---
title: "From VC to Founder: Leveling the Playing Field for Fundraising"
episode: 52
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Vlad Cazacu"
guest_title: "Founder & CEO, Flowlie"
date_published: 2025-10-29
date_modified: 2026-07-22
duration: 00:34:55
word_count: 6413
topics: ["gtm-strategy", "outbound-sales", "ai-in-gtm", "revenue-operations"]
canonical_url: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/vlad-cazacu-leveling-playing-field/
source: "LeanScale Podcast Knowledge Hub — https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# From VC to Founder: Leveling the Playing Field for Fundraising

_Vlad Cazacu on building Flowlie, running fundraising like a real process, and why raising is 80% preparation_

**Episode 52 · The LeanScale Podcast**  
Vlad Cazacu, Founder & CEO, Flowlie · Hosted by Anthony Enrico  
Published October 29, 2025 · Updated July 22, 2026 · 00:34:55  
Canonical: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/vlad-cazacu-leveling-playing-field/

**Topics:** GTM Strategy · Outbound & Sales Development · AI in GTM · Revenue Operations


## Executive summary

Fundraising is one of the most pivotal, stressful, and monumental moments in a startup's life — and almost no founder runs it like the disciplined process it deserves. Vlad Cazacu, founder & CEO of Flowlie, has lived it from both sides of the table. Originally from Bucharest, Romania, he started an automated textbook-trading company in college (and, too young and too full of ego, turned down an acquisition offer eleven months in), published a book on entrepreneurial support systems, and rode that into venture capital across three firms in New York, Austin, and Miami. Flowlie itself was born the hard way: it began as an investor product to help VCs triage deal flow, ran for roughly two years on nights and weekends, and pivoted 180 degrees only when the founders being diligenced on the platform asked for the same intelligence about investors before their meetings. Two and a half years later, that founder-facing product is the whole company.

The thesis is 'leveling the playing field.' A founder raises maybe three to five times in a lifetime; an investor does it every single day. Everyone has a sales process, a hiring process, and a marketing process — but very few founders have a fundraising process, and that asymmetry is exactly where they lose time and leverage. Flowlie positions itself deliberately as a 'fundraising operation system,' not a marketplace and not a broker: it sits behind the scenes to help founders uncover the right investors and the right people in their own network to reach them.

The walkthrough is a clinic in applying data and AI to a relationship-driven process. A fit-scoring model (now on version five) predicts how likely a firm — or a specific partner at that firm — is to be interested, layered with portfolio similarity scores and accelerator batch data. The second pillar, network analysis, connects a team's LinkedIn and Google accounts and runs a discovery agent that surfaces warm-intro paths (LP-in-fund, co-investor, portfolio founder, and more), each ranked by a 'path impact score' so founders stop chasing dead LinkedIn connections. From there Flowlie pre-fills tone-matched intro requests, tracks everything in a fundraising-specific CRM, and uses a fine-tuned LLM to pull thesis insights, sentiment, points of concern, and tasks out of investor-meeting transcripts. A newly launched AI agent can take those actions inside the product from a chat prompt — searching investors, applying filters, and building target lists, even fact-checking itself when it gets a step wrong.

The most portable material is Vlad's fundraising advice: think of raising as 80% preparation and 20% execution. The 'raised in seven days' headlines hide three-to-six months of quiet groundwork — investor updates, coffees, long target lists of 100–150 funds rather than the 10–20 prospects most founders plan for. He unpacks 'calendar density,' the tactic of forward-loading warm-intro requests so meetings cluster into one window and manufacture genuine momentum and competitive tension. And he offers a candid tell on adoption: Flowlie's power users are almost never first-time founders — they're repeat and Series A/seed founders who already know the motion and want to move faster, while earlier-stage founders lean on the education first.

Who should listen: founders preparing to raise, operators who think in pipelines and want to see fundraising reframed as top-of-funnel coverage and momentum engineering, and anyone curious how a vertical-specific data moat plus an agent layer beats a generic CRM for a high-stakes, sensitive process. The through-line — the best products come from a visceral reaction to a problem you've lived — is the reason Flowlie reads as built by someone who has sat in both chairs.


## Key takeaways

1. **Fundraising deserves a real process — most founders don't have one** — Everyone builds a sales process, a hiring process, and a marketing go-to-market process, but very few founders ever build a fundraising process — usually because they don't know how to structure it and only do it a handful of times. That missing structure is where the time and leverage leak out.
   _Why it matters:_ Treat a raise like any other repeatable go-to-market motion: define the stages, the target list, the coverage math, and a system of record before you go to market, not while you're in it.
   _For:_ Founders, Revenue Executives

2. **Level the playing field: founders raise ~5x in a lifetime, investors do it daily** — The core information and process asymmetry is that an investor runs this motion day in and day out while a founder does it three, four, or five times ever. Structure, data, and network intelligence are how a founder closes that gap.
   _Why it matters:_ Assume you are the amateur across the table from a professional, and buy back the experience gap with preparation, structured process, and tooling rather than raw hustle.
   _For:_ Founders

3. **Fit scoring finds the right investors — and the right partner inside the firm** — Flowlie's fit-scoring model (version five) predicts the likelihood a firm or a specific individual at that firm is interested, using thesis, check size, stage, business model, product category, and geography — then applies the same score to individuals so you target the right partner, not just the right logo.
   _Why it matters:_ Prioritize outreach by fit rather than brand or convenience; a warm intro to the wrong partner at the right firm still wastes the round's most valuable resource — time.
   _For:_ Founders

4. **Network analysis and 'path impact' beat digging through LinkedIn** — By connecting a team's LinkedIn and Google accounts, a discovery agent surfaces intro paths (LP-in-fund, co-investor, connected investor, current and exited portfolio founders) and ranks each with a path impact score for likelihood of success — so surface-level connections get filtered out.
   _Why it matters:_ Not all warm intros are equal. Shortlist the highest-probability paths and stop asking loose connections to bridge intros they can't credibly make.
   _For:_ Founders, Sales Leaders

5. **Sensitive investor data needs its own home, not your sales CRM** — Investor interactions and their reactions to your pitch are highly sensitive and shouldn't be socialized across the whole company — so even if a generic CRM had identical functionality, a purpose-built, access-controlled home for that data is worth it on its own.
   _Why it matters:_ Keep fundraising data in a dedicated system rather than your revenue CRM; the confidentiality and the fundraising-specific fields (source, commitment, pass reasons) matter as much as the features.
   _For:_ Founders, RevOps Leaders

6. **A fundraising-specific database beats a sales CRM plus enrichment add-ons** — Sales CRMs enrich a target as someone to sell to — point HubSpot at Sequoia and it treats Sequoia as a prospect, not as an investor with a thesis, pace, check size, and decision power. Founders otherwise stitch together a CRM, Crunchbase, PitchBook, and websites: three tools for one process.
   _Why it matters:_ Use tooling built for the fundraising motion instead of forcing a sales stack to do a job it wasn't designed for; the vertical data and algorithms are the difference.
   _For:_ Founders

