 8 PM to 2 AM - finding distribution, finding customers, building ARR. In some cases it's actually a measure of fortitude: they're holding a full-time position while working a startup, which is another full-time job if not more. It irked me. It made my stomach turn. So I took to LinkedIn - I'm connected to a lot of founders and investors - to see where people sit with what I consider a problem. I went to bed at about 3,000 views, phone on do-not-disturb, and woke up to 46,000. Over a hundred comments, over 150 LinkedIn requests - mostly founders, some investors. Mostly founders saying "thank you, this means a lot, I completely agree" - and some people refuting the idea. Real interesting.

Max: I remember vividly when you told me you'd read this tweet - only a couple of days ago - and you definitely wanted it in this week's show. This was an authentic moment; you were pissed off, and I rarely see Mike pissed off. But to play devil's advocate: steelman it for a second. Why would a smart investor have that belief?

Mike: To steelman why an investor would believe a founder shouldn't hold a full-time position while asking for investor dollars: maybe they believe it means the founder isn't fully dedicated - that they don't care enough to put everything on the line for it to succeed. Would you agree with that, Max?

Max: There's a very interesting culture in early-stage startups and venture capital that I've never quite understood - partly because a lot of folks on the investor side haven't been startup founders themselves. Many came from financial services, which has genuinely toxic cultures. I worked in an investment bank; it's a means to an end for most people, long hours, a pay-your-dues rite of passage. So I've always found it ironic that some of the highest-paid people out of college or an MBA, who ground through jobs in hopes of the next job, are now VCs telling founders to quit theirs. That said - as an angel investor putting personal funds in, I get it a little more: you want the founder all-in, no safety net, maybe that produces a more primal outcome. But if you're a fund and it's not your money, it starts to tip into that toxic thing that doesn't click for me. And founders need to put food on the table - shout out Maslow's hierarchy of needs; you need the basics met before you can do something like this. Sam - you must have seen this more times than you can count. Was a day job a stain on a founder?

Sam: As you can see, I have black and red on - dark-side colors - so I'll swear as little as possible. I agree with Mike: you don't really know what they're going through. As a founder you're selling, talking to customers, building - and if you're managing all of that plus a full-time job, I think that should add credibility. Though Max, like you said - a lot of these investors might be former founders themselves, or come from Ivy Leagues with a real leg up. I was always of the belief that VCs are busy as hell, but founders - if they're juggling all of this, you have to empathize: for every half hour they spend talking to you, their business could be dying, and they're still making it work. On the flip side, steelmanning it: in the early 2020s, if someone was building web3 and crypto when markets were hot - is this person doing it for a quick flip? Nowadays everything's AI. You have to balance the two, and an investor will be keen on sensing that quickly.

Max: Fair, and a unique perspective. Cam - you bootstrapped and never raised, but you talk to people every day who say "I can't quit my job" or "should I quit my job," and they trust you with decisions like that. What's your take, and what do you tell someone who asks on a call?

Cam: Funny enough - I worked my job while I built the business I ended up selling. I bootstrapped, and I was lucky I could: I worked a pretty cushy job in finance, which is what paid for it. I didn't go full-time on the business until it was making me plenty of money to step away. So even though I never faced this from an investor, I very much empathize with those founders. But I'll flip it to the other side for a second: I do see where investors are coming from. There are more startups than ever - AI lets people build quicker - and if there are more people than ever, there are people out there willing to put it all on the line. Unfortunately, that's who you're competing against. So my answer is: if it doesn't gel, it doesn't gel. Not every investor is right for every founder, and not every founder is right for every investor. And I see this every day - people looking to raise so they can leave their job and pay a salary not just to themselves but to the people who've been working for sweat equity for a long time. It's usually a team, not one person.

Mike: I appreciate those points, Cam. What really irked me was the blanket statement. What about a founder working a full-time job who has leveraged that job to understand an issue in that exact industry, and is now building the company to solve the problem they're currently living? This mindset of "the moment I see a founder has a full-time job, I say no" - without digging in, without asking why...

Cam: You make it black and white, and that's almost the easy way out. You're just chopping it off to make your own decisions easier - and that's not how anything on earth should be.

