The raise starts six months before the raise.
Every founder learns this the expensive way: the round is easier when the investor already knows your name, and the intro is easier when the person making it has heard from you more than once. That means keeping a relationship warm long before you need anything, which is exactly the thing that falls off the list when you are building.
The system
- 1Separate the three lists
Investors you want, people who can introduce you to them, and advisors or operators who make you better. They need different rhythms and different asks. Mixing them is why 'networking' feels pointless.
- 2Map the intro path before you need it
For each target, who do you already know who knows them? A warm intro from someone who has seen your work beats a cold email by an order of magnitude, and the path is usually two people, not six.
- 3Send the short update, monthly
Five lines: what shipped, one number, one ask. Investors who have watched you execute for six months are the ones who move fast when you open a round. This single habit outperforms every pitch deck revision.
- 4Log what they care about
This fund does seed only, that partner cares about retention curves, this operator offered to intro you to a head of sales. Write it down the day you hear it.
- 5Run the raise as a pipeline, with dates
Target, intro requested, first meeting, diligence, term sheet. A stalled stage with no next date is a dead lead you have not admitted to yet.
None of that needs software. It needs upkeep, which is the part people lose. That is the job A.R.O takes.
What A.R.O does for it
A fundraising board out of the box: Target, Intro requested, First meeting, Diligence, Term sheet, Closed. Cards show time in stage.
The network graph connects your contacts by company and group, so you can see who can introduce you to the person you want.
Write the monthly update once, send a personal copy to each investor from your own account. Every send is logged.
Check size, stage focus, intro path, follow-up date, defined by you and searchable.
Set monthly for the ten investors who matter; A.R.O tells you when you have let one drift.
Walk into a partner meeting knowing exactly what you discussed last time and what you promised to send.
Questions
Not as a shared workspace. A.R.O is a personal CRM: you can share individual contacts, but two people cannot edit one board. If you need a shared pipeline, use a team CRM for the raise.
It drafts and personalizes it, then you review each one and click send. Mail goes out through your own Gmail or Outlook, not through us.
Contacts are never sold and never used to train models, secrets are encrypted at rest, and you can export or delete everything at any time.
Start with 50 people, free
No card, no trial clock. Connect Google, Apple or Microsoft and A.R.O fills itself in.