Lecture 9: How to Raise Money with Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, and Parker Conrad

What this lecture covers

This lecture is a panel discussion on fundraising, led by Sam Altman, with Marc Andreessen (Netscape, Andreessen Horowitz), Ron Conway (SV Angel), and Parker Conrad (founder of Zenefits). It sits in the course's run of guest lectures on the practical mechanics of running a startup, following talks on product, growth, and doing things that don't scale.

No transcript is available for this video, so this guide is built from its title, description, and the course context. Based on the panel's makeup, expect a Q&A-style discussion covering how and when to raise money, how investors evaluate early-stage founders, and how a founder like Conrad experienced fundraising from the other side of the table.

Key ideas

• Fundraising as a Q&A panel: Sam Altman leads the discussion with two prominent investors and a founder, rather than a single structured lecture.
• Investor perspective: Marc Andreessen and Ron Conway bring perspectives from venture capital and angel investing, likely covering what they look for when deciding to fund a company.
• Founder perspective: Parker Conrad, as the founder of Zenefits, offers a contrasting view of what raising money is actually like from the company side.
• Supplementary material: the lecture page links to Ron Conway's slides and further readings for anyone who wants a deeper treatment of the fundraising process.

Before you watch

• Watching earlier lectures on product, growth, and getting started (Lectures 6 through 8 in this course) provides useful context, since fundraising typically follows early product-market fit signals.
• Familiarity with basic startup terms like seed round, valuation, and term sheet will help you follow a panel discussion of this kind.

Check your understanding

1. What might differentiate the advice given by an investor like Marc Andreessen or Ron Conway from the perspective offered by a founder like Parker Conrad?
2. Why might a course on starting a startup place a fundraising panel after lectures on product and growth rather than before them?