The Fundraising Timeline No One Talks About

The Fundraising Timeline No One Talks About

From “napkin to term sheet” in 48 hours? Maybe — if you’re a Stanford dropout with a Substack following. For the rest of us, here’s how long it actually takes (and what to do when it drags).

🗓️ Month 0: You tell your friends you're raising.

They nod. You post a tweet.

You clean up your deck. Maybe even add gradients.

You set a goal: $1.5M in 6 weeks.

You’ve never been more delusional in your life — and you’re so full of hope.

🗓️ Month 1: You “start raising.”

Aka: you send out 9 intros, update your CRM (twice), and take 4 calls that go:

“Interesting! Let me take this back to the team.”

The team never calls back.

You convince yourself it’s a pipeline game.

You start stalking your friends’ traction posts on LinkedIn.

🗓️ Month 2: You are now a part-time SDR.

You’re in back-to-back meetings.

You’re saying “vision” more than you say your own name.

You’ve had more investor coffees than paying customers.

Someone you met once at Web Summit wants a Notion update tracker.

You’re building dashboards to prove you’re growing — even if it’s mostly growth in dashboards.

🗓️ Month 3: You start Googling “founder burnout fundraising.”

Your runway is looking thin.

Your team is asking questions.

You’re asking questions like:

• Why is this so damn slow?

• Why did that other startup raise $5M in 2 weeks?

• Why did I think I could do this?

Then you remember:

They were YC-backed. Or US-based. Or just not you.

🥲 The Truth They Don’t Tell You

For some people, fundraising does happen over coffee.

They raise off Figma mocks.

In San Francisco, VCs chase you because your roommate works at Sequoia.

But if you're in Europe or the UK?

Be prepared to wait.

For traction. For validation. For someone else to bless your round.

We love a success story — but only after someone else says it's worth believing in.

💀 The Dark Comedy of Fundraising

• The investor you chased for weeks? They ghost you after “circling back.”

• The one who showed enthusiasm? They want to “see more traction.”

• The one who said no? Two months later, they invest in someone you mentored.

• Your deck? It’s now in 17 versions, and you’ve stopped naming the files.

🔄 So What Do You Do When It Takes Longer Than It Should?

1. Stop treating time as your enemy.

Sometimes dragging the raise is the best thing that happens.

You get clarity. You shed dead weight.

You realise how much of your burn was narrative, not necessity.

2. Build your “slow burn” team.

You don’t need mercenaries.

You need missionaries with equity option, not just salary.

The kind who ask, “How can I help?” — not, “What’s in it for me this month?”

3. Stretch the runway (and your belief).

That “extra month” you buy through frugality might be the one where everything clicks.

Or it might just suck.

Either way, it's better than raising on weak terms out of desperation.

4. Let it break you (a little). Then rebuild.

Sometimes, the raise drags because you weren’t ready.

Other times, it drags because they’re not ready.

Investors need conviction. You can’t fake it.

But you can earn it — one truth at a time.

🧘 Final Thought

Fundraising doesn’t take 6 weeks.

It takes as long as it takes for:

• You to believe what you’re building

• Someone else to believe you can build it

• The math, momentum, and magic to line up

If it’s taking longer than expected, you're not failing.

You're just living in reality. And sometimes, that’s where the best founders are built.