The raise and the kabuki around it is at the very best a necessary evil -- bring your own capital on board if at all possible.
Having raised, you are under no obligation to do what your angels want you to do -- at the size we were, we spent a totally disproportionate amount of time sucking up to the Angels rather than just getting on with it.
Don't pivot to something that nobody wants to work on, simply because the investors want you to.
If you're in business with a friend, make sure you both have comparable skin in the game -- I could float off because I hadn't relocated my family from a different continent. And I lost a friend because of the way I behaved -- much, much worse than losing investor cash.
Don't be pie in the sky flakes about which color your M5 is going to be.
