We partner with
US university students
building startups
at the earliest stage
The Process
Our diligence process begins by working alongside you first. We aren't just another firm that takes you at face value. As Paul Graham said, "the best ideas look initially like bad ideas", so instead of judging your idea, we'd rather get to know your team and how you approach things.
1
First, a quick 15 min conversation with our Managing Partner, Alex.
2
We build the relationship over a few more meetings. We believe the best way to evaluate an early startup is to test drive working with the team.
3
As soon as you are investable, we are ready to invest.
What You Get
Not Yet Ventures is the first believer that great founders deserve. Building products that people love is the only metric we care about, and we want to help you do it faster.
We help you become the kind of company that other investors want to invest in:
We prepare you for the next stage of investors:
- Keep you focused on KPIs and growth metrics with meetings as frequently as you want
- Refine your communication style by reflecting back what investors want to hear
- Workshop your pitch, decks, or applications to YC (Alex has helped 17 student entrepreneurs get funded by YC)
We advocate for you to next stage of investors:
- Confidently promote you to the next level of high quality early stage investors with the Not Yet Ventures brand
- Connect you into our carefully curated group of active angels and earliest stage VCs who all share one thing - they are wonderful to early companies.
We connect you into a community of other founders we believe in
- Best practices and resources for company building learn entrepreneurship is through other entrepreneurs who are "15 mins ahead"
- Motivation - when you see others succeed, you feel motivated
- Support in tough times - building a company is hard, and having others around who are going through the same struggles can make a huge difference
FAQs
- 2-3 cofounders who have known each other for a while and ideally have failed together in the past
- The founding team can build their own product quickly without relying on paying someone else to do it
- The founding team can generate sales quickly without relying on paid ads
- They are approaching the startup idea with a unique insight and/or a strong why now
- Signal: a full-time student who is also able to cut out distractions and peer pressure to get a job and is making meaningful progress and focus on a startup is an incredible signal of tenacity, something just not as powerful when someone drops out
- Resources:
- Students have access to incredible resources like grants, competitions
- The 'student card' which allows them to cold outreach and get a huge response
- Students are in a sandbox of incredibly smart people around them and around researchers at the forefront of the technological frontier
- Alex's background is in working with student entrepreneurs and has unique access to finding and vetting incredible students
- We are looking for teams where one co-founder is technical (aka they can build their product)
- Students must be from US universities, just to concentrate our approach
$50k for 2% is our standard deal.
When we invest, there isn't a round to be led. We invest independently of a round, aiming to be your first believer in exchange for a $50k check.