7. **Data quality over quantity — only investors actually deploying** — Flowlie deliberately won't list every investor; it maintains a high quality bar and includes those who have actually been deploying capital over the last four years. If you can't find an investor, there's a good chance they aren't really active — which saves you from chasing dead leads other databases still show as live.
   _Why it matters:_ Trust curated, verified deployment data over exhaustive-but-stale databases; a smaller list of truly active investors converts far better than a long list of names.
   _For:_ Founders

8. **Raising is 80% preparation, 20% execution** — The single biggest piece of advice: don't be misled by 'raised in seven days' headlines. That founder was almost certainly 'raising' for three to six months first — writing thoughtful investor updates, grabbing coffees, and building long target lists — before the visible sprint began.
   _Why it matters:_ Front-load the unglamorous work. Rushing to market with 10% prep and 90% execution reliably produces a longer raise — four to eight months — or a round that never closes.
   _For:_ Founders

9. **Over-index your top of funnel — 100–150 funds, not 10–20 prospects** — Most founders think they need 10 or 20 prospects; in reality many pass in the first week and you're out of top of funnel by Thursday. You want a much larger list and more warm-intro paths — warm intros to 40 investors plus 10 cold is a completely different raise than warm to 5 plus 15 cold.
   _Why it matters:_ Build a wide, well-researched target list up front and invest in warm paths; coverage math determines whether you have a pipeline or a dead end by week two.
   _For:_ Founders, Sales Leaders

10. **'Calendar density' manufactures momentum** — Instead of activating warm intros one at a time, forward-load them — ask connectors to introduce you three weeks out — so that when the window opens you have 15 to 30 meetings clustered together. That density creates confidence and lets you truthfully tell investors your calendar is filling and deals are moving to second calls.
   _Why it matters:_ Engineer momentum deliberately. Compressed, overlapping investor meetings create competitive tension and pace that a trickle of disconnected calls never will.
   _For:_ Founders, Revenue Executives

11. **Power users are repeat founders — first-timers need education first** — Counterintuitively, Flowlie's best users aren't first-time founders; they're Series A, seed, and second-time founders who already know the tips and tricks and want to move faster. Earlier-stage and pre-seed founders lean into workshops and webinars to learn the motion before the tool pays off.
   _Why it matters:_ Match the intervention to experience: give first-time founders education and frameworks before tooling, and give experienced founders speed. Tools accelerate a process you understand; they don't teach it.
   _For:_ Founders

12. **The best products come from a visceral reaction to a problem you've lived** — Flowlie's credibility comes from Vlad having sat on both sides — as a VC drowning in deal flow and as a founder trying to reach the right investors. Building the 'wrong' investor product first for two years is what surfaced the founder problem worth solving.
   _Why it matters:_ Deep, lived proximity to a problem is a durable moat; it produces the nuance and trust that generic tooling and outside-in market research can't replicate.
   _For:_ Founders


## Frameworks

### Leveling the Playing Field (05:30)

**Definition:** A founder raises capital only three to five times in a lifetime while an investor does it every single day — so the founder is structurally the amateur. Closing that gap with structure, data, and network intelligence is the mission.

The asymmetry isn't just information; it's the lack of a repeatable process. Everyone has a sales, hiring, and marketing process, but almost no founder has a fundraising process, so the game is to give them one.

### Fundraising Operation System (Not a Marketplace) (06:48)

**Definition:** Flowlie's positioning: a behind-the-scenes operating system for a raise — not a marketplace, broker, or middleman — that helps founders uncover the right investors and the right people in their own network to reach them.

By explicitly refusing to bridge introductions itself, Flowlie keeps the relationship and the sensitive data with the founder and focuses on research, network analysis, and record-keeping across the whole process.

### Fit Scoring + Network Analysis (07:23)

**Definition:** The two pillars of Flowlie: a predictive fit-scoring model (version five) that ranks how likely a firm or partner is to be interested, and a network-analysis engine that maps warm-intro paths and ranks each with a 'path impact score.'

Fit scoring answers 'who should I talk to'; network analysis answers 'how do I actually reach them, warmly.' Path impact scoring filters surface-level LinkedIn connections down to the intros worth activating.

### 80% Preparation, 20% Execution (26:30)

**Definition:** The core fundraising philosophy: the outcome is decided mostly by the preparation — target lists, investor updates, relationship-building, and warm-path lining-up — that happens before you ever say you're raising.

The 'raised in seven days' story hides three to six months of groundwork. Inverting the ratio to 10% prep and 90% execution reliably produces a longer raise or a failed one.

### Calendar Density (28:18)

**Definition:** Deliberately forward-loading warm-intro requests — scheduling connectors to introduce you weeks out — so investor meetings cluster into a single window instead of trickling in one at a time.

The clustering manufactures momentum and competitive tension: 15–30 meetings in a few weeks lets a founder credibly say the calendar is filling and deals are moving to second calls, which pulls investors forward.


## Quotes

_Speakers inferred from an undiarized transcript — verify before attributing._

> "The way we're thinking about it is leveling the playing field. For most founders, they do this maybe three, four, five times in their lifetime. An investor does this every single day, day in, day out."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (05:30)

> "Everyone has a sales process, everyone has a hiring process, everyone has a marketing go-to-market process. Very few people actually have a fundraising process."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (06:07)

> "We are not a marketplace — big disclaimer — we're not a broker. We're not trying to be a middleman of any sort. Our goal is to help you uncover the right people for your business."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (06:48)

> "That's how we got to Flowlie: by building the wrong product nights and weekends for about two years before the pivot."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (04:12)

> "What we don't promise founders is that if you use Flowlie you'll raise capital — that's outside of our control. But our promise is you're going to have the best shot at raising, and we're going to try to save you somewhere between 100 and 300 hours per raise."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (13:21)

> "A third to a half of my LinkedIn connections are really, really surface level — definitely not at the depth where I'd be comfortable making an intro."
>
> — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (12:47)

> "If you were to go to HubSpot and try to enrich Sequoia, it will try to treat Sequoia as a target you're trying to sell your software to."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (24:35)

> "You won't be able to find all the investors in Flowlie, but what you will find is all the investors who have actually been deploying over the last four years."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (25:11)

> "Some of the best products are built when you have a visceral reaction to the problem. There are very few people who can understand the nuance of the process as well as you."
>
> — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (25:48)

> "The biggest piece of advice I always give on fundraising is: think of it as 80% preparation, 20% execution."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (26:30)

> "That person who raised in seven days most likely has been 'raising' for about three, four, five, six months — writing thoughtful investor updates, grabbing coffees, building relationships."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (27:15)

> "Most founders think, 'Oh, I need like 10 prospects or 20 prospects.' You don't. They're probably going to pass in the first week, and you'll be out of top of funnel by end of Thursday."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (27:46)

> "They're creating this forward-loaded momentum, so that when the week comes and they say, 'please make the intro,' now they're having 15, 20, 25, 30 meetings booked on their calendar in a few weeks."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (28:53)