Max: Completely agree. A few things going through my head. The sweat-equity point Cam raised is interesting. I'm also wondering how much this was sincere belief versus an engineered moment - an investor trying to go viral by pissing people off. If so: well done, honestly, because it inspired conversations like this one. But a lot of people who don't do this for a living saw that post, liked it, and now hold a new belief as if it's just the truth - and that's the harm. And if it is sincere, think about how it hits founders at different points in life. Disproportionately young founders - middle schoolers and high schoolers, even - are getting backed by YC nowadays; if you take a gap before freshman year, you have essentially zero risk and can restart your career instantly. But imagine you're an executive at EY wanting to build in the accounting space - your odds of returning at that level are far lower than your junior counterparts'. So a blanket rule punishes older founders hardest, which is ironic, since the median and mean age of a unicorn founder is still mid-30s to 40s, not the young kids.

Mike: Completely agree - it should be case by case. A founder building at night who doesn't want to feed their kids ramen every day while doing the classic college-startup grind shouldn't get a negative check against them. And back to Cam's point: if you run into an investor whose disqualifier is that, even though you're building something strong - not a fit. On to the next.

Max: Let me put a pin in it there - you've made your point clear, and there's a lot of fake news in this industry. A check mark and a follower count don't make everything someone posts gospel. This week a kid went viral for leaving Anthropic after about a week, warning that everyone's going to be killed by AI in ten years - dead serious, now on a media tour, CNN with Anderson Cooper, the works. So Mike - imagine your post picks up more steam and you find yourself on CNBC, Squawk Box, maybe even Mad Money. If founders clip this right now: what would you tell them?

Mike: What would I tell founders if I was on Mad Money? Tricky question - there's a lot to say. But I'd say: don't put yourself in sincere financial danger just to appease what this industry is making you believe is necessary.

Max: Let's wrap it there - and I hope that's the clip that goes. I think we'd all concur.

22:27 Are fundraising advisors legit?

Max: Moving on to the core segment: our own industry - the raising-capital industry. It's broad: investment banks and consulting firms at the hundred-billion and trillion-dollar level with entire units doing this work, all the way down to small operators doing credit repair and predatory lending - and of course the venture side, the niche we play in. And there is, unfortunately, a large slice of this industry whose framing is: pay a large amount, or a monthly amount, and we'll get you funded - guaranteed. I've been as vocal as I can about this in my content and even our ads. So Sam, from your seat as a VC: who the hell are these people making these quasi-legal offers?

Sam: Who are these people guaranteeing a raise? For a founder, the real question is: what seat has this person actually sat in? What's their journey been? Was this person a former VC - maybe older now, loves helping startups, doesn't want the day-to-day of partners' meetings and investment committees? Were they a founder who's learned the lessons and can empathize? Those are the people with a history and a track record. The people guaranteeing it - I'll say 99% of the time they have no track record and they're trying to make a quick buck. And most folks who guarantee for a fee are the opposite of what I just described. The real ones aren't doing it for the fees; they're doing it out of love and empathy for startups and founders.

Max: Curious though - what about the investment banking groups working larger raises? Lots of them were never on the venture side, never founders; globally recognized logos doing it for a lot of fees. Same bucket, or not?

Sam: Investment banks doing this have the track record - and they're regulated. That's the difference. So my advice to founders: if it's a small individual or a small firm, be very intentional. What's their story? What's their track record? Banks have been doing this for decades, maybe centuries. Be diligent about who you're speaking with.

Max: So reputation and legacy matter. And Sam, staying with you - there's a very famous VC blog post that's cited everywhere when you look up fundraising advising. He said basically 99.5% of the folks in this industry - guaranteeing raises or even assisting with them - are crooks and charlatans. That's a big word; I actually had to look it up. You've sat on the other side. Is he right?

Sam: Fundraising advisors are charlatans - so funny; I think of charlatans on chariots. The 99.5% gets the headlines, which is a crazy number - it's probably slightly less - but the point stands: it's probably the bulk of these fundraising advisors. Because if they guarantee the round closes, they're lying. The track record is the key part. And if an advisor believed in you that much, they'd probably take equity upfront and do all the work with you rather than "guaranteeing" it. They'd show you what they've done - their track record as a VC or founder - and what the day-to-day work actually is. Because fundraising, for a founder, is essentially a full-time job.

29:32 Do investment banks help startups raise?

Max: Mike - you're the most senior here in this industry; I know you don't like when I say that, both most senior and very young and dashing. For anyone unaware: I was Mike's first client, or one of them - a very successful case study - and I was super skeptical when you came up to me at a table after Techstars demo day. You delivered almost immediately, which shocked me. When you got into this industry, you knew the reputation that people in it have. What did you specifically do - network-wise, positioning-wise - to build your investor network in a way that felt clean and honest?

