7.5 Easy Steps for Raising $15,000 for New Urban Planning Technology

Today, I’ll be presenting 7.5 Easy Steps for Raising $15,000 from Investors
For Your New Urban Planning Technology at the MIT Planning and Technology Conference. Below are slides from the presentation and the video on YouTube. The slides are hard to see on the video, so you might want to watch the video while clicking through the slides. Also, if you scroll down, you’ll get recommended resources that will help you successfully complete every step as you seek funding for your new urban planning technology idea.

Step 1. Find a Problem that People will Pay you To Solve

• Getting Real by 37 signals
• Pick One and Own It by Jason Cohen

Step 2. Listen to Potential Customers

• Running Lean by Ash Maurya

Step 3. Build v1.0 In Your Garage at Nights & Weekends

• Launchbit:
• 8 Hour Start up

Step 4. Launch 1.0 and Collect Data

• Build a Landing Page – Unbounce
• Track Your Visitors – Google Analytics
• Survey Your Visitors – Wufoo
• Who is Talking About You – Google Alerts
• Emailing Your Visitors – MailChimp

And if nothing happens after you launch, you’ll need to do some marketing.

• NOOB Guide to Online Marketing
• MicroiSV on a Shoestring

Step 5. Find a nerd

• Meetup.com – Start attending nerdy meet ups in your area. Suggestions include any Ruby or Rails Meet Ups, Python Meet Ups or Java Meet Ups.
• Specifically, google  Co-founders Wanted Meet Up in your area.

Step 6. Talk to Investors: Friend & Family, Angel Investors & Seed Incubators

• Angel List
• There are a ton of seed incubators out there. Here’s a map of seed accelerator programs, but be sure and google “seed incubator + your city name” as well.
• Pros and Cons of Seed Incubators

Step 7. Apply, Apply, Apply

• Depends on which type of investor you are speaking with.
• How not to Pitch

Step 7.5 Cash Your Check

• At Cubit, we spent 100% of our seed money on either: 1. product development or 2. technology services that we needed to go from version 1.0 to version 2.0. But you may need to use some of that money to pay yourself or your partner’s bills before your company is profitable. Budget accordingly.

Do you have any questions for me about how to complete a step in raising money to fund your new urban planning technology idea? Any other helpful resources that I should have included on this list? Let me know in the comments.