When fundraising drags and burnout hits 🥵
👋 Hi, it's Alice, and I'm here with a 🔥 edition of The Midnight Text, Forum Ventures' bi-weekly newsletter that provides honest answers to the unspoken questions that keep founders awake at night.
I'm the Head of Studio at Forum Ventures, working with early-stage founders to build and scale their companies. I guide founders through the zero-to-one journey, helping them validate their ideas and reach momentum. For more insights like this one, follow me on LinkedIn.
Up today:
When fundraising takes longer than you planned, and you're a solo founder trying to do it all.
First, some news:
🚀 Applications to be a Studio Founder are open. We’re looking for pre-product founders who have a right to win in their market. If that’s you, you’ll get $250K + our full studio team to help you reach momentum and scale. Only a few spots available. Apply here.
Now, let's get into today's Midnight Text moment:
“Alice, I’ve been fundraising for four months now. I thought I’d be done in 6–8 weeks. I’m doing customer calls, building product, running operations, and taking investor meetings—all by myself. I’m burning out but can’t stop any of these things. How do I keep it all together when fundraising drags on?”
I feel this. Fundraising timelines have stretched from 6-8 weeks to 6-8 months. Solo founders face a particularly brutal challenge: maintaining momentum on all fronts with just 24 hours in a day and one pair of hands.
Here’s how you make it work when you’re a team of one (or even two):
Reframe your timeline
The first mistake is holding onto outdated expectations. Accept that fundraising is no longer a sprint—it's an ultramarathon. This isn't a failure on your part; it's the new normal.
Shift your thinking from “I need to close this round ASAP” to “I’m building investor trust while building my business.” This mental reframe helps you plan for the long haul rather than burning yourself out in the first mile.
Build a ruthless priority stack
As a solo founder, you can’t do it all, and you shouldn’t try. Create what I call a "priority stack" that shifts weekly:
Week 1: 60% Product, 20% Customers, 20% Fundraising
Week 2: 60% Customers, 20% Product, 20% Fundraising
Week 3: 60% Fundraising, 20% Product, 20% Customers
Week 4: Repeat
This approach ensures nothing falls completely off your radar, while still giving you focused blocks to make meaningful progress in one area. The key is to be ruthlessly disciplined about these allocations.
Automate or eliminate the rest
For everything not in your weekly priority stack, you have two options: automate it or eliminate it. This will take some up front work, but it will allow you to focus on what matters. Here are a few suggestions:
Operations: Use templates for onboarding emails, investor updates, and recurring tasks. Set up auto-replies that point people to your calendar or FAQ. Create templated responses for repeat questions so you're not rewriting the same email 10 times a week. Default to async. If it doesn’t need your direct involvement, systematize it.
Fundraising: Block investor calls to 1–2 days a week. Don’t scatter them, context switching can kill momentum. Use a Notion page or lightweight CRM to track outreach and follow-ups. Instead of crafting personalized updates every time, write a monthly update and send it to your entire pipeline. Keep it short, punchy, and progress-driven.
Product: Ruthlessly ship only what’s critical. That feature you might need next quarter? Cut it. Design wireframes instead of building full flows. Use low-code tools or AI copilots to speed up dev. The goal isn’t to have the prettiest product, it’s to validate you're solving the right problem.
Customers: You don’t need 10 coffee chats to get feedback. Set up a Typeform with 3–5 high-signal questions and push it out. Prioritize your most engaged users for 1:1s. Automate the rest. Use Loom videos to walk through changes instead of doing live demos.
Leverage your “almost team”
You’re solo, but you’re not alone. Build an almost team—people who aren’t full-time but can fill gaps:
Advisors who make warm intros to investors.
Freelancers who handle the time-sucks.
Supportive peers for accountability.
Friendly customers who'll provide testimonials without prompting.
Even 3-5 hours of help per week across this network can be the difference between moving forward and standing still.
The bottom line
Extended fundraising as a solo founder isn't just about securing capital, it's about surviving long enough to succeed. Your primary job isn't to close your round, it's to build a company worth investing in. And that requires you to be sustainable in your approach.
Remember, investors back founders who can execute despite constraints. By demonstrating you can navigate this challenging period with focus and discipline, you're actually making yourself more investable.
If you're currently in this pressure cooker, know that you're not alone. The path is longer for everyone right now. Take a deep breath, adjust your timeline expectations, and focus on sustainable progress rather than superhuman sprints.
Stay resilient,
Alice
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