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ItzSuds argues founders should not start VC conversations as they come in; they…

2026-02-05 · 01:22 UTC ·ItzSuds ·2 min read

Brief

ItzSuds lays out a tightly managed playbook for startup fundraising built around preparation, speed, and consistency. The core recommendation is to treat fundraising as a concentrated campaign: assemble strong materials in advance, block off 2 full weeks, cluster meetings into a single week, and force decisions with a clear term-sheet deadline. The author argues that founders routinely hurt themselves by improvising, bluffing about investor interest, or giving different messages to different firms, because VC networks share information rapidly. The post also pushes against excessive secrecy, saying investors lose interest when founders refuse to share customer or product details, while also warning not to overshare irrelevant information that gives investors more reasons to pass. Finally, ItzSuds recommends anchoring the process around the target raise amount rather than an upfront valuation, then using competing term sheets to improve both price and round size.

Why it matters

ItzSuds argues founders should not start VC conversations as they come in; they should wait until their deck, blurb, and data room are ready, then compress the process into 2 dedicated weeks with all first meetings in week 1 and serious diligence in week 2, plus a stated deadline for term sheets.

Key details

  • The post claims top VC firms share information quickly, so founders must stay perfectly consistent across conversations; telling different stories to different investors can damage integrity within a single day.
  • ItzSuds says founders are usually bad at manufacturing FOMO because there is near-perfect information symmetry among top VC circles; falsely claiming to have a term sheet can backfire immediately and look worse if the company is still fundraising 2 months later.
  • The author advises being open with investors rather than withholding customer lists or product specifics under a claim of proprietary advantage, arguing that secrecy during fundraising tends to reduce investor interest rather than protect the company.
  • On pricing, ItzSuds says founders should state the amount they want to raise but avoid naming a valuation upfront; the post gives a concrete example that raising $4 million implies roughly 20% dilution at a $20 million valuation, with pricing and round size negotiated after multiple term sheets arrive.
Source evidence

title: @ItzSuds: Founders don’t understand how to run a fundraising process & it kills their rais...
author: ItzSuds
contenttype: twitterpost
published: 2026-02-05T01:22:34+00:00
source_url: https://x.com/ItzSuds/status/2019220069927252403

word_count: 467

Tweet by @ItzSuds

Founders don’t understand how to run a fundraising process & it kills their raise [1] Don’t talk to VCs just because they reached out. Wait until you’re ready, have all your materials (deck, blurb, data room), then schedule all your raise meetings for 1 week & set a “final” date for when you expect all term sheets to be in. This lets you control the flow of information & time box the round. Set a full 2 weeks aside for Fundraising and nothing else. The first week is for first meetings and follow ups, the second week is for serious diligence with select firms who’ve opted in. [2] All VCs talk. Everyone is friends with each other. DO NOT tell one VC one thing and then another VC another thing. Everyone will know by the end of the day and your integrity will be in question. [3] Most founders SUCK at fomo. There is almost perfect information symmetry between top VC circles. Don’t try to fomo VCs in by saying a term sheet if you don’t have one: [A] they’ll know and they’ll call your bluff, and [B] they’ll tell you to take that term sheet and when you’re still in market two months later they’ll make a lot of assumptions about you. [4] The most annoying thing a founder can do during a raise is get cute about not sharing information because they think what they have is proprietary. There is nothing proprietary in venture. Managing your customer lists or not sharing specifics about product is an easy way to lose investor interest. [5] By default, VCs are looking to deploy capital. The more info you give them, the more data they have to say no. Don’t give them a reason to say no. [6] Be clear about how much you want to raise but DO NOT say a valuation. Tell anyone who asks that you are going to let the market price your round. If you say you want to raise $4m, it’s implied that you are willing to dilute 20% for the round & will raise at a $20m valuation. Once you get multiple term sheets from firms, you can start negotiating both the price and the round size up. [7] You need strong materials. The more the better. The deck is just leave behind material that whets the firm’s appetite and makes them want to take the meeting. You need a data room with technical docs, a roadmap, information on the team, and information on your early traction/team to make the life of the associate doing diligence on you easier. I’ve written a lot more about fundraising but this was just top of mind and I feel like if founders just followed these basics life would be a lot easier for everyone involved.

Posted: 2026-02-05T01:22:34.000Z
Engagement: 1288 likes, 66 retweets, 73 replies