Programs

Strategy · Self-serve

Fundraising Ready

Six rooms from the market to the pitch, run weekly, measured over time.

A self-serve program for a founder raising a priced round, built on Renatus. Two sourced reports, three guided documents and one investor simulation · Six weeks, one room a week · Unlimited attempts · Ongoing thereafter.

6 weeks · 6 rooms · Total time 2 hours 45 min

Who it's for: Founders and co-founders raising a seed or Series A round, with customers, real numbers and a milestone the money funds.
Cadence: 6 weeks
Format: Self-serve
Program sessions: 6

Who it's for

Founders and co-founders raising a seed or Series A round, with customers, real numbers and a milestone the money funds.

Output

A sourced market and competitor report, each with a confidence rating on every finding
A named set of business model exposures, a document that works out the round from the amount to the risks, and an investor-ready business plan
A scored report after Presentation Under Pressure, with the moment that earned each score and a trajectory across every attempt
Scored against published frameworks: the Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Canvas, Round Structure, Investor-Stage Fit and Terms Posture, the One-Page Business Model Summary, Customer Development and Bottom-Up Financial Modelling, and the Minto Pyramid Principle and Aristotelian rhetoric

Program contents

Market evidence — Market Intelligence
Competitive position — Competitive Landscape
Business model exposure — Business Model Analysis
The round — Fundraising Strategy
Investor-ready plan — Business Plan
Investor scrutiny — Presentation Under Pressure

How the program works

The rooms

Market Intelligence

Research

Set-up: your role or perspective, the broad industry, the specific niche, the region and the countries you want covered.

Competitive Landscape

Research

Set-up: the industry or market, the specific sub-sector, the region and your relationship to this market.

Business Model Analysis

Framework

Give Ren the business in two sentences, or let it work from an uploaded deck.

Fundraising Strategy

Framework

Ren does no research for this room; you are the source.

Business Plan

Framework

Ren draws on your completed Market Intelligence and Competitive Landscape reports where they exist, and says what it already has.

Presentation Under Pressure

Simulation

Set-up: your role title, the audience, your industry, a line on your working context and the scenario you want rehearsed.

Why this program exists

You are raising a round on a market number nobody has sourced, a competitor slide with logos and no argument, and a pitch only ever heard by people who already believe you. A partner interrupts in the first minute, and the meeting is over before the real questions start. This program prepares you for that meeting through six rooms, built on Renatus: two sourced reports, three guided documents, and one rehearsal against an investor who pushes back.

What you'll achieve

Two sourced reports on your market and your competitors, each with a confidence rating on every finding
A named set of exposures in your own business model, and a document that works out the round
An investor-ready plan pulled from work already done, not written the night before a meeting
A scored, rehearsed answer to a hostile question, with unlimited attempts and your trajectory charted before every meeting

At a glance

Who it's for: A founder or co-founder raising a priced round, most often a seed or a Series A, with a business that already has customers, real numbers and a milestone the money funds. It works for a first-time founder who has never seen a term sheet and for a second-time founder who wants the evidence sharper than last time. Every room takes your own business as the input; the simulation calibrates to the audience you name, a board, an executive committee or a room that pushes back. It assumes a raise in view in the next few months, not an idea you are still shaping.
Cadence: 6 weeks
1: Market evidence · Market Intelligence · Mark the low-confidence findings; write the market slide
2: Competitive position · Competitive Landscape · Note the weakness you exploit; write the competition slide
3: Business model exposure · Business Model Analysis · Read the exposures; write the killer dependency
4: The round · Fundraising Strategy · Read the risks; send three warm intro requests
5: Investor-ready plan · Business Plan · Read the executive summary; send the plan for a read
6: Investor scrutiny · Presentation Under Pressure · Read Question Response and Poise; run the real meeting

Session by session

Week 1: Market evidence

Replace the market number on your slide with a sourced range you can defend.

Market Intelligence

Week 2: Competitive position

Turn the logo slide into an argument: who wins, and why you are the exception.

Competitive Landscape

Week 3: Business model exposure

Map how the business makes money, and name where it is exposed before an investor does.

Business Model Analysis

Week 4: The round

Structure the round: the amount, the narrative, who you are targeting, and what you will and will not give away.

Fundraising Strategy

Week 5: Investor-ready plan

Assemble the plan an investor reads after the meeting, from the work already done.

Business Plan

Week 6: Investor scrutiny

Lead with the argument, return to it under questioning, and keep your composure when the stakes rise.

