Ever notice how VCs have the best poker faces? You’re sweating, showing your slides, and they look like they’re watching paint dry.

‘So, do you love it or hate it? Blink twice if it’s at least a maybe.’

How to Nail Your 30 Min VC Intro Meeting

• Why Read: 

  • Master storytelling in 30-minute introductory meetings by articulating who, what, why, how, and future plans.

• Featuring:

  • Jared Hecht(@jaredhecht), Venture Partner at Union Square Ventures

• Link: 

  • “Ride It to the Sky”

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• Recognizing the Importance of Storytelling for Founders:

  • Point: Founders must master the skill of telling a compelling story to attract capital and talent.

  • "One of the most important skills founders must hone is their ability to tell a compelling story. Part of that story, if they plan or want to use venture capital as a tool to grow, is articulating how much money they want to raise and what they plan to do with that money."

• Seizing the Opportunity in Introductory Meetings:

  • Point: Make the most of the limited time in introductory meetings by telling the best story possible and presenting effectively.

  • "Most of the time an introductory meeting is 30 minutes. That's a huge chunk of time to leave a lasting impression, and it belongs to you. Seize it by telling the best story possible, and augment it with the best presentation you've ever made. I'm constantly shocked by how many people just want to shoot the shit, or act cute and coy and don't use the time productively to either share what they're building and why they're building it or begin to develop a lasting relationship in a productive way."

• Clearly Articulating What You Are Building:

  • Point: Answer who, what why, how and offer future plans to crisply communicate what you are building, using a simple product demo if needed.

  • "Who are you? I like to know your personal background and story. It humanizes you as an entrepreneur."

  • "What are you building? Too many entrepreneurs struggle to crisply articulate what is it they’re building. When this happens I immediately shut down. Whether right or wrong, it’s my dealbreaker and I can’t compromise on it."

  • "Why are you building this? The why is the fire that fuels you for the decade to come. Express this with passion." 

  • "How’s it going? What have you learned? What’s the data look like? How are the market and customers reacting to what you’re putting out there?"

  • "What’s the plan moving forward? What does the roadmap look like? How much capital do  you want to raise and what will you do and accomplish with it?"

• Recognizing the Value of Storytelling for Attracting Resources:

  • Point: Invest in your storytelling skills as it pays dividends in attracting capital and talent.

  • "If you do not take this part of company building seriously then you are shooting yourself in the foot. Some companies strike gold and are in the right place at the right time and have captured lightning in a bottle and could keep their mouths shut and term sheets and job applications would be delivered to their doorstep. This is the exception and not the rule. I've never built one of these companies, and chances are you won't either. Not because you're not amazing, but because the odds are statistically near zero. So in lieu of getting absurdly lucky, you have your story. It's your ammo for attracting capital and talent. Make sure you invest in it because it pays dividends."

Interview with a $10B Founder Turned Investor

Why Read:

• Learn the importance of strategic coherence, clear diagnosis, aligning strengths, focusing on vertical-specific software, and key founder traits for startup success.

Featuring:

• Logan Bartlett(@loganbartlett), Managing Director at Redpoint, Podcast at The Logan Bartlett Show Interviews Marcus Ryu, Director of hyperexponential

Link: 

• “Ep 103: The Untold Story of Marcus Ryu(Co-Founder Guidewire & Partner at Battery Ventures) Scaling to $10B and Diving into VC“

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• Focus on strategic coherence when developing your business idea:

  • "The thing that I'm always trying to discern is, is this strategically coherent? I think that's the ultimate signal that matters most. That's necessary, not sufficient. There are a million other questions you have to ask and understand. But most importantly, you have to know, is there a coherent thought process? Is there a through line where premises follow, where conclusions follow from? And to my astonishment, a huge number of founders, even those who have been incredibly credentialed, passionate, intelligent, etc. can be surprisingly weak on that count."

• Base your strategy on a clear diagnosis of the current state, a well-defined market, and a set of coherent actions:

  • "What is a strategy? I mean, just at the most base definition, it starts with a diagnosis. It starts with a theory of the status quo and an account for why that status quo is as it is. Sometimes there's been a coordination problem or a technology barrier or some kind of incentive problem. Okay. There's some reason that things are not as they should be. And that has to be very cogently, succinctly, and convincingly explained. And that's not even talking about the company. That's just talking about the account of what is today the case."

• Align your strategy with your unique strengths and avoid inauthenticity:

  • "The last, last bit of advice that I internalized for myself, and gave to others is you must speak to your own strengths and your own nature. And sometimes you feel as a founder of a company that you have to represent yourself as something else. It always fails. People see through it. People hate inauthenticity. And so I said, I'm this quirky, maybe over cerebral, over intellectual. And I'm either going to succeed and find a way to be a good CEO and founder doing that, or I'm not. But I know I wont fail trying to represent myself as, you know, the second coming of Steve Jobs or something like that."

• Focus on building vertically-specific software rather than broad horizontal solutions:

  • "Every single facet of human life can be improved with better software, with better information, better decisions, with more agentic power over what we do. So there will never be a shortage of opportunities... However, as I said, industries themselves have gotten vastly more specific and more and more sophisticated. Again, if you look at insurance, you look at the way that insurance products are defined now versus 20 years ago… the products are much more complicated. The nature of the pricing is so much more sophisticated than it's ever been. The kind of data that is incorporated in order to make underwriting and pricing decisions is vastly more sophisticated, more comprehensive. So, therefore, to build an application, something that's actually useful and have it be generically useful for, a vast array of industries, to me seems more and more improbable."

• Look for founders who exhibit coherence in their thinking, a strong character, and a hunger to achieve:

  • "Can they speak without pretension, without promotion in a lucid way? And can they flex to a high level of cross examination. Or are they brittle? Is their understanding of things brittle? Do they fall apart and we come to a word salad of truisms and platitudes? Are they able to keep complex arguments in their mind? If you ask them a three part question, are they able to answer one, then two, then three? And with evidence, do they acknowledge when they don't know something. So, that's one category of evaluating or underwriting the founder. But the second is entirely about character. And what do I mean by that? I don't really mean moral character, though, of course, that's important… but a character of an appetite, of a  kind of a whole… it's a hole that can't be filled. They have a hole that cannot be filled within them. I have a hole inside me, even though I am married to the love of my life and my life is great, I have a hunger to do something more. That's why I continue to work now. And it's a trait that I've seen in many founders. They just have to do it because theyneed to feel that they are pushing against the world and they have something, they have something urgent to prove."

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