Mike: I still ran into issues in the beginning - there were people that didn't believe, and that's fine; a healthy level of skepticism never hurt anybody. But I came in sharing my experiences as a founder on the fundraising trail - talking to VCs, angels, family offices - and I brought some of those investors into the network to start this thing off. When I built the investor side, I was honest that I was a fellow founder, working with pre-seed and seed companies. I've done this before; I understand the ups and downs; I have past experiences to point to that put people at ease. I wasn't trying to position myself as an investment banker who wants to work on pre-seed. And on that: if you get reached out to by someone from a big investment bank while you're raising a $500K or million-dollar pre-seed round - I would run. That's falsified positioning. Investment banks don't work on deals this small. Fellow founders do; former VCs do. Do your digging on who you're talking to before signing any agreement or sending any money.

Max: What about a "regional investment bank," though? No names - but there are firms riding the prestige of sounding institutional who say "we're small, we specialize in small companies and close client relationships." What's the reaction beyond "run"?

Sam: I love my regional banks - I know a few really good ones in the Boston area and I'm happy to recommend them. But regional banks do something entirely different from what venture capitalists do: primarily loans and debt. And you've got to be careful there as well.

Max: We'll do a venture debt episode at some point - "venture debt equals death" would be the title. But when you say regional banks, you mean state-chartered banks - not a pure-play regional M&A or debt shop nobody's ever heard of. I have a very specific firm in mind and I do not want to get sued.

Mike: Do your homework: if this is genuinely their specialty, fantastic - but ask which investors they actually send deals to. One of the earliest investors I met when I started FTFC told me something that has stuck with me ever since: at the earliest stages, "we look at 100% of the deals that fellow founders send us. We look at 0% of the deals that licensed brokers send us." Keep that in mind - that's the early stages, not Series F, where there are brokers and banks all over the map. For pre-seed rounds, be very aware of who they partner with and who they send deal flow to. If they have real success with certain firms and it's a real specialty, it could be a fit - I wouldn't run immediately. But ask leading questions: are you actually legitimate, or are you selling me nonsense?

Cam: To echo Mike - and I know exactly what you're thinking there, Max - you can't be both gigantic, helping out with billion-dollar M&A transactions, and simultaneously helping $500,000 rounds. That doesn't make sense whatsoever. So sure - don't run instantly; do your research. But it comes down to specialty: what's the core competency? Even setting aside introductions - take preparation alone. Preparing financials and fundamentals for a large transaction is a completely different process from "I have an early-stage product that just hit TestFlight, no revenue, users growing a little week over week." The story you tell is completely different. Claiming you're both large and small would be quite unique - the first I know of.

Max: There's so much to unpack, but: when you engage an investment bank - you are not engaging any investment bank at this stage. It is not a real thing. There's not enough money in it for banks, because startup founders don't have much money. Banks run quarter-million to half-million-dollar upfront retainers - and I can tell you that at the bank I worked at, that's what funded our GrubHub orders. I had an STK and sushi $100 tab every single night as a summer analyst, billed against the client's tab. And the majority of those deals don't even close - there was a deal that died on Christmas; there was a client that topped up their retainer another quarter million every year and never actually pursued a sale. That is not your situation as a startup founder. Second: there are essentially two or three classifications of investment banks. The bulge brackets work on billion-dollar-plus transactions - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citi, Wells Fargo. People know them because they're also merchant banks - you can open an account there. Then there's the middle market and the elite boutiques - I'll call Houlihan Lokey an elite boutique - William Blair, Lincoln International, Guggenheim, Evercore, Moelis - phenomenal places that work on hundreds of millions to low billions. Outside of that, no one knows or cares about any bank - and there is no such thing as a low-millions investment banking transaction. It doesn't exist; you just do it yourself. So I don't believe "small investment bank for startups" even exists - the label itself is the lie. And if a party tells you "we're going to have an investor day where investors all come to a conference room to hear you" - Sam, how many times did the legendary fund you worked at tell you to go sit for six hours in an investment bank's office to hear pitches?

Sam: Never. Never.

Max: Do you know any colleagues who wouldn't have the startup come to their own office, but would go sit for hours in a bank's boardroom listening to startups? Ludicrous. Ridiculous. I think we can put this to rest.

38:19 Do fundraising advisors need a license?