> "Our power users are almost never first-time founders. They're Series A founders, seed founders, second-time founders who know the tips and tricks and are looking for the platform to help them move faster."
>
> — Vlad Cazacu, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (30:43)

> "You're dealing with a ton of sensitive data. Even if all the functionality were exactly the same, just having a home for that sensitive data is really, really important."
>
> — Anthony Enrico, The LeanScale Podcast Ep. 52 (22:37)


## Practical advice by role

### Founders

- Run your raise like a real go-to-market motion: build the process, target list, coverage math, and a system of record before you announce you're raising.
- Front-load preparation — 80% prep, 20% execution. Write investor updates, grab coffees, and line up warm paths for months before the visible sprint.
- Build a wide top of funnel of 100–150 funds, not 10–20 prospects, and prioritize warm-intro paths over cold outreach — warm to 40 plus 10 cold beats warm to 5 plus 15 cold.
- Use calendar density: forward-load warm-intro requests so meetings cluster into one window and create genuine momentum and competitive tension.
- Keep fundraising data out of your company's sales CRM — it's sensitive, and a fundraising-specific system captures source, commitment, and pass reasons the right way.
- If you're a first-time founder, invest in education (workshops, webinars, frameworks) before expecting a tool to carry the process.

### Sales Leaders

- The fundraising lessons transfer directly to any pipeline: over-index top-of-funnel coverage because most early conversations pass, and score warm paths by likelihood of success rather than treating every connection as equal.
- Manufacture momentum deliberately — clustering meetings into a dense window creates pace and competitive tension that a trickle of disconnected calls never will.

### RevOps Leaders

- A high-stakes, sensitive motion deserves its own access-controlled system of record with domain-specific fields — don't force it into the general-purpose CRM.
- Data quality beats quantity: a curated set of genuinely active targets converts better than an exhaustive but stale database, and it's worth maintaining a high inclusion bar.
- Network graphs plus a predictive path-impact score are a repeatable way to turn 'who do we know' into a ranked, actionable warm-path plan.


## AI takeaways

**Thesis:** Flowlie is a case study in turning a relationship-driven, manual process — fundraising — into a structured, predictable one with AI and proprietary data: a predictive fit-scoring model, a graph-based network-analysis engine, an LLM that reads investor-meeting transcripts, and an agent that takes real actions inside the product.

- **Predictive fit scoring** — A machine-learning model (version five) ranks how likely a firm — or a specific partner — is to be interested, using thesis, stage, check size, business model, and geography, applied at both the firm and individual level.
- **Network graph as the real moat** — A discovery agent maps a team's combined LinkedIn/email graph and predicts intro paths (LP-in-fund, co-investor, portfolio founder), ranking each with a 'path impact score' for likelihood of success — the unlock a static database can't provide.
- **LLM meeting analysis** — A fine-tuned model reads investor-call transcripts to extract thesis insights, sentiment, points of interest and concern, and tasks — which founders use to write tailored follow-ups before the partner meeting.
- **Agentic actions inside the product** — A newly launched chat agent selects the right tool, applies filters, and builds target lists on the founder's behalf — and fact-checks itself, retrying when a step (like creating a target list) goes wrong.
- **Data quality gates AI usefulness** — Flowlie's high inclusion bar (only investors actually deploying) is what makes its scoring and enrichment trustworthy, versus generic CRMs that would mis-enrich an investor as a sales prospect.

**Agent & automation ideas**

- A discovery agent that maps a team's LinkedIn and email graph against a target list and ranks warm-intro paths by likelihood of success — directly transposable to sales account-based outreach.
- A meeting-intelligence agent that ingests call transcripts, flags points of concern, and drafts a tailored follow-up before the next decision meeting.
- A fit-scoring agent that scores inbound interest (investor, or in sales the prospect/account) against your thesis or ICP and routes it to the right owner.
- A 'calendar-density' scheduling agent that forward-loads intro or meeting requests so conversations cluster into a momentum window.


## Operations takeaways

### Pipeline & marketing ops

- **Coverage math wins.** Most early conversations pass, so build a top of funnel of 100–150 targets rather than 10–20 — the same discipline that separates a real pipeline from a dead end by week two.
- **Warm beats cold, and warm isn't equal.** Rank warm paths by a path-impact score and activate the highest-probability ones; a surface-level LinkedIn connection is not a credible intro.
- **Manufacture momentum.** Forward-load and cluster meetings into a dense window to create pace and competitive tension instead of a trickle of disconnected calls.
- **One system of record.** Track source, commitment, pass reasons, and next steps in a purpose-built system so you can analyze why targets pass and recall every interaction.


## Metrics mentioned

| Value | Metric | Context |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 100–300 hours | Hours saved per raise | Flowlie's promise to founders: not a guarantee of raising, but the best shot plus 100–300 hours saved per raise on research, intros, and tracking. |
| 250+ hours saved | Documented case study | Documented Series A case studies where Flowlie saved over 250 hours across research, finding and activating intros, and meeting recall. |
| Version 5 | Fit-scoring model version | The predictive model that ranks how likely a firm or individual partner is to be interested in a given company. |
| 88% | Intro coverage (target list) | In the demo target list, Flowlie found strong intro paths for 88% of the investors on it. |
| 568 → 1,300+ | Intro paths (single list / discovery) | One target list surfaced 568 intro paths; the discovery agent in the demo account identified over 1,300. |
| 342 VC investors | Search result | The AI agent's query for pre-seed VCs investing in B2B FinTech returned 342 U.S. investors, ranked top-20 by fit score. |
| 80% prep / 20% execution | Fundraising ratio | Vlad's core advice; inverting it to 10% prep / 90% execution reliably lengthens a raise or kills it. |
| 100–150 funds | Top-of-funnel target list | The list size Vlad recommends, versus the 10–20 prospects most founders wrongly plan for. |
| 15–30 meetings | Calendar-density week | Forward-loading warm intros can cluster 15–30 investor meetings into a few weeks to manufacture momentum. |
| Deployed in last 4 years | Investor data inclusion bar | Flowlie prioritizes data quality — including investors who have actually deployed capital in the last four years rather than every listed name. |
| $150 → $100 / mo per account | Pro pricing (partner discount) | A one-third partner discount takes the Pro plan from $150 to $100 per month per account (show-notes code GWRLEANSCALE for 33% off). |


