Go behind the scenes to see how VCs think, invest, and evaluate early-stage startups.
There are ways to shut down: The Ghost, The Bonfire, The Refund. But there’s also a great way to sell your startup. That advice is not mine to share, so go read this presentation by Geoff Lewis: The Terminal Plan
Discover the key questions founders should ask during partner meetings and initial discussions in this insightful episode. AJ encourages founders to be inquisitive about how funds operate and make investment decisions.
Where are you in the process? What’s your valuation expectation? Abby provides guidance on answering both of these trick questions.
Watch out for these VC “trick questions.” How you answer will impact how far you get in their process.
When a venture fund is asking for “Tuesday Expenses” it’s because someone in the firm has direct experience with that, whether good or bad.
VC’s are pattern matching all the time and recency bias can really put its thumb on the scales when it comes to decision making. Do you best to understand the patterns, especially the recent ones.
Let’s reframe this: investors don’t pass on YOU; they pass on opportunity right now for a specific set of reasons. Some of which you know, some of which you don’t know.
Why is the differentiation between pre-revenue and any revenue at all so important? The answer is from a classic startup post.
Ask a VC, “do you invest pre-revenue?” and 90% of them are going to say some version of, “it depends.” Think of revenue as just one throttle. What are the other throttles you have down?
If the investor who takes your first meeting can’t explain your business back to their partners, you’re not going to get a second meeting.
Prioritization is knowing the destination. Relentless reprioritization is continually navigating along the way to the destination.
VC Minute is quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better. This is Part 2 of the Season 1 complication, covering Episodes 26-50.
