Raising capital and building a startup all at once when you’re an early founder with just a co-founding team and a million things to do.
Having the right tools and an actual system can help you manage the different workloads, priorities and everything you have to do when you’re been pulled in so many different directions.
The right tools can:
We’re fussy with tools at Accelerating Asia, well at least the marketing team is so we only recommend the things we have tried and tested ourselves.
So here are some of the tools we use at Accelerating Asia in our own marketing activities and the tools we recommend for our portfolio.
If you only do one thing, make it this. Get rid of your gmail, hotmail and yahoo (is that a thing still?). Invest in a custom domain and personalised company email for your startup.
Why? Most investors and partners won’t take you seriously if you reach out via an @gmail account. And if you’re asking someone for money, they want to make sure you’re professional - having a company email is professional!
Contact & lead management, EDMs and more
Tracking database leads, customer journeys and having a powerful automation and email campaign tool can really support you scale quickly, effectively as you grow your startup and track your investor leads.
We use Active Campaign, it’s useful to setup a pipeline for tracking your investment leads, sending your monthly newsletters and more. You can also set tasks and reminders so a potential investor never slips through the cracks because you’re focused on your company.
Another good option for setting up and tracking your fundraising pipeline is Trello or Notion, it’s not a database though but is a good alternative.
Book your meetings with ease, target different types of investors with different reminders and information about your upcoming meeting. Plus create funnels and setup different calendly links for different stakeholders so they receive the relevant information for them.
This is our marketing team’s secret social media weapon in the marketing toolkit. It’s predictive scheduling and content calendar helps keep me organised and ensures I post at optimal times for engagement and reach. The thing I like most about it is it’s UX/UI and interface.
Do yourself a favour and upgrade to the paid version of Canva, it’s worth it. A lot of Founders (and us!) moved across and it’s made the graphic design and pitch deck process a lot quicker, setup a template and you can easily update your deck.
And on that note, get a graphic designer to help you with a template. Online Jobs and 99.Designs have some great, affordable freelancers
Accelerating Asia invests in startups with scalable technology solutions and revenue generating business models that combine purpose with profit.
In making an investment decision, investors must rely on their own examination of startups and the terms of the investment including the merits and risks involved. Prospective investors should not construe this content as legal, tax, investment, financial or accounting advice.
