Everything you need on your B2B SaaS founder journey from zero to scale.

Starting a company is really hard – we understand that first hand. As former SaaS founders and operators, we know the importance of having capital, support, and an outside perspective on this journey.

That’s why we built a 15-week program where we walk hand in hand with founders during this crucial part of your journey. We provide funding, best practices, tactical advice, and focused 1:1 time together on go-to-market, early sales and marketing, and of course, raising your next round.

We run our program in three locations – San Francisco, New York City, and Toronto – plus remotely, during COVID and beyond, so we can support you wherever you are. We’ve purposely kept our cohorts small (10 founders each) in order to provide personalized guidance and act as fractional co-founders for each company.

We’re really excited to have you here. This package contains everything you need to know about our program including what our 15 weeks together looks like, investment details, what to expect to walk away with, how the application process works, and lots more.

Here we go!

Welcome to Forum Ventures

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Your Program SyllabusEach week has a topic that we cover in depth, bringing in mentors that are experts in that topic, and working with you to improve that function of your business.

Note: this is only example of our program. Topics, mentors, speakers are all subject to change. But rest assured, our focus is on getting you to market successfully, growing your customer base, and supporting you through the fundraising process.

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Week 1 : Go to market

Go-To-Market week focuses on helping you build a strategy to reach, differentiate, and deliver value to your customers.

Bocar Dia, GTM & Enterprise Sales, Founder & CEO, APlayr

Charley Ma, GM of Fintech, Alloy

Week 2 : Product

Product week is a mix of technical & tactical, where you’ll learn how to interview customers, build a roadmap, and have a product that is so valuable you’re drowning in sales.

Workshop: Strategic Product Baseline and Roadmap, Paul Ortchanian, Founder, Bain

Public

Dipesh Pradhan, VP Product, Troon Technologies

Week 3 : Sales

Sales week is dedicated to tightening up your sales processes and includes everything from how to hire and pay sales teams, to how to build an outreach cadence. Building a Business Case,

Jeff Becker, MD, Forum Ventures & Ex-Sales Leader at

Linkedin

Jesse Rothstein, Global Accounts Manager at Linkedin

with 20+ years of sales expertise and author of a best

selling sales book

Week 4 : Storytelling

Storytelling week is a reminder that you are selling to humans and that a good story is the backbone of a brand. It ties together your purpose, vision, and values and humizes your journey making it easier to connect to customers.

The Art of Storytelling: Doug Landis, Growth Partner,

Emergence Capital

Stephan Cizmar, VP of Product Strategy and Research at

Unqork

Week 5 : Marketing

This week we show you what early stage B2B SaaS marketing entails, the importance of brand, and easy ways to get your marketing function going.

Branding Workshop, Rachel Renock, CEO & Co-Founder, Wethos

Bram Warshafsky, “Top 30 Under 30” by Marketing

magazine, and Co-Founder of 5Crowd

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

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Week 6 : Pricing

B2B SaaS Pricing, Peter Zotto, General Manager, Profitwell

Kevin Dick, Managing Director, Right Side Capital and

Co-founder and CEO of a network security device startup

Week 7 : Customer Success

Building Blocks for Establishing World-Class Customer Success,

Linda Chu, Director of CS, Gong

Rahul Sharma, VP of Customer Success at Cinchy

Week 8 : People

The Importance of D&I in Hiring, Luann Abrams,

Founder, CEOX

Kathryn Christie, Head of Talent, Georgian Partners

Week 9 : Leadership

B2B/SaaS pricing is HARD, especially at the early stages. During pricing week we help founders overcome this hurdle.

This week we teach you proactive ways to keep customers happy, like a great onboarding experience and product education, resulting in less churn and higher revenue from up-selling.

During People week founders learn about hiring for difficult roles like leadership and tech, and the importance of diversity and inclusion in their people strategy.

