One of the deepest and most cherished dreams of every founder out there (even if not expressed out loud) is to create that Billion dollar company and claim the title “Unicorn”.
Well, to help you celebrate and set yourself out for success, I am here to share with you some successful actions and strategies of other unicorns that can help you establish and grow your own unicorn company.
First off, it’s important to recognize that fundraising will be an integral part of achieving your goal. It’s not enough to just have a great idea - you need capital to bring it to fruition. That’s why most unicorns are so successful - they recognized the importance of raising money. Smartly.
Airbnb? They completed three major rounds of fundraising and raised $3.3 billion dollars to scale their business.
Uber? They completed over 30 rounds (!!) of fundraising and raised an astonishing $25.4 billion dollars.
These rounds of fundraising helped them hire the people they needed to scale their businesses, expand into new markets and provide innovative customer experiences.
Another key strategy is to network and build relationships with potential investors. My favorite examples here are unicorns like Stripe and Pinterest, which started connecting with relevant and strategic investors early on and found success as a result. Stripe connected with PayPal co-founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel while Pinterest reached out to Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Chris Sacca. I'm sure it wasn't a wall in the park, however, as these connections ultimately resulted in an investment of $150 million dollars for Stripe and $200 million dollars for Pinterest- the planning and focus here was worth it.
Also, be sure to focus on the value of your company rather than just the investors’ potential return on investment.
For example, the mobile payment platform Square presented a compelling case for how their product enabled customers to save money and make transactions easily. This endeared them to many potential investors and enabled them to raise $400 million dollars from private equity firms and venture capitalists.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg :)
I hope that these examples of the actions and strategies of these unicorns can help you reach your unicorn-level success.
So, good luck and happy fundraising!
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