Okay. To continue our conversation, we’ve talked about where to find VCs and the, the proper way to approach a venture capitalist. And let’s say you are in front of a VC and you wanna pitch your billion dollar idea. Right. How should you pitch them? Should you give them a a hundred page slide deck? <laugh> No. Right. Uh, should you talk too much? No. So how should we pitch them?

Um, so, uh, the average VC goes through about a thousand or so pitches every year.

We go through a thousand for sure.

The number’s about a thousand to 10 or something like that. And, uh, if you ask any of them, which ones do you really remember? Yeah. And they will always tell you the one with the best stories.

Yeah. Facts tell story, sells.

Facts tell

Stories sell.

So, uh, if you really think about it, um, I, I don’t really care about your technology. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what I do care is the why. Why are you doing this? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, why are you the right person to do this? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, why is this the right time to do it? So my suggestion is this, let’s say, um, you are coming because you’re going to win, uh, create the software company that is going to help doctors with cancer patients. You can’t come and say, we have the technology that’s going to make doctors do a better job of cancer research. Yeah. What you should do is to come and say stories. Something like, God forbid, you know, um, I had a best friend who died of cancer, which unfortunately has happened to me and that has prompted me to help doctors solve this problem because I don’t want people to suffer the way his family and I have suffered.

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

And that’s why I’ve decided to build this company. And we think this is the right time to do it, because we have the technology to do it, so on and so forth. In other words, you always begin a story, never begin with a deck. If I’m interested in your deck, I will ask for it. So I want to hear the story. And in this story, you’re establishing a few things. Number one, that you have a personal connection to the problem that you’re solving. The reason that is important is because if you understand that problem, you have a better shot of finding the better solution for that problem than someone that doesn’t understand that problem as well as you do. Yes. Number two, it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when things go wrong, you have the propensity to remain with the problem and not give up and continue to work hard because you have a desire to fix this problem for a bigger reason than just making a company work. Number three, the solution to that problem will be more meaningful to you, and that’s, that’s gonna allow you to show more grit, more hard work. So we are looking for that storytelling upfront. We are looking for that personal connection to the problem that you’re solving. And we want to know this is something that is of meaning to you versus, oh, this is a way I’m just gonna make money.

And one of the things that we look for is we, we look for founders that can articulate the solution. Example, if when we talk, when we talk to the founders, if we say, okay, tell us what problems are you actually solving. If they cannot give us kind of like a 30 second, one minute, you can say, elevator pitch, we out. If they say, Hey, you know what, let, let me, let me open up my slide deck and let, and, and it’s complicated. I need to show it to you. Uh, it’ll take like 20 minutes. Then we know they cannot articulate the problem that they’re solving. Or sometimes we see Ivan, I, we see founders, they are so attached to the technology, right? They go just like technology crazy. Let me tell you about this tech and let me tell you about this and let me tell you about that. And it, it does this and this and this and this and this and this. And we just say, so what problem are you solving? Oh, we can solve a lot of problems without right out.

So in short, we are looking for a team that, um, has a very good story Yeah. That is concise, that is narrowly focused with a clear, clear statement about the problem they’re solving. And nine out of 10 entrepreneurs cannot state that. They always go back to saying, this is what our solution does. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> versus saying, this is the problem we’re solving.

And how long should a pitch be? You pick of the conversation.

Very, very short. Uh, you know, the pitch is, this is the story. We’ve decided to solve this problem. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, this is why now is the right time to do it and this is how we plan to solve this.

And, and the venture capitalists, if they want to know more, they would, they would ask

And say, who is the target customer? How big is the market? Is the growing market? What’s your market strategy?

What’s your ARR and all that stuff.

And all the unit economics and all of that. But we want to begin with a story and see the connection to.

mm-hmm. <affirmative> and we are very much, we, we are looking at, that’s why we like to do is do virtual, uh, we are looking at the person’s body language, the facial expression, not just the personalities. Yeah. Like are they likable? Cuz sometimes they’re something are just assholes. Right. You know, <laugh>, they’re just arrogant. We’ve seen a lot of those, right? Yeah.

They had one last week. Uh, so part of the reason storytelling is important is, is demonstrates the ability to build rapport. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that ability tells me that that team, that entrepreneur, that ceo, that founder can hire the best people first and foremost. Yep. Can get in front of the most important customers can most importantly erase the next round. And I want ’em to be clear because in lack of clarity, if there is no clarity with limited resources in the starting stages of a company, they will not be able to optimize for customer acquisition in the appropriate channels, which means they’re gonna be wasting a lot of very valuable resources upfront. And that’s dilution for investors as well as the founders. Yeah.

And that’s how you raise money and that’s how you pitch venture capitalists. Until next time…

Happy unicorn hunting.

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