Sept. 9, 2004
Once the deal was done, anxiety crept in. I found myself more stressed and not abole to really sleep for about a week. I know this is counter-intuitive….but I recall some of this from abuzz. There are some post-financing phenomena that many people don’t talk about – that I’ve come to identify and would like to share with all those other entrepreneurs seeking financing out there.
Phenomenon #1: holy shit
This occurs when entrepreneurs wake up and realize that people actually believe in the business idea they’ve been working on and are willing to invest millions of dollars in their idea with them as CEO.
Phenomenon #2: holy shit, gotta make it work
This phenomenon occurs particularly in early stage financings. The earlier the company is in its life cycle the more likely it is that the entrepreneur – me in this case – raises the question after raising all the money -- is this really all going to work? The stress comes in from realizing that making it work is up to ME.
Phenomenon #3: holy post financing blues
This is commonly known as the post financing blues. This is the most well known of the post financing phenomena I’m writing about. It’s the most well known because it’s inevitable and can often hit entrepreneurs as well as their companies (staff) with a wallop. It is easy to attribute this phenomenon to the emotional roller coaster of doing a venture capital financing. Inevitably after the anticipation associated with raising millions with VCs, there’s an emotional let down.
Phenomenon #4: holy re-engagment, Batman
This typically just hits the CEO (KAPOW) who has been mostly disengaged during the fund raising process. There’s a real process of trying to figure out what to focus on and what to do – because the last 3 to 6 months have all been about financing. This can also hit the COO (SPLAT@!) who has been running things at the company while the CEO has been out raising money.
It’s important to remember when fund raising that the real work starts after the financing. These phenomena take about 30 days to overcome.