Max: Now let me get real with you, Mike - this may be a raw reaction. This is a heavily regulated industry in the United States, and at the same time there's a thriving class of investors, angels, and super-connectors making introductions to VCs all the time. For context, for anyone evaluating working with us: in 2021 the SEC actually proposed a rule change to allow people to charge fees for introductions to investors so long as they don't engage in what's called broker-dealer activity - they'd call that person an exempt "finder." And the line for broker-dealer activity is fairly clear: if you hold investor funds, create and sell or market securities - especially to non-accredited investors - or negotiate on a startup's behalf, you may be a broker-dealer. That's always been my interpretation; I'm not an attorney, fact-check this - and by the way, AI chatbots won't settle this for you either; they literally tell you they're not securities lawyers, and people believe them anyway. Mike: when you were creating your network, knowing this is regulated - what distinctions, choices, even trade-offs adverse to your own economics did you make to feel comfortable doing what you do? You've had lawyers on every continent except Antarctica review this; clients' counsel have reviewed the materials you send and approved them. Where do you draw the line?

Mike: I appreciate it - I could talk about this for weeks, but I'll keep it concise. It goes back to that investor comment from before. I've been starting companies my entire professional career at the earliest stages - zero to one is the most fascinating part of a company's journey for me. I wanted to work with companies going zero to one who didn't understand the fundraising ecosystem. We've worked with founders with multiple exits who were all bootstrapped, like Cam - they never needed data rooms or VC targeting, and they wanted to learn, and I wanted to teach them and be part of that early journey. And to reiterate that line: at the earliest stages, investors look at 100% of the deals fellow founders send them and 0% of the deals licensed brokers send them. So the big trade-off I made is not working Series A, B, C in a significant way and quoting those success fees. But at the end of the day, that's not what I want to be doing anyway.

Max: And to be clear, you don't charge any success fees.

Mike: No. We charge an upfront retainer that has nothing to do with the outcome.

Max: For the record, because this is helpful for a lot of reasons. Have you ever touched investor funds moving from an investor to a client?

Mike: No.

Max: Will you ever touch investor funds going to a client?

Mike: No.

Max: Have you ever held yourself out as a broker-dealer when you're in fact not one?

Mike: Absolutely not.

Max: Have you ever sold or marketed securities, or negotiated on behalf of clients?

Mike: No.

Max: Those are the four tests for determining broker-dealer status. So as far as I'm concerned - and I'm no judge and no regulator - you're not a broker-dealer, Mike. I'm sick of hearing it from everyone who thinks they're the head of the DOJ. Why don't you quit your startup and go take an appointment in the current administration if you know so much? But it's an important topic, and I get why people are wary of it.

Mike: It goes back to doing your homework. At the end of the day, we're fellow founders. We work with other founders to help them prepare for their fundraise, and when they're ready, we share the deal with investors looking to invest in exactly what they're building. As soon as we make that intro, we let the founder do their thing.

Max: Wrapping back to you, Sam - what's unique here is that only about a quarter ago, you were the VC receiving deal flow from Mike, a very reliable member of the network, I might add. When a deck came through from a trusted intermediary like Mike, what was your honest initial reaction?

Sam: When I got something from someone like Mike, I filtered it like anything else. The partners are probably even more skeptical than I am at first, and the honest first instinct is: why isn't this founder speaking to us directly? They should be able to sell - so why is someone else in my inbox? But then you lift the hood. The good intermediaries make this painless for the founders - that's the whole job. And investors are sharp at smelling bogus. I'd met Mike in person; you can sense the kind of character he is, the track record - he knew investors, we had a similar circle. We're beating a dead horse, but: vet who you're speaking to. That initial reaction from a VC gets filtered, the same way we talked about filtering cold and warm intros in the previous episode.

Max: So at first there's skepticism - I had the same when I first met Mike as a client - and then it's a slow development of a real relationship, where initial successes don't hurt. Over months of sending deal flow and doing deals, I'd hope Mike even becomes a dependency for folks short on their own deal flow.

Sam: I love that. Though I think it was the scarf that really sold you, Max.

Max: You do love your scarves.

46:25 Should I hire a fundraising advisor?

Max: We're nearing the end, and it's our ritual to fill the last segment with what folks thinking about working with GoldCapital and FTFC are actually asking. Cam - specifically: when they ask "should I even get help for my raise at all?" - what are they really asking, and how do you answer it?