## Entities mentioned

- **Flowlie** (company) — Vlad Cazacu's company; a 'fundraising operation system' for founders covering investor research, fit scoring, network analysis, a fundraising CRM, meeting analysis, and an AI agent. Started as an investor product, ran ~2 years on nights and weekends, then pivoted 180 degrees to the founder-facing product it is today. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/company/flowlie/
- **Sequoia Capital** (company) — Used as the counter-example for why a sales CRM fails at fundraising: point HubSpot at Sequoia and it treats the firm as a sales target, not as an investor with a thesis, pace, and check size. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/company/sequoia-capital/
- **B Capital** (company) — Named as a demo-data example investor firm while walking through the fit-scoring model — thesis, check sizes, business models, product categories, and geographies deployed. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/company/b-capital/
- **500 Global** (company) — Used in the demo of Flowlie's new intro-path graph view, mapping connections between the founder, a co-founder, and a partner at the firm. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/company/500-global/
- **Y Combinator** (company) — Cited as an example accelerator whose batch data Flowlie ingests, letting founders discover batch-mates backed by the same investors as intro paths. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/company/y-combinator/
- **Techstars** (company) — Named alongside Y Combinator as an accelerator whose batch data powers intro-path discovery among batch-mates. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/company/techstars/
- **Vlad Cazacu** (person, guest) — Founder & CEO of Flowlie, the fundraising operation system for founders; a former VC who built the product after living the problem on both sides of the table. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/guest/vlad-cazacu/
- **Anthony Enrico** (person, host) — Co-founder of LeanScale and host of The LeanScale Podcast. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/guest/anthony-enrico/
- **LinkedIn** (tool, Social Platform) — Founders connect their team's LinkedIn accounts so Flowlie can map the combined network and surface warm-intro paths; Anthony notes many LinkedIn connections are too surface-level to make a credible intro.
- **Salesforce** (tool, CRM) — Named alongside HubSpot as the general-purpose sales CRM founders wrongly reach for; it lacks the proprietary investor data, fit scoring, and network analysis a raise needs.
- **HubSpot** (tool, CRM) — The archetype sales CRM that would treat an investor like Sequoia as a sales prospect rather than an investor — illustrating why fundraising needs a purpose-built system.
- **Crunchbase** (tool, Company / Funding Data) — Named as one of the databases founders otherwise stitch together (with PitchBook and firm websites) to research investors — three tools for one process.
- **PitchBook** (tool, Private Capital Data) — Cited with Crunchbase as a private-capital database founders would normally cross-reference to research an investor's activity, which Flowlie consolidates.


## FAQ

**Q: What is Flowlie?**

A: Flowlie is a 'fundraising operation system' for startup founders — not a marketplace or broker. It helps founders find the right investors (via a fit-scoring model), map warm-intro paths through their own network, run investor meetings and a fundraising-specific CRM, and take actions through an AI agent. It sits behind the scenes rather than bridging introductions itself.

**Q: How does Flowlie find warm intros to investors?**

A: Founders connect their team's LinkedIn and Google accounts, and Flowlie analyzes the combined network. A discovery agent then predicts intro paths — such as LP-in-fund, co-investor, connected investor, and current or exited portfolio founders — and ranks each with a 'path impact score' that estimates the likelihood the introduction actually succeeds, so founders skip surface-level connections.

**Q: Why not just use Salesforce or HubSpot to manage fundraising?**

A: Investor data is highly sensitive and shouldn't be socialized across a company, so it needs its own access-controlled home. Beyond that, general sales CRMs lack the proprietary investor data, fit scoring, and network analysis a raise needs — point one at an investor like Sequoia and it treats the firm as a sales prospect. Founders otherwise stitch together a CRM, Crunchbase, PitchBook, and websites: three tools for one process.

**Q: How much time can a dedicated fundraising tool save?**

A: Flowlie targets saving founders 100 to 300 hours per raise on research, finding and activating intros, and remembering what was discussed — with documented Series A case studies saving over 250 hours. It doesn't promise you'll raise (that's outside its control), only the best shot at it plus significant time back.

**Q: What's the single most important piece of fundraising advice?**

A: Treat raising as 80% preparation and 20% execution. The 'raised in seven days' headlines hide three to six months of quiet groundwork — investor updates, coffees, relationship-building, and long target lists. Founders who invert the ratio and rush to market with mostly execution typically end up with a raise that drags on four to eight months or never closes.

**Q: How many investors should a founder line up before raising?**

A: Far more than most plan for. Founders often think they need 10 or 20 prospects, but many pass in the first week, so you can be out of top of funnel within days. Build a wide list of roughly 100 to 150 funds and prioritize warm-intro paths — warm intros to 40 investors plus 10 cold is a very different raise than warm to 5 plus 15 cold.

**Q: What is 'calendar density' in a fundraise?**

A: Calendar density is the tactic of forward-loading warm-intro requests — asking connectors to introduce you weeks out — so investor meetings cluster into a single window instead of trickling in. Ending up with 15 to 30 meetings in a few weeks manufactures momentum and competitive tension, letting you credibly tell investors your calendar is filling and deals are moving to second calls.

**Q: Who gets the most value out of a fundraising platform like Flowlie?**

A: Counterintuitively, the power users are usually not first-time founders but Series A, seed, and second-time founders who already understand the motion and want to move faster. First-time and pre-seed founders benefit more from education first — workshops, webinars, and frameworks — because a tool accelerates a process you understand rather than teaching it.


## Timeline

- **00:00** — Meet Vlad Cazacu and Flowlie
- **00:48** — From Romania to VC: Vlad's origin story
- **02:37** — Building the wrong product first: the investor tool
- **03:37** — The 180-degree pivot to a founder product
- **04:51** — Leveling the playing field for founders
- **06:48** — A fundraising operation system, not a marketplace
- **07:23** — Investor research and the fit-scoring model
- **08:25** — Portfolio similarity and accelerator batch data
- **09:03** — Target lists and network analysis
- **10:48** — Path impact scoring and warm-intro discovery
- **14:29** — The intro-path graph and one-click intro requests
- **16:11** — The investor CRM and AI meeting analysis
- **19:03** — The AI agent that takes action in Flowlie
- **21:54** — Why not just use Salesforce or HubSpot?
- **24:35** — Data quality: only investors actually deploying
- **25:48** — The #1 advice: 80% preparation, 20% execution
- **28:18** — Calendar density and manufacturing momentum
- **30:00** — Who gets the most from Flowlie
- **31:20** — Resources, contact, and the partner offer


## Related episodes

- **Ep. 26: Avoid These Founder Red Flags: A VC's Honest Perspective** (Sophie Buonassisi) — The other side of Vlad's both-chairs view — what a VC sees founders get wrong when they raise. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/sophie-buonassisi-founder-red-flags/
- **Ep. 23: Don't Just Build Software, Solve a Problem** (Dan Friedman) — Reinforces Vlad's thesis that the best products come from a visceral reaction to a lived problem. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/dan-friedman-moxie-solve-the-problem/
- **Ep. 51: How This Founder Built a LinkedIn Outbound Engine After Two Exits** (Zayd Ali) — A founder-built pipeline engine that parallels Flowlie's warm-intro network machine. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/zayd-ali-linkedin-outbound-engine/
- **Ep. 29: GTM Product Demos: Exploring Ocean.io** (Michael Heiberg) — Same live product-demo format applied to a data-and-network GTM tool. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/michael-heiberg-ocean-io-gtm-demo/
- **Ep. 47: From Physics to Fixing Sales: How Amplemarket Is Rewriting GTM** (Amplemarket) — An immigrant-founder journey building a data-plus-agent GTM platform, echoing Flowlie's fit-scoring and agent layer. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/mica-amplemarket-rewriting-gtm/
- **Ep. 55: How to Build a Growth Plan Your Board Will Actually Approve** (LeanScale) — The planning and board narrative that sits right next to raising and running a fundraising process. · https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/guillaume-jacquet-growth-plan-board/


