“That sounds fantastic.”
That was the answer from one of the people I had asked to invest in Apply. Good enough for me.
I replied immediately. I was excited to have him as a “supporter / believer / collaborator.” Then I connected him with my cofounder to sort out the funds transfer.
I had sent the deck after an earlier conversation with a warning: “it is a bit long, but very fun!” That was accurate. It was long. It was also probably more fun than the average financing deck because the company sold stickers and had a lot of orange in it.
I offered to get back on the phone, walk through any detail, or bring the rest of the team into the conversation. He had questions. I answered them and tried to be clear about the timing. We were working to close the financing over the next week or two. I told him we would really love to have him involved.
Our first money had gone into the team, the brand, the Shopify work, the supply chain, and the first products we could actually sell. We had real sticker samples sitting on the floor. We also had a large list of things around them that were not finished.
Then he said yes.
I was pumped. I made the introduction and described the round correctly: we were beginning to close it. The money was not all in. The round was not finished. One person had said yes and now we had to do the paperwork.
The Instagram store was still caught between accounts, catalogs, and verification emails. The launch work did not pause while we raised money. Neither did production or packaging.
Still, this was a very good email to get. A few months earlier Apply was a model full of guesses and a side project I was trying to make real. Now we had products on the floor and one more person willing to put money behind it.
I ended the introduction the obvious way: pumped to be working together again.