Mariam Nusrat, non-technical founder of Breshna, reveals exact fundraising process: 219 investor calls, 370-person email list, $2.8M raised. How she built gaming platform serving 180K users.
Mariam Nusrat spent 15 years as an economist at the World Bank, working across 22 countries on education policy. Building a gaming platform was "nowhere on the horizon" until a student project to create a period game for reproductive health awareness changed everything.
Now she's raised $2.8 million for Breshna, the "Canva for video games," serving 180,000 users with 2 million gameplays while pivoting from EdTech to CPG marketing games and gearing up for Series A funding.
Follow Mariam: LinkedIn | Breshna Gaming Platform
Mariam Nusrat doesn't sugarcoat the fundraising reality: she made 219 investor calls to get 29 yeses and raise $2.8 million. But her secret wasn't persistence alone. It was turning every "no" into a strategic asset.
After each rejection, she'd ask investors to join her monthly update email list. She built this list to 370 investors, sending updates from day one before having any actual investors. When investors said "no," she'd respond: "Can I at least add you to my investor update list?" This kept her top-of-mind as circumstances changed.
"No's are not now's often, and then they become maybe's and then they become yeses. Even if they don't become the yes, they're going to talk about you. I got on 219 investor calls to get 29 yeses to raise 2.8 million dollars. You have to approach 400 people to get to 219 calls to then get to 29 yeses."
While Mariam Nusrat used mass outreach, her biggest wins came from hyper-focused pursuit of specific high-value investors. She created "776 reasons why 776 should invest" in an Excel sheet for Alexis Ohanian. She summarized Elizabeth Yin's tweets weekly and sent the summaries as value-add content.
This wasn't just creativity. It was strategic. She understood that investors see hundreds of generic pitches, so standing out required going "above and beyond the hundred pitch decks already in their inbox." The goal was creating memorable interactions that other investors would hear about.
"When I have someone like Alexis Ohanian, who I will still hunt down, I am investing, I'm watching him, I'm watching his tweets, I'm watching his LinkedIn posts. You become a pit bull with those 20, 30 funds that you're like I'm going to get you on my journey and there's going to be a hundred people watching you do that interaction."
When Mariam Nusrat got pregnant before her Series A, she was terrified to tell her mostly-male cap table. Instead of avoiding the conversation, she proactively addressed every concern investors might have before they could voice them.
She laid out her reduced work plan, explained how her brother-turned-co-founder would step up, and timed her announcement strategically around summer (traditionally slower season). She sent an investor update the day before her C-section and exactly one month after, maintaining consistent communication cadence.
"I get it. You're going to congratulate me. Thank you. I know you care about me, but guess what you care about more is the money you parked in my company. So let me address it up front. I literally thought of every question they would have in their heads and came at it to the point that they were like, bro, take a chill, you're fine, calm down, maybe take a week off."
The Challenge: Keeping rejected investors engaged and building relationships for future rounds.
Mariam's Solution: Turn every "no" into a relationship-building opportunity:
How to Apply: Start your investor email list immediately, not after you close funding. Include rejected investors, warm connections, and potential future investors. Send brief monthly updates highlighting user growth, revenue progress, team additions, and key wins.
Mariam Nusrat shared five battle-tested frameworks from her journey raising $2.8M as a non-technical founder. Get immediate access to the remaining frameworks:
✅ The "Pit Bull" Investor Targeting System
✅ The De-Risk Everything Communication Strategy
✅ The Strategic Building in Public Approach
✅ The Family Co-Founder Success Blueprint
Plus bonus content:
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