The founder’s journey is incredibly difficult with its inevitable ups and downs. This week makes space to acknowledge that and provide strategies for taking care of your mental health. Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster,

Dan Martell, multi-time founder, SaaS coach & speaker

Aram Melkoumov, Co-Founder and CEO at Crowdlinker

Week 10 : Introduction to Fundraising

This week is focused on getting you ramped up for fundraising. We work together to plan out your raise, build a plan of attack, and work on the basics: your deck, pitch, and data room. Intro to Fundraising,

Mike Cardamone, CEO & Managing Partner, Forum

Ventures

Alex Norman, Partner, AngelList, Founder of Tech

Toronto, Partners at N49P, and angel investor

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

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Week 11 : Fundraising Financials

This week gets our founders set up with a good financial model that tells a story of why you need to raise (both now and later), what you’ll be spending the funds on, and how well you’ve thought out the next few years.

Understanding Term Sheets, Justin Dharamdial, Associate, & Gary Marshall, Associate,

Osler

Shastri Mahadeo, Founder & CEO of UnionCrate

Week 11 : Storytelling in Fundraising

This week focuses on the best way to bring your story into your fundraising pitch. It’s a good reminder that your story is the thing that will tie everything together and help you connect with investors. Fundraising with Karen

Appleton Page, General Partner, B Capital Group

Nina Stepanov, Director of Platform, Contrary Capital

Week 13 : Pitching

This is the final week of the program before investor week starts! This week is dedicated to tightening up your pitch.

Fundraising Journey, Osa Gaius, CEO And Founder of

ParrotMob

Catherine Lu, Managing Partner, Alumni Venture Group

Week 14 - 15 : Investor Weeks

Investor week is our version of a demo day. We’ll go over it in more detail below.

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

Example Talk Example Mentor

+ AMA’s sprinkled throughout the programPast Speakers have included:

Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora, a multi billion dollar public

company

Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, a company that sold for $1B+

Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport, valued at well over

$1B and rapidly growing

Anthony Kennada, CMO at Hopin, the fastest growing

SaaS company of all time and valued at over $5B

A Week in the Life...Our program is like a choose your own adventure. Founders, along with their local MD, choose what sessions to attend and which mentors to meet with based on your business, providing only what you need and nothing more so you can focus on building your company.

At the very least, we require two hours from a founder each week: (1) to meet one-on-one with your MD and (2) to connect with other founders. Here is an example of what a week could look like (exact days will differ week to week).

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Sample WeekMonday

This sets the stage for the week and gives founders a chance to riff with a small group of other founders in the cohort. This is your chance to connect, discuss current traction and goals for the week, and most importantly, support each other.

Cohort Hour

Tuesday

Mentors with significant experience in SaaS will come in to speak on a topic related to the weekly theme or share their founder journey.

Global Talk 1

Wednesday

Every week you’ll meet for an hour with your MD to go over your progress, address any pain points you’re experiencing, and get advice on how to move forward with your business.

1:1 with MD

Thursday

Another SaaS expert with an incredible track record will come speak to the group to answer any and all of your questions.

AMA with a SaaS Expert

Friday

Mentors will meet with your team for 30 minutes to give advice on a specific topic. Mentors are then available to stay in touch with after for continued support and to help make intros. Many of our founders have added mentors to their advisory boards.

Mentor Office Hour

Let’s Talk More About Fundraising

In addition to our initial check in for $100K, we also prepare you to raise your Seed round. For a lot of you, this will be your first time fundraising and we know that can be overwhelming. The final few weeks of our program are dedicated to this process. We’ll walk you through when and how much to raise, how to find, secure and nail investor meetings, how to set up a round and your terms, and so much more. We’ll then introduce you to VCs across our network that are right for you, and guide you through the pitch process.

Investor week is our equivalent to a demo day, and is the week we set aside for you to meet with investors. Unlike traditional demo days, we don’t hold a day of live pitches. Instead, we set you up with a number of pitch practices leading up to the week and then connect you with our investor network of over 3,000 seed stage VCs, angels, and family offices for you to meet with.

