August is often considered the black hole of venture capital fundraising. Everyone is on vacation (well, everyone who’s not a founder anyway), while half of Silicon Valley is slogging down to Black Rock City for Burning Man. It understandably can just seem like an exercise in futility to try to raise any funding at all.

I’m here to tell you though that August is not the bleakest month of the year for fundraising (that actually would be December according to data from DocSend we’ve published). In fact, using August effectively for fundraising is perhaps the single most important factor for success in the coming fundraising season (there is a reason that YC Demo Day, one of the largest fundraising events in the calendar, is set for August 19-20 after all).

Let’s walk through a plan of attack.

First, the truth about VCs and vacation

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Yes, VCs take vacation, sometimes sparklingly expensive ones, like the kinds with yachts or the kinds where someone rents out a whole ski chalet (or two). It can seem like an incredibly enviable lifestyle, and it is at a certain point of success, particularly in comparison to the context of a founder who is working around the clock and eating instant ramen.