## Full transcript

_Machine-transcribed and not diarized; speaker attribution is inferred._  
_Transcript only, as a separate file: https://leanscale-knowledge-hub.netlify.app/podcast/vlad-cazacu-leveling-playing-field/transcript.md_

### 00:00 — Meet Vlad Cazacu and Flowlie

**[0:00]** Today we have Vlad Kazakou here today, founder CEO of Flowly, and he is bringing a platform to the podcast that is completely revamping the way companies find the best investors for their mission and for their journey. Vlad, I'm so excited to have you go through the platform today because this is one of the most pivotal and stressful and monumental moments for almost any startup journey. And I am so happy that you had the vision to put something together that helps people get through the process and get connected with the right partners. So I know you have a full demo prepared for us today. I'm really excited for you to go through it.

### 00:48 — From Romania to VC: Vlad's origin story

**[0:48]** But before we do that, whenever we have the founder on, I always love to just hear what that inspiration is. I know you have an extensive background in VC before joining the good side of starting a company, but would love to hear that story and have you share that with our audience. Amazing. Well, Anthony, such a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation and I'm happy to share a little bit about myself. I'm originally from Bucharest Romania, Eastern Europe, and then came to the States. My very first entrepreneurial experience was actually back in college where I started the company in the tech space doing automated textbook trading.

**[1:22]** We got an acquisition offer about 11 months after we started and we were too young and too full of ego to sell at that time, thinking we're going to make something better and larger. We didn't, long story short, but it was a great learning experience and that kind of started my journey to entrepreneurship, learn more about what other entrepreneurial support units are doing to support their founders, especially the ones that don't have a lot of experience in. People think of universities, incubators, accelerators, end up doing worldwide research on that. Connected with a lot of folks and end up publishing a book on the topic called Monday when you

**[1:57]** win, which was a very interesting career move from a lot of directions and that got me into VC. That was the door opener into venture as an investor. Initially with FFBC New York, they moved to Austin and then to Miami to run the southeast and east coast of multifamily office group. So everything that I've done was venture up until flowly and to give you a behind the scene sneak peek of early flowly, we actually started with an investor product. So not a product we're going to demo tonight and that product was designed to help investors and PE firms, both VCs and PEs, to help navigate top of funnel.

### 02:37 — Building the wrong product first: the investor tool

**[2:37]** They were getting inundated by deal flow and we were seeing that at our firms as well. I've seen it across three different firms that I've worked at and we were not able to understand very rapidly where we should focus our energy. There was a lot of manual work involved in that. So we developed this algorithm that helps predict the likelihood of a match for us to be interested in those particular companies. And we had great design partnerships and everything and we were getting it deployed and had paying customers, but we just did not feel that there's enough budget for us to make a meaningful business.

**[3:06]** We were still working nights and weekends on top of our jobs and investors. And at some point we said, I think this is it, like I don't think there's a future for this flowly for investor product. And that's when, you know, kind of the universe works together, you know, to your advantage. And then some of the founders that we were in a way onboarding on the platform because they were being due diligence by those investors we were working with asked us, hey, can we get the same level of intelligence about those investors that you're giving them about us, but before we meet with them so that we don't waste any time speaking with investors who

### 03:37 — The 180-degree pivot to a founder product

**[3:37]** shouldn't be interested in our company. And we said, hold on a second, there actually may be a repurposing of the technology that we built for a very different use case, a whole 180-degree pivot. And this is how Flowly V2, which is now the only Flowly that we have available, started as a product to help founders identify and predict the likelihood of an investor being seeing them. And that is still a core feature of Flowly even today. And obviously, you know, the algorithm and the models have improved significantly over the time. We were able to predict much more accurately.

**[4:12]** But that's how we got to Flowly, by building the wrong product nights and weekends for about two years before the pivot. And then that was two and a half years ago. So now full-time for two and a half years in a whole new direction, really excited and not looking back. Well, congratulations on all the progress. And I love that the person you're helping is the founder and that founding team because I do think they're the ones who really need help. You know, if you're an institutional investor, you have resources and you have a playbook by the time, like you're at that point where you're looking for potential investments.

### 04:51 — Leveling the playing field for founders

**[4:51]** But a lot of these founders, they're first-time founders, they haven't gone through a fundraising process before, they haven't gone through getting connected with investors, really. They had a great idea to help a market. But bridging that gap and going into that world can be really, really intimidating. So I just... Absolutely. You know, it's always good when you can match getting a good market fit, but also really helping someone in need too. For sure. No, totally with it. And the way we're thinking about it is leveling the playing field, as you mentioned, you know, for most founders they do this maybe three, four, five times in their lifetime.

**[5:30]** If they're starting one company maybe up to 10 times in their lifetime, they're starting two or three companies, which is also like so rare. An investor does this every single day, day in, day out. So the lack of not only information and guidance, but just structured process on how to run it is really where we shine and that's the problem identified. Everyone has a sales process, everyone has a hiring process, everyone has a marketing go-to-market process. Very few people actually have a fundraising process. And why that's the case is because sometimes they just don't know, like, how should I structure this? How should I think about it?

**[6:07]** Yeah, to your point, if you're going to do it max five times in your lifetime, it's very difficult to think like, "Oh, I need to be investing in this process." So having Flowly make it easy is such an advantage for somebody starting out. So Vlad, I'm really excited, I know you prepped a demo for us today, so I'm really excited to hop into the platform, see what it looks like, and then see how it helps founders find their best partners. Sounds like a plan. Feel free to interrupt at any point and we can jam on other fundraising pieces as I share my screen. Perfect. We just got in Flowly and fundraising operation system for you, and the reason why we say

### 06:48 — A fundraising operation system, not a marketplace

**[6:48]** operation system is by design. We are not a marketplace, big disclaimer, we're not a broker, so we're not trying to be a middleman of any source. We don't try to, in a way, bridge an introduction from us into you. Our goal is to help you uncover the right people for your business and uncover the right people in your network that you should be building relationships with to get in touch with those investors. So we very much sit behind the scenes in most of those things. The way most founders would navigate Flowly, they would start at investor research, and this is where you will see what I was mentioning earlier about our fit scoring model, which

### 07:23 — Investor research and the fit-scoring model

**[7:23]** is already on version five, the ability to predict the likelihood of a particular company or an individual at that company be interested in your company. So when we look at, in this case, B Capital, we're looking at demo data to be clear, so there's going to be a mix of real and fake data throughout this demo. You're able to see thesis information about them, indices that are deploying, business models, product categories, check sizes, geographies that are deploying in, etc. And again, you will see the fit scoring, which will tell you a little bit more about why there are fits to you or not.

