Never raised money before

Never raised money before?  Here’s the most basic (and important) thing investors want to know:

Given $X in funding at this round, how much in $Y revenue will that generate (or for consumer apps, how many Daily Active Users will $X generate).

The other important thing to know is that most rounds of funding are supposed to last your company 18 months.

So if you’re a first time entrepreneur, my question to you, is:

(1) How much money do you have to raise so that you (and several friends) would work full time on your startup for 18 months?

My follow up question would then be:

(2) Above and beyond salaries, how much additional money do you need for 18 months of marketing + advertising, and what is your ROI on your advertising in the top 3 advertising channels?

Knowing those answers ahead of time will save you a lot of wasted meetings with “potentially interested investors”.