Before you raise, decide whether the company is ready to start a fundraise at all. Write short answers to six readiness sentences, then paste them with your metrics, runway model, hiring plan, and the alternatives you considered into one request. Instruct Pingpong to challenge each answer the way a skeptical director would: does the round buy something specific, do the numbers support the ask, can the company survive a slow process, and would cutting burn and waiting a quarter produce a better round. Review your written replies in a second pass before you contact any investor.
This page is for founders, chief executives, and directors deciding whether and when to open a round. Once you decide to go ahead, test the pitch itself with war-game a fundraising deck before investors open it. Executive starting points live under Pingpong for executives.
Finish these six sentences
"This round pays for ___, which gets us to ___ by ___." A milestone and a date. "Accelerating growth" does not count.
"Our numbers support this ask because ___." Name the metrics an investor will look at first and how they have moved over the last two quarters.
"If the process takes twice as long as planned, we still have ___ months of cash at close." Raising with little cash left weakens your position on every term.
"Instead of raising now, we could ___." Cutting burn, raising a smaller amount from existing investors, or waiting for one more quarter of results.
"___ runs the process, and ___ covers their other work." A fundraise takes most of a chief executive's time for months.
"If, after the first few weeks, ___, we will pause and rethink." An early signal agreed in advance keeps a weak process from dragging on.
A blank, or an answer that only restates hope, marks where the company is not ready yet.
A worked example
This example is illustrative and does not describe a customer. A 70-person climate data company has 15 months of runway and plans to start raising a $30 million round next quarter. The founders have filled in the six sentences.
The chief executive pastes the answers, monthly revenue and retention for the past year, the runway model, the hiring plan, and notes from informal investor conversations.
A useful pass finds that the first sentence says the round will "scale go-to-market" without a milestone. Monthly revenue growth slowed from about 9% to about 4% over the last two quarters, and the answer to the second sentence does not mention it. The runway model assumes three months from launch to close. If it takes six, the company would close with about six months of cash.
The fourth sentence lists no alternatives. The pass notes that trimming the hiring plan would cut monthly burn by roughly $400,000 and extend runway to about 22 months, enough to raise after two more quarters of results. The founders' notes say they will accept no more than 15% dilution, while the amount and valuation they mention imply about 23%. The chief executive is named to run the process while also leading the company's largest enterprise deal, and the last sentence is blank.
The founders revise. They trim the hiring plan, which extends runway to about 20 months even with some hires kept. The ask drops to $18 million, tied to two enterprise launches and a revenue target by a stated date. The growth slowdown gets a direct explanation in the narrative, along with what changed in the last month. The chief operating officer takes over the enterprise deal. The early signal is set: if fewer than three of the first 15 investor conversations lead to a second meeting within four weeks, the founders pause and bring the plan back to the board.
A request you can copy
Below are our answers to six readiness sentences, our metrics for the past year, our runway model, our hiring plan, and notes from early investor conversations. Challenge each answer as a skeptical director. Flag vague milestones, metrics we have not explained, runway that would be too thin after a slow process, alternatives we skipped, dilution that conflicts with our stated limits, and gaps in who runs the company during the raise. Recommend whether to raise now, raise less, or wait. Stop there so we can reply in writing, then review our replies.
How Pingpong runs the review
The web review app sends your request through several models in order. Each later model receives the original request and every earlier answer, with instructions to assess the work so far. For the steps inside the app, see running your first review.
What a model can't review
A model does not know which investors are active in your sector this quarter, what your existing investors will do, or how the market will feel when you launch. Your board and existing investors are the first people to test these answers with.
When the decision goes to the board, see war-game a decision before the board meeting. More guides live under work decisions before you commit.