Presentation Under Pressure

Whether a market is real, where it is growing, and where the opportunity sits

How an entire industry is structured, who controls it, and where it is heading

Who controls a market, how they compete, and where the real gaps are

Who buys in a market, what drives their decisions, and where the unmet needs are

What competitors charge in a market, how pricing is structured, and what customers will pay

Who supplies the critical inputs to a market, how concentrated it is, and what switching costs

The technology deployed in a sector, and where competitive advantage moves next

How product reaches the buyer in a market, and where channel power is shifting

Financials, leadership, strategy, and reputation on a company

Deep dive into how a company operates strategically, and where it is most exposed

Revenue, margins, cash, debt, and auditor signals on a company

How a company is perceived across customers, employees, media, and ESG

Discover a country's GDP, political environment, infrastructure, and outlook

Discover a city's GDP, economic drivers, workforce, and trajectory

Trade flows, tariffs, agreements, and friction points between two countries

Background, current state, key actors, evidence, and where an issue is heading

What a policy does, who wins and loses, and how it lands in practice

The specific risks facing a market — ranked, evidenced, and with the signals to watch

Single-source exposures, concentration, and trade-route risk for a market

Climate, governance, social, and controversy risk in a sector

Pending legislation, enforcement shifts, and where the rules are likely to change

Licensing, compliance, recent changes, and pending legislation in a jurisdiction

Government stability, policy direction, and the political risks facing a market

What a role pays — verified across named salary databases and job posting data

Whether to take a job at a company, with the evidence behind the answer

Who the credible candidates are, what they earn, and how the search will unfold

How a career in an industry works — entry, paths, pay, and prospects

The three things that will move a business forward this quarter

A 90-day plan that turns a strategy into something a team can act on Monday

Segment, positioning, channels, and pricing — tested against each other so the four hold together

A positioning the market can place — and a category claim worth defending

A pricing strategy that the market accepts and the business can defend in negotiation

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Targets, thresholds and cadence

Whether an opportunity is worth pursuing — with conditions or risks named

The real problem behind the surface one, with options and a recommended next step

How a business creates, delivers, and captures value — and where it is exposed

Where work is breaking, where capability is missing, and the one structural change worth making

Build, buy, partner, or wait — with the killer assumption named

Whether a specific partnership is worth pursuing — with the asymmetries named

The right financing structure for the opportunity — tested against fit, cost, and flexibility

A fundraise structured to close on terms worth living with

Every variance classified — structural, timing, one-off or noise — with the call the pattern demands

How long the cash lasts across three scenarios, with the killer assumption named

Whether the per-unit economics hold up — with the killer assumption named

Whether the pay set serves the talent strategy, with the cost of fixing it

A board report that lands the narrative, the KPIs, the exceptions, and the decisions requested

What metrics are missing, misleading, or quietly rewarding the wrong thing

A complete business plan ready to put in front of investors, partners, or a board

A career decision weighed against criteria that matter, with a pre-mortem and a verdict

What matters most, what you would give up, and what stays true under pressure

Which option holds up under income loss, rate moves, or a downturn

A relocation decision and plan, with the trade-offs each destination forces

What the culture is like — values in practice, leadership behaviour, and where the gap sits

Strategy clarity, alignment, talent density, ways of working, and trust in leadership

What's energising people, what's draining them, and the levers that would move engagement

The patterns in how a person handles pressure, conflict, collaboration, and decisions

PENDING — product being redesigned. See Replit brief.

How a person leads — defaults, strengths, blind spots, and development areas

Real strengths backed by evidence — and the cost each one carries when overplayed

The values revealed by what a person has held the line on, refused, or regretted

What every role owns, what's silently dropped, and which handoffs are breaking

Where the team is aligned on priorities and goals, and where dangerous gaps sit

Where trust, conflict handling, and accountability are strong — and where they break

Any subject explained to a real listener, scored on accuracy, depth, audience adaptation, and handling the unknown

A presentation rehearsal scored on lead argument, evidence, question response, and poise

A stakeholder-influence rehearsal scored on reading the room, framing, negotiation, and durability

A managing-up rehearsal scored on positioning, evidence, flexibility, and outcome

A meeting rehearsal scored on structure, air-time management, progress, and closure

The conversation that's been avoided, with an assessment of how the conversation went

A saying-no rehearsal scored on clarity, rationale, alternative, and relationship

A performance-conversation rehearsal scored on clarity, ownership, empathy, and path forward

A team-conflict rehearsal scored on directness, fairness, action, and aftercare

A hiring interview rehearsal scored on question design, follow-up, bias, and assessment integrity

A leadership crisis scored on decision quality, communication, strategy, and pressure response

A negotiation rehearsal scored on preparation, anchoring, concession pattern, and pressure response

A strategic-decision rehearsal scored on framing, information use, trade-off recognition, and time horizon

An ethics rehearsal where the right path is costly, scored on recognition and response

A prioritisation rehearsal scored on triage, trade-off recognition, communication, and revisability