**[7:57]** Whenever you go there deeper and you say, "Okay, but who at that particular firm would be a good fit?" We can actually apply that fit scoring model to the individual as well, so we can start understanding who's the right partner at that firm for you to get in touch with. And then from there, you're probably going to take a look at their portfolio. And sure, you may find their portfolio on their website if they publish it or not. But what we do with it, we actually understand the formal graphics of that particular company, and it can tell you a little bit more than what the website would tell you, such as their

### 08:25 — Portfolio similarity and accelerator batch data

**[8:25]** industry, product, business model, and we also calculate the similarity score. So how similar is your company to someone in their portfolio? If you're in one of the major accelerators, think of YC, Techstars, etc., we also have batch data. So if you have been, let's say, in YC somewhere in 2020, you'll actually be able to easily discover other batch mates that have been backed by the same company, which again allows you to think of some intropass that you can get into. As I was mentioning, you can look at it at firms, you can look at investors. It is a database at the end of the day, so you can use as many or as few filters as you want.

### 09:03 — Target lists and network analysis

**[9:03]** If you dive really deep into that data, you can start creating target lists for, let's say, you're going to New York, or you have a precinct or a series A upcoming. We like to, you know, say, you know, treatises like, you know, micro menus that you want to get in touch with and order from. So in this case, New York City Trip, you'll see we've populated the target lists here, and you'll start seeing where our network analysis starts coming into play. This is the second big part of Flowly, and this is the ability for us to understand your network and start predicting introduction paths between the people that you know and

**[9:37]** the people you're trying to know. So you can see in this list, for example, we have 88% intro coverage, meaning for 88% of the people in this target list, we found strong intro paths for you to get in touch with. In some cases, we even have four existing relationships, and we uncovered over 568 intro paths into them. So you may say, "Okay, how does Flowly do that?" Well, it's a mix of a few things. So I'll take you to step one, which would be connecting the LinkedIn and Google account that allows us to access those accounts and start understanding who you're connected with.

**[10:13]** And then from there, you're actually going to be able to see like all the connections of all the people in your team. Flowly is very much an account per startup, so think of adding your co-founder, your advisor, maybe some investor that's helping you actual fundraising process, and then you'll be able to at a glance see all the people that they're connected. We'll do the enrichment, so we'll tell you if they're VC-backed founders, bootstrap founders, if they're VC-backed by who, if they're investors, etc. And we'll start ranking them based on the number of intros that they can provide.

### 10:48 — Path impact scoring and warm-intro discovery

**[10:48]** A second layer of information you can give Flowly is how strong of relationship you have with them. This is not something we ingest just yet. We're working on some functionalities to be able to do it. And then from there, you'll be able to go to any firm, any individual or any target list. Let's go back to New York City target list and click this purple button right here called Find Intros. You'll select the people you want to start a discovery from, and then we'll kick off our discovery agent in the background, which will focus on identifying intropats between you and the people you're trying to get in touch with.

**[11:27]** Those worm intros will show up under a worm intro tab, and you'll see that in this particular case, in this demo account, we've already identified over 1,300 intropats. We can predict things like LP Infund, Co-Investor, Connected Investor, Exited Portfolio Founder, Current Portfolio Founder, and we use our own logic to create what we call our path impact score, meaning the likelihood of that intropat to succeed. And we do so because, as you probably are very well aware, we connect on LinkedIn or we exchange emails at some point, which people were not really close with.

**[12:03]** Maybe Flow will be able to pull some of those connectors, identify intropats from them, but they're not really the best intropats for us. So the path impact allows you to effectively shortlist, in a way, the people at the top from the intropats that are probably not worth your time. Yeah, and just to highlight that, I get asked all of the time, "Hey, I see you're connected with this person on LinkedIn, would you mind bridging an intro?" And I would say, I don't know, maybe a third to a half of my LinkedIn connections are really, really, really surface level. So definitely not at the depth where I would be comfortable making an intro, and it's almost

**[12:47]** impossible to get that information cold if you're just looking at people's LinkedIn's or asking around. So I think having a platform in one place, and when it's probably one of the biggest decisions you're going to make, finding the right venture partner, it's so critical to have the right information for the right time. So I think those paths are amazing, and it just helps you save a ton of time, because you'd be wasting a ton of time digging through people's LinkedIn's, trying to see who they're connected with, and even when you try to find that, it's probably a dead connection anyway. 100%.

**[13:21]** And that level of prediction, as we like to say also, it's just time saving and time back. What we don't promise founders, because it's really outside of our control, is that if you use slowly raise capital, that's just not something that we can control, each founder is different, each startup is different, and the market may change. But our promise to all founders is, one, you're going to have the best shot at raising capital, and second, we're going to try to save you somewhere between 100 and 300 hours per raise. And we have documented case studies where we're able to save over 250 hours for Series

**[13:54]** A founders navigating their Series A process through flowy, rather than without flowy. And again, that's time wasted on research, on finding intros, on activating those intros, on trying to remember what was discussed in the last meeting, etc. All things that flowy does for you right now. And again, we make it very easy for you to change statuses, or update those things for you to constantly have a place that's a system of record for all your fundraising process. Again, because you're probably doing this on top of a lot of other things that a founder is doing, like running sales and product and hiring, and the chance is you may not remember

### 14:29 — The intro-path graph and one-click intro requests

**[14:29]** everything that has happened. And that's okay. One of the things I wanted to show you on the intro path that I'm really excited about, I'm going to give you a sneak peek before we begin the recording, is actually, there's two parts to it. One is our new graph view for intro paths. So previously, we were displaying everything as a table, and we've invested some resources to make our intro path graphs actually come to life for you to easily be able to see, in this case, between myself and my co-founder, trying to get in touch with Christine at 500 Global. What are our connections that could get us in touch with her?

**[15:05]** And what are some of her strongest connections? How do they know them? Right, again, trying to surface that information for you so that you don't have to go search it somewhere else. And now the next step, and we got this information, we got this ask over and over again, which is, "Okay, Vlad, you helped me find the right intro paths. You helped me identify the right investor I should be reaching out to, but then I have to go somewhere else to send a message." As of today, you don't have to do that anymore. You actually can go to any of your connections, select the intro path you're trying to activate.

**[15:38]** You click "request intros" right here, and we will pre-fill a very, very fine-tuned message in either an informal tone or a formal tone, depending on how well you know that person. That's going to kindly ask the other connector to see if they know these people well enough to be able to bridge an introduction that will be recorded inflowly, all of that will be automatically tracked, and hopefully when they say yes, I can actually make an intro to Christine and Crystal, but not to Bruce, because I don't know them really well. All of that will be captured inflowly automatically.

### 16:11 — The investor CRM and AI meeting analysis

**[16:11]** So also, you have the ability to add notes and all these other CRM things on it if you want to keep everything in one place. The moment you start activating those intro paths, you're probably going to start having meetings and you're going to have to start tracking them somewhere, which is why we build an investor CRM. Think of it as a more lightweight version of something, like a HubSpot or another CLCRM, obviously not as sophisticated, but vertically specific for fundraising. And what I mean by that is having the ability to record things like source, commitment amounts.

