Funded | How They Raised Millions

Working on your narrative isn't just about making a better pitch — it's about exposing the gaps in your company. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason breaks down why the holes in your story are actually a roadmap for what you need to go build. If your narrative is begging for traction, go get traction. If it's begging for a co-founder, go find one. The best version of your pitch i...

Most founders treat their pitch deck like a list of data points investors will absorb from start to finish. That's not how it works. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason breaks down the concept of narrative flow — why you have to constantly re-earn an investor's attention, how to know where to start based on your industry, and what the goal of every deck should actually be (hint: it&#...

Every VC you pitch wants you to be great. Not because they're generous — because your success is their success. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason shares a quote that reframes the entire investor relationship, and breaks down what it means for how you show up in pitch meetings. When a VC asks you hard questions, that's not a bad sign — it's the opposite. Here's how to stop g...

Venture capitalists who say they love cold email aren't lying — but they're not telling the whole story either. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason breaks down the three types of founders who reach out cold, why VC cold submission forms mostly work for the best and worst founders, and why the messy middle — the founders who need that first leap of faith the most — are the ones cold e...

Not all advice is created equal — and bite-sized content on Twitter or LinkedIn was never meant to be followed word for word. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason gets candid about his own content, why his takes are always directionally accurate but never fully comprehensive, and how founders should be filtering and applying advice they find online. He also shares why leaving a kind comment f...

Founders almost never cut their narrative far enough. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason shares a lesson from one of the best negotiators he’s ever seen — push all the way to the line so you know where it is. Applied to pitch narratives, that means going so simple it feels dumb, and then layering complexity back in from there. If you’ve been gradually trimming your story and wondering if yo...

A lot of founders treat storytelling and hard data as two different things in a pitch — and that’s the mistake. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason breaks down why your numbers mean nothing without a narrative wrapped around them, and why letting investors interpret raw data on their own is one of the most common pitching errors he sees. If you’ve ever wondered how much to lean on story vs....

Venture capitalists don't have a perfectly indexed CRM in their heads. They run on recency bias — last in, first out. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason breaks down what he realized after bumping into a top VC at a cafe in San Francisco: investors share what’s freshest in their minds, not what’s most relevant. He explains what that means for how founders should think about messaging, su...

Most founders make the same mistake when reaching out to their network during a fundraise, they try to combine a personal connection with a business ask in the same email, and end up doing both badly. In this episode of The Backchannel, Jason breaks down why blended emails feel disingenuous, and introduces his email appendix format: a simple structural shift that separates the personal from the fu...

Too many founders think they need capital before they can make real progress — but that's exactly the mindset that keeps them stuck. In this episode, Jason breaks down the "parked car" trap: why waiting for funding before moving forward is the wrong approach, and how to start building momentum now so investors see a moving train, not a standstill. If you're preparing to raise you...

On this episode of Funded, Mohak Nahta, founder and CEO of Atlys, returns three years after his first appearance to share what building a real business actually looks like after the Series A. He talks about pivoting hard from B2B to B2C, navigating investor skepticism in the age of AI, and why the TAM slide he thought was airtight kept working against him. He also gets brutally honest about the mi...

On this episode of Funded, Jackson Schultz, co-founder and CEO of ArgusEye, shares how he left Google right after the birth of his second son, with no VC network and no hardware background, to build a cybersecurity platform for connected devices. He talks about getting passed on by VCs who couldn't see the market size, pivoting his fundraising strategy mid-process, and how assembling an angel army...

If your pitch deck or investor emails are full of words like "tremendous latent potential," "highly efficacious," or "flywheels of growth" — this episode is for you. In this Backchannel episode, Jason breaks down why flowery language and SAT words are one of the biggest red flags for investors, and why stripping it all back to simple, clear language will almost always...

Most founders treat cold outreach like a numbers game — blast enough investors and something will stick. It doesn't work that way. In this episode of The Back Channel, Jason breaks down why cold outreach is inherently at a disadvantage, why it should only ever be 5% of your fundraising strategy, and the specific tactics that can actually make a cold email land. From the traveling founder trick...

On this episode of Funded, Alex Bazzell, co-founder of Unrivaled, shares how he went from training NBA players to building one of the most talked-about new sports leagues in the country — and convincing investors to bet on it before a single game was played. He talks about getting passed on by VCs who invested in women's sports, what it felt like to fundraise without a prior exit or operator b...

On this episode of Funded, Emilė Radytė, co-founder and CEO of Samphire Neuro, shares how she went from academic neuroscientist to building a regulated neurotechnology company for women's hormonal health — a category most investors didn't even recognize. She talks about raising with no VC network, why hardware and women's health made investors nervous, and the mindset shift that changed everything...

A lot of founders jump straight to trying to sound impressive in a pitch. That usually backfires. In this episode of Back Channel, I break down the step most people skip, getting the investor to actually care before you show them anything clever. I talk through why context matters more than complexity, how to think about an ideal investor who already “gets it,” and how to reverse-engineer what you...

I want to walk through a real example of a founder who is doing the fundraising work the right way. Not theory. Not vibes. Actual behavior that leads to calendar density. I talk a lot about calendar density as the punchline, and I’ve realized that for a lot of founders the obvious follow-up is, okay, but how do I get there. This episode is my answer to that question. I break down what I saw this f...

I’ve been thinking about a fundraising idea that keeps showing up once you’ve pitched enough rooms. I call it the resonant frequency of investors. It’s that moment in a pitch when someone stops evaluating you and starts dreaming alongside you. In this episode, I break down what that state actually looks like, how it feels when an investor is nowhere near it, and why the difference matters more tha...

I finally brought a guest onto The Back Channel, and it’s for a good reason. A founder hit me with a question about SAFEs that made me pause a bit longer than I’d like to admit. The topic: whether a startup can accept money from someone who isn’t accredited in the US, and what that even means when the investor lives abroad. So I called up Aaron Ginsburg, partner at Fenwick, who spends his days hel...

On this episode of Funded , Ariana Thacker, founder and CEO of Mold Co., shares how she went from running a successful VC fund to building a company most investors initially dismissed. She talks about pushing through early rejections, why so many people doubted the market, and what finally flipped the fundraising momentum in her favor. It's a real look at what it takes to hold conviction when...

In this episode of The Backchannel , Jason Yeh unpacks the hidden friction points that often derail fundraising. He explores why investors hesitate and what founders can do to navigate those moments. Tune in to learn how to turn obstacles into momentum.

In this episode of The Back Channel , Jason Yeh reveals key time-saving strategies to ensure your fundraising efforts stay on track. He emphasizes the importance of preparing ahead, alongside 2 other keys to stay in control. By adopting these approaches, you'll streamline your fundraising journey and maintain momentum for a successful raise.

Raising money for AI might seem easy today, but back in 2017, it was anything but. In this episode of Funded , Jason Yeh sits down with Minna Song, co-founder and CEO of EliseAI, who shares her journey from bootstrapping a conversational AI startup before ChatGPT was even on the horizon to closing a $250M Series E led by Andreessen Horowitz. Minna opens up about the doubts investors had early on,...

In this episode of The Back Channel , Jason Yeh dives into the power of asking for help, especially when it comes to fundraising and storytelling. Drawing from an insightful conversation with Minna Song, co-founder of Elise AI, Jason explores how technical founders can benefit from expert storytelling assistance to elevate their fundraising efforts. He encourages founders to embrace the art of ask...