Happy Friday, everybody. It’s a Friday in July, and do you know, what’s the perfect thing for a hot summer day? A pool party! All the reasons investors say “no” can wash away when the pool party is packed.

There’s a big reason that funds pass or ghost on investments, but they would never share it with founders. It’s entirely subjective and often just based off gut instincts.

Another common reason venture funds say “no” is because they don’t see a path to returning the entire fund from that one investment. Wondering what that means? Here’s more…

When you’re talking to an investor that writes checks at your level, and they’re telling you that you’re too early, here’s the real problem: you haven’t sold them on your vision.

Your competition in that moment are the half a dozen other startups that I have in my diligence process at the same time as you.

Wrapping up the week with great advice from @sabakarimm – don’t email people asking if you can send them the deck, just send them the deck. That’s the purpose of it. Send it!

One of the most powerful things that you can do in your email deck is to break the reader’s frame of reference. My favorite example of this is from the Allhers deck.

Pitching is storytelling, and decks are a tool to tell the story. The email deck gets to meeting, the pitch deck gets the investment.

My number one rule for pitching and pitch decks is: Don’t make me think. Don’t make me work. Here are six examples.