[Fundraising For Startups] Lesson 1: You can't afford to look dumb.

Right now, I'm pissed off.

I just got off a call with an entrepreneur that told me I'm an idiot for not investing in his company. (Anyone handing out free hugs today, I could use one.)

To be fair, I might have pissed him off when I questioned why he claimed to be "the only one doing" whatever he was doing. Ugh, whatever.

Pro tip: if no one else is doing what you're doing, something's wrong.

Ok, I'm done being pissed off.

HERE'S THE THING.

No one cares about your idea. No one believes you when you say you want to change the world. No one wants to fund your app.

That's because there are too many people claiming to be founders out there and you're competing with them whether you know it or not.

If you're trying to raise money today, you should know that it's only getting harder: the entire market is getting noisier. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Everyone claims to be an entrepreneur. And your pitch is getting lost in the thick of it all.

More founders, from all over the world, are going after the same finite pool of money. The fundamental investor-founder relationship is based on asymmetric information: the investor sees (in some cases) hundreds of deals while you probably are only thinking about yours.

DON'T MAKE DUMB MISTAKES.

Before you even think about raising money, you should know your market inside and out. That includes knowing which companies exist, which have raised money, which investors appear to be most active in those markets. Thankfully, AngelList makes that super easy.

The first thing you should do (TODAY) is sign up for AngelList. Go ahead, I'll wait. While you're at it, follow me on AngelList.

Take a look at the companies that have listed themselves on AngelList. Use the "Market" filter to reduce the list down to the companies that are actually in your space. (Don't forget to hit "Save" so you begin to receive the weekly emails on deals happening in the markets you select.)

Once you've narrowed the list down, I recommend sorting the list by the amount of money raised. Now click to open the top 10 companies in separate tabs. Now, study everything those companies have disclosed -- and don't be surprised if you find a few of their pitch decks published publicly.

That should keep you busy for a bit. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

-P