**[16:45]** You can tag the reasons for passing, which allows you to run an analysis afterwards to see why have the investor passed on your round so far. You can even shortlist them for your next round if they're, let's say, saying that they're a little bit too early for you. Now I could open up a whole other conversation here why investors say that they're too early, but we're not going to get into that. And you're also going to be able to tag relationships. And the very last piece of lowly that's been heavily used by founders is actually our investor meeting tracking. So you're able to connect Google Calendar for all your team members.

**[17:19]** We automatically detect and import all your investor meetings in one place. We're currently working on a recording bot that can join your meetings and take notes directly. Currently, you will be able to use any of their end recording bots out there. Just send us-- well, not send us, but just drag and drop your transcript inside. And we fine tune an LLM to pick on things like investment thesis insights, sentiment analysis, points of interest, and points of concern, as well as detect all the tasks that are coming from that particular meeting. And you can use it as a task manager. You can select which co-founder needs to work on this.

**[17:54]** You can select due dates and be reminded about all in one place. The way founders have leveraged this is primarily to write follow-up messages because one of the things we strongly suggest is, hey, after a meeting, take a look at the points of concern. What was the investor not super sold on just yet? And write them a thoughtful follow-up after the call saying, hey, Rachel, it seems I didn't really was able to properly describe the balance between services and software components. So I just want to give you a few more quick thoughts before your partner meeting next Monday.

**[18:29]** And that helps a lot because then that person can go after that meeting to their partners and understand, OK, I had some concerns about this, and here's the email they sent afterwards. So Flowly makes it very easy for you to surface that so that you can have an easier job making that. Now, when you look at an individual, you're also able to see all the meetings you had with a particular person, all the tasks you still have pending with that particular person. So again, whenever you're concerned, OK, like what was the latest interaction with? What are we doing? All we have to do is press Command K. We have global search to go directly with that person

### 19:03 — The AI agent that takes action in Flowlie

**[19:03]** and you'll be able to see it. And the last part of the demo that I want to showcase because we've recently launched it about four or so weeks ago is our AI agent. So what the AI agent does, it's an opportunity for you to speak in a chat interface and agent can actually take actions in Flowly on your behalf. And I'll show you in just a second what that means. Let's say I'm looking for pre-seed VC investors who invest in B2B FinTech. Right now, the agent will be thinking about what tools in its toolkit it will be able to use. Hopefully, it picks the investor research one. We'll find out in just a second. There it is. It picked the investor research one.

**[19:56]** So I'm searching our database and has identified, seems, over 342 VC investors in the United States who hopes on pressing around for B2B FinTech. And the top 20 will show in this and again, ranked by the feed score, the model I showed you already. So if you click view all results, that is one of the cool things that it's able to actually interact with. You will see that it takes you to investor research in investors and it actually shows you all the filters it applied. So you can do the same thing by going to the database and adding those filters, but the chat did it in a few seconds compared to you probably taking a few minutes.

**[20:36]** And again, just in the interest of saving you time. So now let's say, let's add the top five investors to a target list named FinTech B2B Precede and we were not able to get the one in one shot. So we'll mark that. There it is. All right. Second time is the time. For whatever reason, the agent for the first time tried to search for a target list, but then it corrected itself and actually created a new target list. And that's okay. You have to put another prompt in there and did it on its own. Yeah. No, I mean, the agent will fact check itself. So it did create a target list and you click on it, you see FinTech B2B Precede.

**[21:20]** It even wrote a description for us. So we understand exactly what it did, added a top five there by fit score. And again, because we already ran network analysis for a few of them, we're actually able to see some of the intros already in. And again, the beauty of this is that all of this is inside, you know, flowy. So everything that you would have done by clicking a button, the agent can do on your behalf. And you can do a whole bunch of other things. You can run competitor analysis if you want to see which of your competitors have been backed by who. It can help you either cover intros, connect your LinkedIn, and all these other things

### 21:54 — Why not just use Salesforce or HubSpot?

**[21:54]** that I just showed you in this demo. So all in all fundraising operation system, all in one from investor research, network analysis, all the way to CRM and meeting analysis afterwards. So happy to chat more. Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much for walking through that. And as I'm watching it, I think probably one of the biggest questions someone would have is, hey, why use something like flowly when I can use maybe something like Salesforce or HubSpot that's really similar? And my initial reaction to that would be kind of twofold. One is you're actually dealing with a ton of sensitive data.

**[22:37]** So this isn't something that you really socialize to the entire company. And some of the interactions that you're having with these investors are really sensitive. And their reactions to you pitching your company. So I think making sure you have a system that's tailor made for that just in itself, even if all the functionality was exactly the same, just having a home for that sensitive data is really, really important. And then the other one is the other CRMs just don't have the proprietary data and algorithms that yours does. So it's not bridging those connections, it's not getting the feedback loop of who's actually

**[23:16]** making intros and getting people connected. And it's not really built to manage this type of process, which is really different. It's similar in a lot of ways, but there's a lot of key differences to a typical sales process. So I just think what you've done has created a really important home for arguably the most important part of a startup's lifecycle. I'm pretty sure you're saying that I very much agree with both points. And the one final add on the second one is, whenever you go to a fundraising process, there's going to be a lot of research involved that usually happens off a platform.

**[23:56]** And a lot of the sales CRMs have built in some form of enrichment tooling and signaling tooling, or you kind of have all these add-ons that you can then plug into your HubSpot or other sales mechanism to identify a prospect that may be willing to buy your particular software or hardware solution. None of that really exists in the fundraising space. So if you were to go to HubSpot and try to enrich, I don't know, Sequoia, it will try to treat Sequoia as a target you're trying to sell your software to or your hardware to. It won't try to identify, okay, what types of investments are there making? What of the investors are more active?

### 24:35 — Data quality: only investors actually deploying

**[24:35]** What's been their pace recently? How much right power do they have? Like all these other things, which you don't try to go to a crunch base or a pitch book or the website. And you already now have three tools for one process. And then the quality of the data of some of these databases is questionable. In some cases, they may have a lot of data, but not high quality. In some cases, they may have not a lot of data, but super high quality. We try to strike a balance in between by maintaining a very high bar of quality for what information goes into Flowly. So I would say announcement, you won't be able to find all the investors in Flowly,

**[25:11]** but what you will find is all the investors who actually been deploying over the last four years. So there's a very high chance that if you try to search our database, you don't find an investor. They're actually not deploying, but they may show up in a lot of other databases as active investors, leading you to waste a lot of time on that leads. So again, it's the nuance of fundraising where people waste the most amount of time. And what we try to do is really build a platform to support them throughout that journey. Well, I think some of the best products are built when you have a visceral reaction to the problem. You've had that experience before.

