Will Glaser on Fundraising as Recruiting, Filing Patents Early, and Building a Culture That Lasts Pandora co-founder Will Glaser shares his playbook for early-stage founders: treat fundraising like recruiting, file patents before you're ready, and build a culture that learns from failure, not punishes it. TL;DR: After co-founding Pandora, Will Glaser is building Grabango. He shares his core philosophies for founders: view fundraising as recruiting your future bosses, file provisional patents early to create strategic assets, and define your company culture by how you handle mistakes, not by perks. This approach turns common startup anxieties into opportunities for building a more resilient company. Key takeawaysTreat fundraising as recruiting. You are hiring your investors, not the other way around.Reframe your pitch from a performance to a collaborative working session.File provisional patents early. They are cheap, fast, and create a defensible moat.Judge culture by how the team responds to mistakes, not by office perks.A blameless post-mortem process is the best tool for building a learning organization.Embrace early-stage chaos, but be rigorous about identifying the signals that are working. Fundraising is Recruiting in Disguise Most founders treat fundraising as a sales process where they are the product. You polish your pitch, chase leads, and hope someone will buy what you're selling. Will Glaser, the co-founder of Pandora and founder of Grabango, suggests you flip the script entirely: fundraising is a recruiting process, and you are the one hiring. The investors you bring on board aren't just a line item on your cap table; they are your new bosses, your partners, and your most senior advisors for the next 5-10 years. You wouldn't hire a CTO without a rigorous interview process. Why would you treat a board member, who can fire you, with any less diligence? This shift in mindset changes everything. You stop performing and start evaluating. You stop being grateful for any scrap of attention and start qualifying investors for a long-term role. How to Run an Investor "Interview" Process Start by creating a job description for your ideal investor. Don't just list firm names. Get specific about the value you need: Industry Expertise: Do you need someone who understands deep tech, CPG, or enterprise SaaS sales? Network Access: Are you looking for intros to specific enterprise customers, channel partners, or downstream VCs? Operating Skills: Do you have a gap in your founding team around, say, product-led growth or international expansion? Once you have your scorecard, use your pitch meetings to interview them, not just to be interviewed. Go beyond their portfolio page and ask probing questions about how they operate. Key Questions to Ask Potential Investors: "Walk me through a time a portfolio company was struggling. What was your specific role in helping them turn it around (or wind it down)?" "How do you and your partnership prefer to communicate? Are you a weekly email update person, a monthly call person, or an 'only when there's news' person?" "What's the most common piece of tactical advice you've given your founders in the last six months?" "Who is the last CEO you replaced? What were the circumstances?" (The Ultimate Reference Check): "Would you be open to connecting me with two founders you've backed—one who is crushing it, and one whose company failed?" Continue reading the full guide Related guidesHow Augury Raised $60M By Listening To MachinesFrom Military Grit to a $55M Raise: Lessons on Talent, GTM, and InvestorsFrom Stanford Professor to a $66M Raise: A Founder's Guide to the Academia-to-Startup PathPeter Bailis: From Stanford Professor to Raising $66M for SisuHow Capsule Raised 70M By Fixing A $350B HeadacheHow Noom’s Founder Raised 20M After Three Years of Networking Read on Startup Fundraising · More articles · Browse the Library More from Startup FundraisingRobotics — Most Active Firms 2026Investor Landscape 2026E Commerce — State Of Investing 2026Climate In San Francisco Ca — State Of Funding 2026San Jose Ca — Most Backed Startups 2026KustomHungryrootFrancisco Mer BloomsSudeep NagarCity — Edina MnBacked By — Windforce VenturesIndustry — HrtechBacked By Investor — Reid ChristianIndustry — CybersecurityCity — New York NyIndustry — ClimateCity — San Francisco CaIndustry — Cybersecurity Library homeFull library indexArticlesHomeInvestor directoryFounder directoryCompany funding databaseResearch hubPricing Investment Manager Walter Scott Amp Partners Limited 3493c2Jackson Moses 32b03bJames Amine 0328a0James Elworth 2a036aJames Elworth F13480James Kirchner 29fa27Mark Srulowitz E78a66Mark Sugarman De5bbdMark Thaler 310eeeMark Toon D39c3aMarkus Kalina Ee59ecMark Victor Murray 5611c8Irene Klemm EdurinoIsaiah Udotong ShieldpayItamar Golan Prompt SecurityIvan Tchatchouwo The ZoneJack Abraham SmiledirectclubJack Mulcahy Rtx Holdings