Cam: Great question. Whenever somebody asks "should I actually be hiring somebody to help me with this?", what they're actually asking is: do I need that leverage, or can I get it done myself? Ultimately they're saying: do I want to trust somebody? And that's the big word - trust. Everything we're talking about today is trust. Can you trust the person you'd be working with to actually fulfill their duties and push this along - because there is no guaranteed outcome at the end of the day. You have to trust yourself to pitch and close investors, and now you're asking whether you can trust the people you'd work with - whether that's us, another group, or your brother, for Christ's sake - to deliver leverage and give you time back. And the questions I get are usually at the top of the call, walls up: "Everybody sounds the same. They all tell me they can help get my round done. What's the difference?" So let me flip that to you all: what the hell is the difference? Why are we - or anybody - any different?

Max: I think it would be absurd to work with folks who haven't personally done the task at hand. There are occupations where that's not required - but if I'm having surgery, I want a surgeon who has done this operation before, and ideally one who has undergone the same surgery, so they know what it's like to be the patient. I've heard wild stories from medicine - doctors blasting hardcore rap during spinal surgeries - and I'd want someone who empathizes with what I'm going through. That's number one. Number two: people willing to put themselves out there. It's very easy to hide behind a website - omit your background, omit press and media mentions that would let people understand who you are. That's why I've made a conscious effort, especially with GoldCapital: I posted every day for almost two years, and I'm getting back to it. I've been vocal about where I disagree with other founders' advice. My story is all public - media mentions from when I was in high school failing at iOS games, up through Inc. Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch. There's no pay-for-play to be on the front page of a print section of the Journal. We're here speaking freely - we can't even monetize these episodes given the swearing and the sensitive subjects. And Mike, Sam, and Cam don't have huge personal social followings, but they agreed to come on when I asked - putting your face out there takes real courage; most people watching would never record and publish one episode, let alone do it weekly for years. So: we've invested in making our personalities, stories, strengths, and weaknesses known. Pick someone who meshes with your personality and your morals and ethics. If that's us, great. If someone else is better - all the power to them.

51:07 Fundraising advisor red flags to avoid

Cam: It always comes down to who you're working with - a trust thing. On that, I actually put together a few red flags. Put yourself in the founder's shoes: what's the number one thing that would make you run?

Max: Let's flip it back on you, Cam - I'll rattle off things we've heard over the years. We covered this at the start, but: a firm that guarantees a raise - or would change their compensation model based on their ability to get it done in some guaranteed way. Pursue, or run?

Cam: I always say this: if anybody's willing to change their entire compensation model for you, they need your money. It's the easiest way to think about it. Why on earth would I change my compensation model for everybody? They're doing it to get a deal done - that's sales being done to you. Absolutely not: guarantees, changing comp models - I'm running for the hills. And here's one of mine: when someone drops a number that sounds too good to be true - "we have 10,000, 11,000 investors in our network." Does that not strike a chord? How on earth could you know that many people to the core? It's not a very big industry.

Max: I bet half of those are bots. Next one: success fees only - "we don't charge anything upfront" - and they're unregistered.

Cam: Unregistered is a big one - that's definitely a run. And if you charge only success fees, how am I one of, like, 600 people you're taking on? How do you manage that? It doesn't make sense - it's a pretty bad business model.

Max: They won't name any past clients.

Cam: That's a tricky one, because NDAs are prevalent in this industry - I feel for that, trust me. But if there's not a single soul out there talking about it publicly, in any form, any article, anything you can look up - probably a run.

Max: "We'll blast your deck to 5,000 investors" - or "run a personalized AI outreach campaign with our crazy new tech" - which is an Apollo wrapper.

Cam: I wouldn't even run - I'd turn around and build it myself. It takes about ten minutes. That's a run.

Max: And by the way - we covered cold versus warm introductions at length, and what actually works, in episode 3, so go check that out. What about this one: you invest in the process, there's a real educational component, you actually learn how to raise money, people pressure-test your narrative and help you assemble materials so you don't make mistakes - especially when you don't have time to run the whole process yourself.

Cam: That's 100% - almost the only reason you should use somebody. What you're getting back is not a guarantee the raise gets done - we've covered that; that's sales. It's time and committed effort toward making you better, and everything you need to close the round. Worst case - say you never even get introduced to anyone - you're still better off closing your friends, family, and your own network, because your deck was prepared with you, you understand your story, you know how to negotiate with investors and talk about where things go, and you understand the long-term value an investor should provide versus someone who hands you money and expects a return in three years.

