Raising a Friends and Family Round

Raising a Friends and Family Round is a Business course for founders who want to approach early startup fundraising with clarity, responsibility, and confidence. This course gives students a practical framework for raising capital from trusted personal networks while protecting relationships and setting the business up for disciplined growth.

Build A Responsible Business Fundraising Plan For Your First Round

• Learn when a friends and family round makes sense and when another funding path may be better.
• Set realistic fundraising goals, define milestones, and explain use of funds clearly.
• Understand basic deal structures, investor risk, and key legal, tax, and compliance considerations.
• Practice making the ask, handling objections, closing commitments, and communicating after the raise.

A practical founder’s guide to early startup fundraising from trusted personal networks.

This course walks founders through Raising a Friends and Family Round from the earliest planning decisions through post-round investor communication. Students learn how to evaluate founder readiness, decide how much to raise, and connect the round to specific Business milestones that can move a startup forward.

The lessons explain common early-stage funding structures, including SAFEs, convertible notes, and basic equity concepts, in plain language. Students also learn how to prepare a clear fundraising story, build a pitch deck, discuss market opportunity and traction honestly, and communicate risk in a way that respects both the investor and the relationship.

By the end of the course, students will know how to identify appropriate potential investors, make a thoughtful ask, manage commitments, avoid common mistakes, and send useful investor updates after the round closes. Founders will leave with a more professional fundraising process and a stronger sense of responsibility for the Business they are building.