tendercare’s Post

The hardest part of raising my first round for tendercare wasn’t the money, it was the mindset shift. In Big Tech, I was considered entrepreneurial. I was comfortable with ambiguity, skilled at “large company zero-to-one” that focused on fostering innovation on top of an existing corporate machine, and quick to rally a team around a scrappy idea. But becoming an ACTUAL entrepreneur? That’s next level. Suddenly, you’re not pitching ideas anymore, championing your team and protecting your turf. You’re building from nothing. You’re on a budget on fumes. You’re the operator and the funder of last resort. You’re every function of a company, including the intern, at the same time. 0-1 is luxury - this is more like sub-zero and a lot of prayers. That was me: bootstrapping on a $40K cap from my savings, working my day job at Meta and building tendercare late nights and weekends. I didn’t take a day off for nearly seven months. Not one. What I lacked in capital, I made up for in sweat equity & fear. Fear of any family experiencing what we had. Most people call the first round the “friends and family” round. But the person I would’ve asked—my dad—had advanced dementia and was the reason I started building in the first place. I was his caregiver. I couldn’t legally or ethically ask him to invest, even though he would’ve been the first to say yes. So I had to believe enough for both of us. Eventually, people I had worked with—leaders who had seen me operate under pressure—offered to invest. Others came through institutional firms and became vital partners. But none of it came easily, and all of it required internal rewiring. Here’s what helped me stay sane: – I soaked up every free resource from places like AllRaise.org – I said yes to checks only when I had enough to build a real prototype – I made the odds painfully clear to non-professional investors – I let an institutional firm set the terms—less founder-friendly, but better for the long run And here’s what I’ve learned: the hardest part wasn’t hearing ‘no.’ At the start, tendercare was all vision, so the no’s were easy to chalk up as “not a fit.” The biggest unlock wasn’t external, it was realizing those early investors weren’t doing me a favor. I was offering them a rare opportunity and a serious discount on the future. Valuations are just numbers. Discipline is the real flex. Money is stored energy. Use it wisely, and it can help bring your vision to life. The real work is: – Being humble enough to accept a smaller valuation – Being clear-eyed enough to only raise what you need (but not less) – Being mentally prepared for the pressure that comes with “yes” If you’re in that early-stage stretch, building without a safety net, making tradeoffs no one else sees—I see you. I’ve been you. It doesn’t mean you’re under qualified. It probably means you’re rare. There’s only one way to find out.