The food: Norwegian Fish

Where to find it: Fisketorget, Bergen, Norway

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Welcome to the first edition of #FoodEntrepreneur Friday, where I serve up an order of international food with a side of insight for entrepreneurs.

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Money. It stares at you. Just like this vicious-looking fish I spotted while exploring the harbors of Bergen, it can be an enemy and a friend. Money can eat you alive with its wooden, George Washington teeth and comfort you with its Benjamin Franklin smile.

Right now my TV production and I are in “money week” at the Draper University entrepreneurial program. Money is the life-blood of every company. Every. Single. One. Pretty soon Longa Travels Productions will have to raise money in order to travel and bring you more international food via this blog and our upcoming video series.

So I will share some entrepreneurial advice as I have in previous posts. It’s the end of the school week—#FoodEntrepreneur Friday, if you will—and it’s time to digest what we’ve learned during “money week.” Here are eight tips for venture fundraising from my Draper University mentor, Adam Draper.

1. Fundraising is really really really difficult.
2. You need to have more than 75 legitimate venture fundraising pitch meetings before you should expect significant results.
3. Make sure the person you are pitching knows the meeting is about your intent to venture fundraise (aka ask for money).
4. No one invests in the first meeting.
5. Fundraising is really really really difficult.
6. Always ask if the investor knows someone else who might be interested.
7. Take notes on feedback from investors at pitch meetings. It will help sculpt your pitch as you venture fundraise.
8. It’s better to get a yes or no than a wishy-washy maybe from investors.

Money or mahi-mahi, sometimes you’ve got to make an effort to reel-in what you want. Not only that, but these eight tips come from Adam Draper—a VC investor, no less. If an investor thinks venture fundraising is “really really really difficult” then you know it’s got to be really really really really difficult.

If you’re an entrepreneur, and you’ve been trying to venture fundraise with very little bites, then don’t fret. I heard of a CEO who sold her company for billions after experiencing rejection over 100 times when trying to venture fundraise. Just know that often the sweetest-tasting results (and fish) come from the largest struggles.

A fisherman at Fisketorget spices up his sweet, salmon catch.