What you can expect to walk away from the program with

1. An initial investment of $100k

2. A path to product-market fit

3. Growing ARR / active users / pipeline

4. Customer introductions

5. To be prepared to fundraise in the next 12 months

6. A growing community of other SaaS founders from our portfolio

7. Continued access to $100K+ worth of business perks

8. Lifetime support

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Get access to Founder Perks

Join our Directory and get discovered by

hundreds of potential customers

1st Call

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Diligence

Offer

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The Application Process

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The Application Process

Our application process is straightforward and we get to a decision (and a check) quickly. Here is what the process looks like:

1.We ask you about 15 questions digging deep into your business, product, traction, problem & customer discovery, TAM, competition, your GTM, cap table, and runway.

Take a day or two to fill it out and think about why you started this business, where it stands now, and where you want to go.

2.Once your application is submitted, we’ll get back to you soon on whether or not we’d like to proceed to a call with our investment team. On that first call, we want to understand the fundamentals of your business.

3.After that, if we think you could be a good fit, you’ll meet with a Partner – this conversation will be focused on the risks associated with your business and your plans to reduce or hedge those risks.

4.If there are no other concerns, we will begin the due diligence process, looking at things like incorporation documents, bank statements, cap table, product sandbox, weighted customer pipeline, and anything else the team feels is necessary.

5.Once the due diligence process is over successfully, we’ll send you a formal acceptance into the program, along with onboarding materials!

6.The day the program begins, we cut you your check for $100K USD.

Bonus for applying!

Regardless of how far in the process you get, every founder that applies to our program will get access to a set of awesome business perks from companies like Brex, HubSpot, Zendesk, Vouch, Vanta, AWS. You’ll also automatically get listed on our B2B SaaS directory where you can be discovered by hundreds of potential customers looking for early-stage SaaS solutions, investments and POCs.

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Application FAQs

When will I hear back about my application?At Forum Ventures, we pride ourselves in respecting the time of founders. After your first call with an

investment team member you are quickly evaluated by our team and should receive an answer within

two weeks.

When is the application deadline?Our applications are rolling, meaning we review them as they come in, and fill our cohorts as we go.

In saying that, we recommend you get yours in as soon as possible so you can join us at our

upcoming cohort, whether that’s mid-January or mid-July.

What if I miss the deadline, can I still apply?Yes, you can always apply to Forum for Founders, as we run a year-long sourcing cycle. That means

that when you apply, if you missed the previous cohort, we’ll consider you for the following program

taking place within the next 6 months.

What type of company qualifies?Early stage B2B SaaS companies in any vertical with an MVP built out and a large market. We also

want to see strong founder-market fit and a passion that is clearly driving the founder(s).

What if my offering is only partially B2B?We understand that founders often start as B2C with the goal of pivoting to B2B offerings later in

their company journey. As long as your offering is at least 60% B2B, we are willing to work with you.

How do you evaluate applications?We love working with companies from the 0-1 stage and are often the first institutional check into a

company. However, these aren’t hard and fast rules as we love to meet companies regardless of

stage. While each company is unique and evaluated on a case-by-case basis, some of the basic

criteria we look for are teams that are full time and post-MVP. After that, we take into account things

like founder-market fit, and the business’ potential to become venture scale one day. We will then

look at the risks that come with the business in an effort to get comfortable with an investment

decision.

How can I increase my chances of getting into the program?We look for bold, audacious founders who are building in venture-scale markets with a large TAM and

bottom up revenue opportunity, showing customer validation and a willingness of those customers to

pay. We’ve backed companies who we’ve passed on previously who have come back to us after

growing a bit more. If we pass on you now, we would love to see you reapply and reconsider an

investment at a future time as we invest year round. 10

Application FAQs

What are your terms?Our standard terms are $100K for 7.5%.

What is your investment process and how long does it take?If you are accepted to the program, our founders receive their investment within the first week of the

program.

How much do I have to be in the location?Good news! You don’t have to be on location at all. We recruit founders nationwide and there is an

option to attend our program remotely. Of course, when it’s safe to be in person, we’d love to have

you around as much as works for you – there is nothing better than working together face to face.

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Ready to Apply?

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