This post is the ninth in a series of ten posts about the 10 key reasons your consumer startup will succeed.

I speak with hundreds of aspiring consumer entrepreneurs and review thousands of executive summaries and pitches each year. From all this activity, certain patterns emerge that remain consistent with successful consumer startups. In this series of 10 blog posts, I will list the top 10 reasons consumer startups succeed. Note that all seem necessary, but none on their own are sufficient.

#9 Fundraising

One of the most important jobs of a startup CEO is fundraising. Choosing the right investors for your startup can be challenging for many founders, and should be approached with as much thought as other areas of your business. Here are a few critical tips that will help attract the right investors for your startup:

1. Investor Fit. Instead of searching for the highest bidder, look for a partner that will stick it out with you. Find the right individuals with relevant expertise, who share your vision, and who will add value, especially for your early rounds.

2. Beware of Party Rounds. While it can be enticing to have brand name VCs writing small checks early on, beware of big “party rounds” where many investors contribute a relatively small amount. This often doesn’t work out well for startups. With too many investors with small stakes, there’s often no one to take responsibility and roll up their sleeves. A VC that normally invests $5M+ won’t have the time to spend on a small Seed investment. Founders will then resent their lack of help and not look to these VCs when it comes time to raise a Series A round.

3. Cap Table. I often see an early co-founder who’s no longer involved with the company retaining a large equity stake in the business. This is a red flag. Investors understand rewarding an early contributor with some equity, but that should be in proportion to their role over the lifetime of the company. Giving away too much equity to non-critical contributors – both departed founders and non-cash investors – will create dilution issues for the founders and new employees down the road. Take care of the messy cap table early in the life of the company. Negotiate those individuals to a realistic percentage that won’t cripple your fundraising efforts.

4. Dilution. Taking in too much investment capital very early can make it tough for founders to retain meaningful ownership after Series B or even Series A. I’m always concerned when I see an investor owning up to 50% of a company or more at the Seed stage. We like to see the core team incentivized to stick it out, and that’s more likely to happen when there is a more balanced cap table and the founders and key employees own the right amount of the company.

5. A Note on Notes. A convertible note isn’t a deal-breaker for us at Maven – we are happy to invest at a fair cap or a reasonable priced valuation. However, founders should be aware that doing multiple subsequent convertible note financings, as is becoming common today, often complicates future financings. A few common issues that might arise include confusion about whether the cap was pre- or post-money, an unclear view of how much of a company each investor actually owns, and even calculation of the interest due as of a specific signing date. So while it’s more acceptable for companies to raise funding this way today, it is messy and less preferred.

6. Timing. The timing of when you meet with investors is very important. Regardless of what investors might say, you often only have one shot at a pitch. If you meet too early and get a no, that usually means no forever, not just for right now. Make sure you are ready for the early “coffee meeting” to be your first, and sometimes only, impression.

7. AngelList. Thankfully, there are more new options for fundraising today than ever before. There are a growing number of Seed funds, and AngelList is an incredible opportunity to reach a broad array of investors. We’re proud to be an investor in AngelList, and we also manage a $600k Syndicate. I encourage founders to research and understand the AngelList Syndicate platform. In many instances it makes strategic sense to fundraise on the platform, especially if your company will benefit from having a range of investors as advocates.

Fundraising is an emotional and challenging undertaking for founders. When you successfully close your round, quickly celebrate! And then get right back to the real work, which is building a meaningful, lasting company.

This post is the eighth in a series of ten posts about the 10 key reasons your consumer startup will succeed.

I speak with hundreds of aspiring consumer entrepreneurs and review thousands of executive summaries and pitches each year. From all this activity, certain patterns emerge that remain consistent with successful consumer startups. In this series of 10 blog posts, I will list the top 10 reasons consumer startups succeed. Note that all seem necessary, but none on their own are sufficient.

#8 The Right Mentors

There’s no question that having great mentors — people you really trust and can turn to in both successful and trying times — is critical for entrepreneurial success. However, startup founders often make the wrong decisions in choosing mentors based on their past financial and business success. Choose your mentors and investors wisely to avoid the common pitfall we call “Mentor Whiplash.”

Mentor whiplash happens when top quality mentors give conflicting advice. It is challenging for a founder, especially early on, to determine who to listen to, and we have seen the mental strain founders feel in letting down a successful mentor by not taking their well-meaning advice.

Here are two things you can do to avoid Mentor Whiplash:

1. Seek guidance from relevant advisors. The first step in dodging whiplash is to avoid choosing mentors who have had great success in their careers but have no idea how to build your business. Find mentors who have successfully built the kind of business you’re trying to build and have experience with startups. Look for domain experts, maybe someone who has experience as a founder in your industry. Don’t just look for someone who has seen great financial success at a tech company. For example, a mentor who has built a successful enterprise SAAS startup might push a consumer startup founder to make the wrong decisions. As consumer investors, we know focusing on unit economics and pushing the revenue model too soon can kill all viral growth — and possibly the business with it. That’s often counterintuitive for an enterprise expert. It’s one of our core tenets at Maven…we stick to what we know and only offer guidance and invest in Maven’s focus area: consumer-facing, hyper-growth companies.

2. Build an advisory board. Once you’ve found the right mentors and have them invested in your success, we think it’s a great idea to put together an advisory board and have a meeting once a quarter. It’s like training wheels for the formal board of directors meetings you’ll be hosting post-Series A. Moreover, it’s an efficient way to utilize your team of mentors. When they are all part of the same discussion, conflicting ideas and advice will get worked through as a group, mitigating the risk of mentor whiplash.

After 10 years of mentoring startups at many accelerators and incubators, I’ve seen it happen time and again. Someone with great intentions who was very successful in another field will give advice to a consumer startup. It’s completely misguided and could be lethal to the nascent business. Carefully selected, trusted mentors will be an incredible asset to your startup. But mentor whiplash can be deadly, so be thoughtful in selecting and engaging the right advisors.