Max: Let me roleplay one, Cam, since I can see Mike and Sam are enjoying this. "I don't need any help. I already know how to do a deck. I already did the materials. The only reason I haven't closed my round is I just don't have enough warm introductions. If you put me in front of 10 people, I close all 10. I don't need a process - I just need the intros. Why the hell would I pay for anything else?"

Cam: Tell me you've talked with Claude for the last two months without telling me you've talked with Claude for the last two months. The belief that all you need is warm intros is crazy. I say this as a bootstrapped founder who never raised: you have to know what the hell you're doing, and you have to rely on people to give you the right information so you can. Raising is a full-time job - you have to step away from your business and focus full force. I guarantee you haven't done that, and if you have, you're probably running into a brick wall anyway. It's so much more than warm introductions. That's my opinion.

Max: And this is an expensive team. If all it took was making intros, why the hell wouldn't we just do that? It would save us a lot of time on our engagements.

Sam: That's a great point, and this is my last one before I have to duck out. Investors want to hear certain things - they're creatures of habit. When you're pitching, the way your deck looks, they want to see it a certain way, in a certain sequence. So "I don't need deck help" - well, you might be overestimating your ability a little. That's my last thought.

Max: Sam has important client work to jump to - Sam, you will be missed.

57:52 Fundraising advisor advice from GoldCapital Consulting

Max: This has been a great pod, as Mike would say - and the red-flags concept is one of the most useful parts. Mike, final piece: five years from now, does the fundraising advisor space exist at all?

Mike: I sure as hell hope so - but yes, I believe it will. This ecosystem will continue as it has for many moons, and there will always be people who don't understand it. Even with all the content out there, there's a huge learning curve - I'm learning new things every single day that I bring to founders. It'll be around in five years for sure.

Max: I sure hope so too. This will always be a relationship-driven industry. I don't think AI VC funds are coming - not because AI couldn't make good decisions, but because VCs love being VCs, and I doubt they'd ever cede their own gut instinct. That's part of the role: "I was the one who saw this." Like the old guard at record labels - great instincts, but they're never going to say "I just ran an AI system"; it's "I found this artist." There's something so ego-driven about this industry that it fortunately protects us for a while. But man - we see new firms popping up every week trying to be GoldCapital Consulting, trying to be FTFC. I see their ads on my Instagram feed, I look them up in the Meta ads library, and two weeks later they're gone. They don't exist. At least check how long a domain has been live; at least look for any mention of the company or the people running it from even six months ago - most of these folks wouldn't pass that test. It's sad. They're good marketers, good salespeople, very not-honest people. I wish they'd take those skills somewhere noble and build actual businesses. This isn't a money grab - it's about giving first, and the money flows if you do a good job.

Cam: As for the five-years question: as long as startups are around and investors are around, there will always be advisors - like any industry, people can always give advice, prepare you, and make you better. I do think that over the next year or two we'll go through a phase where AI is here, people learn to use it better, and firms get created out of nowhere and really push. But that's exactly when warm introductions and the knowledge that's not publicly available matter most. The biggest thing I tell everybody is the knowledge our team has - and others who've done this too - the things that just aren't talked about on Google. If that's all the models are trained on, you're never going to get it from them. Those pop-up firms will fall in at certain points, and the ones that remain will be the ones who actually know what the hell they're doing, with years of experience doing it.

Max: Well said - let's leave it there. Gentlemen, excited for next week. We have really nice content coming over the next several weeks - even some guest appearances in short order: former clients, some attorneys, folks who can provide even more value. Next episode we're going to talk about what it's actually like to be a GoldCapital and FTFC client - we get DMs constantly saying "I don't really understand what you do." First of all, go to our websites, we share it in pretty good detail - but we're going to devote about 45 minutes to walking from the very first contact with our team to the end of your round and what the next round looks like as a repeat client, which is a conversation Mike and I are having with a client right now. Exactly what you get, what's included, what's not, what the relationships and cadence are like, tools, what to expect - everything in between. We'll expose the whole thing. Sound good, gentlemen?

Mike: Fantastic. Easy enough.

Max: Great pod, Mike - I love saying that now. You both are fantastic. Looking at my calendar, we have a hell of a lot of work to do for the rest of the day, but this was great. Appreciate you being here as always.

Mike: Thanks, man. Always happy to be here.

Cam: Like and subscribe.