“I Got 100 Rejections and Raised $850K”: Sergey Bakaev’s Fundraising Playbook — Unicorns Journal
We just published one of the most honest and practical founder interviews we've ever featured in Unicorns Journal.
It’s the story of how Sergey Bakaev, co-founder of LovOn, raised $850K after hearing more than 100 rejections — with no network and no previous fundraising experience.
A brutally honest, step-by-step breakdown of what pre-seed fundraising actually looks like behind the scenes — the pressure, the tactics, the mistakes, and the breakthroughs.
Top takeaways:
Fundraising = communication density
1 warm intro > 1,000 cold emails
Part-time fundraising doesn’t exist — someone must own it full time
Start with angels before approaching funds
Survive 150 “no’s”, and your “yes” becomes inevitable
If you're fundraising (or preparing to fundraise soon), this interview is a must-read — packed with real scripts, tactics, systems, and lessons learned the hard way:
If you have a founder story worth sharing — fundraising battles, co-founder search, early traction wins, or lessons from near-failures — we’d love to hear from you.
Email us at editor@unicorns.club and we’ll be happy to create a deep, meaningful interview with you for Unicorns Journal.
Replies
Triforce Todos
Do you think starting with angels is always better, or can early funds sometimes be worth it too?
@abod_rehman No harm in having some conversations with early funds but angels is where you should focus, angels are great for fund intros when the time's right. Angels are more open to taking a punt on someone and they aren't solely looking for unicorns. A lot of angels are happy with smaller wins, they aren't solely chasing unicorns like the VC are (this is largely down to how the biz model of VCs work). It's a very different game to angel investing. If you're experiencing crazy growth and you have a huge potential market then the funds are worth targeting. If you have good traction (not outlier) then focus on angels and just network with the funds.
Unicorns Club
@abod_rehman Great question!
From my experience, for founders without a strong network, it’s often better to start with accelerators — especially early-stage or “idea-stage” programs, and even young accelerators or venture studios. They can give you your first layer of credibility, intros, and momentum.
But Sergey’s story was different: he actually couldn’t break into accelerators at all — and had to go the hard way through angels and warm intros. So a lot depends on the product, timing, and your initial signals.
What’s definitely true:
👉 going straight to funds without meaningful traction is much harder. Angels or accelerators are usually a smoother entry point.