Fundraising advice for entrepreneurs, from CO Everywhere's recent $6 million round

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

Boston-based CO Everywhere, a mobile startup that displays social media posts about specific locations, raised a $6 million A round last month from Morningside Group. I wrote about the process in yesterday's Globe; CO Everywhere founder Tony Longo met with more than 200 investors, and seriously considered moving to California, where he felt there was a stronger support system for consumer-oriented mobile apps.

The $6 million round happened after Longo had successfully raised about $1.5 million from individual investors, and executed a major pivot. (The company began life as a website that collected information about neighborhoods, and it was known as Block Avenue.) That's not a trick that every seed-funded startup will be able to pull off. So I asked Longo to share some of the fundraising lessons he learned along the way. His advice is below, with any of my clarifications in brackets [ ]...

Lessons:

• If a VC doesn't invest in you on your first meeting, chances are they never will ("invest" meaning they schedule a follow-up for the next day, or bring other partners in immediately.) You know when this is happening. It's very clear and beyond exciting.

• Listen more. When two or three VCs pass on you, you need to re-adjust. Maybe a new pitch, maybe an entirely new product. Don't do what I did and just plow through more meetings.

• Every pitch needs to be strategic. Don't pitch until you are ready to raise. Introduction meetings to "show and tell" [what you are working on] will be the death of you with that firm.

• Time management is crucial. At this stage, your time is worth way more than any VC's time. Cut meetings short if it's clear they are not a good fit; investors will respect you for that.

Tips for entrepreneurs:

• Immerse yourself as deep as you can into your local technology ecosystem. We started at Dogpatch Labs and met a key group of influencers who introduced us to other groups. Here, I met my co-founder Dan Adams. Also, our Dogpatch neighbors Joshua Summers & Doug Hurd from Clypd introduced us to David Chang and the PayPal Start Tank, which has been one incredibly awesome resource for us. [CO Everywhere is currently based at Start Tank, which offers free office space to selected startups.]

• Lead investors are instrumental in any early-stage company. Focus on finding a few leads and everything else will fall into place. I am not sure we are where we are without Eric Silverman, Semyon Dukach, Robin Brown and a few friends from State Street Bank.

• A great VC won't leave you empty-handed. The second-best thing a VC can do for you, aside from invest, is help open doors and make introductions. One in particular personally helped set us up with several San Francisco-based firms, as that is where he thought this company should live.

• Network like crazy (online and offline).

• Skip everything and build a great product. Just get what you need to create something special, don't get distracted with "the other stuff."

The CO Everywhere app, incidentally, is really worth getting — it's a fun way to keep tabs on places you care about, whether a ski resort you visit a few times every winter or the town you went to college in.