Welcome to my first newsletter! I am quite excited to do this and it’s an important commitment for me. But quickly - why am I doing this and what should you expect? Well, there is so much content about startups out there. However, not much coming from CEE. I will share insights, opinions and stories from the region. My intention is to write one post every week.

Now let’s get into it.

Well, fall is coming. I am talking to many founders who (maybe just like you?) are preparing for fundraising. As a VC, there’s very few things cooler than a really well structured data room after having a great conversation with a founder. The UX / UI of the investors can be the same as for the users - turns them off if it’s bad.

Hence, I thought I could dedicate my first newsletter to help you out on this one. I put together a list of top-notch fundraising materials, toolkits and gtm / esop / metrics / strategy guides to get you up to speed. Many of you said it would be very helpful, so here you go. This post will stay on my substack page and I will update it from time to time, so save it for later. Feel free to scroll or just ctrl+f to find what you need:

Pitch Deck Templates & Guides

Creating an effective pitch deck is crucial for securing funding. Here are some templates or materials that can help you build yours:

•Creandum Series A deck template: File, Article

•Creandum Seed Deck Template:  File

•Point9 Deck Template (2015): Article

•Sequoia’s Business Plan Guide: Article

•a16z Data Room Guidelines: Article

•Y Combinator Series A deck guide: Article

•Pillar VC pitch deck template: File

•Deck Storytelling Template by Pillar VC: File

•Inventure deck template : Article

•Founders’ Institute deck template & pitching insights: Article

•b2ventures pitch deck Guide: Article

•Speedinvest’s Guide to Pitching: Article

•Underscore Deck Template: Article, File

•Underscore Pitch Deck Narrative Template: Article

•Index, LocalGlobe tips based on recent decks: Article

Financial Model Templates

Here are some templates to help you build your financial models:

•Creandum’s Financial Model template: File, Article

•Pillar VC’s Financial Model template: File

•SaaS Financial Plan by Christoph Janz @ Point Nine Capital: Article

Other Fundraising Materials

Here are additional resources to assist with your fundraising efforts:

•Creandum’s Dataroom Template: File, Article

•Underscore’s Data Room Template: Article

Other

•🔥Pillar VC’s Founder Playlist: everything you need in one place - templates, guides on fundraising, hiring, product and others. Highly recommended! - Link

•Underscore 2023 Fundraising Toolkit for seed rounds: File, Article

•Underscore Resources Page: plenty of guides & articles on fundraising - Link

•Firstround’s Fundraising Tips: Link

•b2ventures Founder Resources: Link

•b2ventures Term Sheet Guide: Link

•Y Combinator’s Series A Due Diligence Checklist: Link

•IVP’s SaaS Fundraising Playbook: Link

•Creandum’s VC Outreach Guide & Template: Article, File

•Founder takes:

• Leapsome Founder: Lessons from their first-ever fundraise and Series A pitch deck. Article
• Front Founder: Insights from their Series A pitch deck. Link

Guides and Tips on Non-Fundraising Topics

Beyond fundraising, there are other critical aspects of running a startup. Here are some valuable guides on various topics:

Expansion / GTM / others:

•🔥 Index’s US expansion guide: Link

•Sequoia Product-market fit Guide: Link

•Iconiq’s State of Go-to-Market 2024: Link

•Bessemer’s “Scaling from 1M to 10M ARR” guideline: Article

•Balderton’s B2B sales guide: Link

•b2ventures Founder Resources: Link

•Board Meeting Guide: Link

•Sequoia’s Board Meeting & Deck Guide: Article

•Board Meeting Guide by Delian Asparouhov: Link

•Techstars’s Toolkit: Page

•Iconiq’s Insights: Link

Metrics

•Iconiq’s Efficient Growth Report: Link

•a16z Growth Metrics: Link

•Metrics That Matter by Index: Link

•What is Good Retention by Lenny Rachitsky: Link

Employee equity

•Balderton Employee Equity Guide: Link

•Index Employee Equity Guide: Link

By leveraging these resources, you'll be better equipped to navigate the challenges of fundraising and scaling your startup. Whether you're preparing a pitch deck, creating a financial model, or seeking guidance on non-fundraising topics, I hope this list provides a good starting point.