### 25:48 — The #1 advice: 80% preparation, 20% execution

**[25:48]** So I think you being in the world on both sides now, there's very few people who can understand the nuance of the process as well as you. And I think that really shows up in the product. In the spirit of leveling the playing field, a lot of people that lean scale that we work with, a lot of our audience, they're entrepreneurs, they're aspiring entrepreneurs, they're probably in the middle of a fundraising process or gearing up for one in the near future. Since you've been on both sides, are there any words of wisdom, tips and tricks, anything you can share with somebody before entering the process and anything that you think you've

**[26:30]** learned just from the unique experience of being on both sides of the coin? Absolutely. I would say the biggest piece of advice I always give on fundraising is think of it at 80% preparation, 20% execution, and don't be misled by all the headlines of the tech crunches of the world that are saying this founder raised in seven days because it's never that. What you're not seeing and what they're not reporting, and there's reason for that. Everybody tries to create buzz and clickbait titles are all the rave right now. It is that person who raised in seven days, most likely has been "raising" for about three, four, five, six months.

**[27:15]** Now, they were not having investor meetings necessarily, but what were they doing? They were writing thoughtful investor updates to those people, they were maybe grabbing some coffees before we go to market to just build some relationship. They were creating long target lists of investors, they were probably looking at 100, 150 funds, there's most founders tend to think, "Oh, I need like 10 prospects or 20 prospects." You don't. They're probably going to pass in the first week, and they're going to be out of top of funnel by end of Thursday, and on Friday they're going to be wondering, "Okay, what should I be doing next week?"

**[27:46]** Well, you should have started with much more top of funnel, and then from there you would have probably tried to prep more intro paths rather than fewer intro paths because if I get worm intros to like five people and I have to then do cold outage like 15, it's going to be very different than if I can have worm intros to 40 people and have cold outage only 10. And they may say, "Well, how can I get worm intros to like 40 investors?" And my answer to you is, "I don't know, do your best and leverage flow yet." It's lost potential to try to get those intro paths, but maybe even if you need to connect

### 28:18 — Calendar density and manufacturing momentum

**[28:18]** with someone new and you'll say, "Well, buddy, I'll take a week." That's my whole point. It's 80% prep, 20% execution. Those things will take some time and are rushing me into getting in market and saying, "I'm raising and I'm going to have some investor conversations," without having those things lined up will almost entirely, like all the cases, will lead to a longer raise and then a shorter raise. And the second part to it, which is a derivative of this is the whole concept of calendar density. When people are raising like 7, 14, 21 days, they're creating a very, very packed calendar,

**[28:53]** meaning they're activating all those worm intro paths at the same time and saying, "Anthony, can you please introduce me to this person?" But not just yet. "Can you introduce me to him in three weeks?" And "Vlad, can you introduce him to this other person in three weeks?" And they're creating this kind of like forward-loaded momentum so that when that week comes and they say, "Anthony, please make the intro, Vlad, please make the intro, Johnny, please make the intro," now they're having 15, 20, 25, 30 meetings booked on their calendar in a few weeks. And that allows them, in addition to confidence, it actually gives them the ability to say

**[29:26]** at the end of the week, "Hey, guys, six of those investors are already moving to second calls. My calendar is starting to get booked for next week. I just want to make sure you have a slot. Did you get a chance to review the materials? What are the next steps?" It just instantly creates some level of momentum that the fundraiser just so desperately needs that most funders fail to create because they just rush getting to market too early and they do 10% preparation, 90% execution, and they're wondering why has the round lasted four, six, seven, eight months or maybe never completed. That's huge. That's huge.

### 30:00 — Who gets the most from Flowlie

**[30:00]** Outside of, of course, building an amazing product, executing on your business, but having that ability to build leverage in the process and teeing up and timing up those intros, that's really, really smart. And I don't think a lot of founders would be that calculated and tactical, especially on their first go at doing a fundraise process. Absolutely. Yeah. And again, it's interesting that you say that because our power users almost never first time founders. Our power users are series A founder, seed founder, second time founders because they kind of know the tips and tricks and they're looking for the platform to help them move faster.

**[30:43]** Whereas what we've seen is with first time founders and more precedents seed, they may get in and they'll, you know, do to their best of their abilities, but also lean into some of our workshops and webinars to get a little bit more education and then make most use of the platform afterwards. Because there's that component of education that the platform itself won't be able to fully deliver, right? There's a lot of nuance to it. But once you know what you're doing, you can do it much faster, you know, with low. Amazing. Vlad, this has been so great. I love the platform. I love the mission.

### 31:20 — Resources, contact, and the partner offer

**[31:20]** I love that you're helping to level the playing field and really get those founders an opportunity to run a very successful process, which can be monumental for their startup mission. And you mentioned there's a lot of education. I know a lot of people listening would be really interested in that because it's such a critical part of their journey. What's the best way to get in front of the education resources that you have and where can you lead them to? Absolutely. So there's two pieces to it. One would be flow.com/resources. There's actually a lot of one-pagers and some calculators that will help you get started

**[32:01]** on identifying at least should you be raising or not, and if so, how much and get a bit more familiar with our, let's say, terms and the world of venture investing. We also do have a pretty comprehensive blog out there on the website that contains a lot of guides and, you know, let's say, toolkits to help you navigate the journey, and you could also go to flow.com/events where you will see a curated list of our upcoming events. We do a lot of those webinars with different partners, a variety of different industries and verticals, and there are always great opportunities for you to learn more about specifically

**[32:35]** pre-seed fundraising or healthcare investing or specifically around how financial modeling and play rolling your fundraise. So a variety of different partners can bring different opinions and we bring them on on a regular basis. I would say we have a webinar probably every other week, and I will aggregate them all on our website. Amazing. That's so helpful because there's kind of feels like it's a secret society sometimes and you can't really break into everything that's going on behind the scenes. So that education is unbelievably helpful. And for those listening, what's the best way to get in touch with you or Flowly or start

**[33:13]** getting their hands on the platform themselves? Absolutely. Our platform is fully self-serve, so all you have to do is go to flowly.com, and that is spelled F-L-O-W-L-I-E, not with a Y, as you may think, or at least some of you may think that it's debate for years, and to get in touch with myself, LinkedIn is probably the best. So like Kazaku, you'll find me relatively easy. I think there's like two or three people with that name on LinkedIn, so not a hard miss. And yeah, I'm more than happy to help you, also very responsive to support at flowly.com, so if you ever have any form of issues onboarding or accessing the platform, you'll be able

**[33:55]** to get a response in 24 hours or less. Perfect. So are those listening any special offers to join Flowly or get access to the platform? Yeah, absolutely. We're more than happy to offer our partner discount, which is you get a third off, so from $150 a month per account, it goes down to $100 per month per account for a pro solution, which includes everything that I just showed you, and that will be available with a discount code that you're probably going to find in the show notes or description of the YouTube. Incredible, incredible. Vlad, thank you so much for being here.

**[34:33]** It's awesome to see the platform, love the mission, love what you're doing, and appreciate it. And as you continue to grow the platform, add more feature sets, we'd love to have you back, and we can't wait to see what you all do next. Amazing, Anthony. I was also a pleasure, and thanks so much for inviting me. - Thank you.


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