What most parents learn...but most founders don't
Read time: 1½ minutes
Welcome to issue #031 of Unicorn Parents. Each week, I share practical insights and reflections to help you build a profitable business without missing the magic at home. If you’re serious about winning at work while raising great kids, you’ve come to the right place. This is a community built for ambitious parents who want both.
When fundraising, first-time founders have two frames clashing in their heads:
1) Imagination
You’ve heard the stories.
Founders raising millions off a pitch deck.
Pre-product.
Pre-revenue.
Pre-anything.
And your hope balloons:
“My idea is great.
I work insanely hard.
I only need ONE investor to say yes.”
So you prepare your pitch.
100 meetings?
200?
Whatever it takes.
2) Reality
You open LinkedIn…
and nobody even takes the call.
“If someone would just listen…”
Finally, someone does.
A VC agrees to chat.
And it turns into a slow, polite, calendar-dragging “no.”
A goose chase with no goose.
That’s the clash:
Imagination vs. Reality.
As a parent, you’re familiar with this feeling.
Before your child was born, you had a movie in your head.
Perfect mornings. No chaos. Endless joy.
Then reality shows up.
And eventually…you adjust.
But founders?
Most never adjust.
They cling to the myth:
“One day a VC will hear my story and fund me.”
This is startup lotto-ticket hope.
Sad… and common.
The first step in fundraising is NOT pitching VCs.
It never was.
VCs don’t know you.
They don’t trust you.
You haven’t earned the right to skip the line.
The real first step?
Build relationships with people who actually have money.
People who invest because they believe in you, not your deck.
People who say “yes” because they know your character, not your CAC.
In other words:
Angels.
Business owners.
Operators.
Former founders.
High-earning professionals.
People who already LIKE you.
That’s where every real fundraising journey begins.
Second step:
Spend more time with customers than with investors.
Get real users.
Get real revenue.
Get real pull from the market.
Clients paying you is the best fundraising strategy in the world.
Investors don’t fund slides.
They fund relationships + traction.
And when you nail those two?
You stop chasing the “magical yes.”
The YES starts chasing you.