We love founder(s) who can say any of the following:
Mindset
- “Not sure, but we’ll get back to you shortly”
- “We studied all of the past players who worked in this space, and here’s what we learned…”
- “We accomplished something difficult that most people couldn’t.” Even if it’s not in a business arena–e.g., you ran a mile in 4:30–this shows ambition and focus.
- “Only the paranoid survive, and we’re paranoid.”
- “We have a history of being willing to defer gratification. Examples: ____.” Being a founder is not for the faint of heart.
- “There are some unknowns in our vision. Here’s our plan for researching them.”
- “We have a history of moving very quickly.” Note this applies in real time. If we meet you over a period of a month, we’ll notice what happens during that month.
Team
- “We hired a coach to help make us a world-class team.”
- “One or more of our past coworkers are joining us in this new business, and working for sweat equity.”
- “One of our past colleagues / managers is investing.”
- “We want you to invest because we think you have resources that can address some of our biggest challenges, which are…”
Experience
- “We think almost everyone else in the sector is missing a key insight we have earned, a secret. We earned our knowledge because ____. When we talk about our secret with other industry players, they say ___.”
- “We built a similar business in the past, and here are our metrics showing how successful it was.”
- “Our team has more expertise in this niche sector than anyone else.”
- “We’re a great fit for this market, because ___”
- “With the capital we’ve raised to date, we’ve achieved significant milestones.”
Current status
- “We need to raise to keep up with demand.”
- “We have a small small group of customers who are super-passionate about us, and have shown they’ll pay a premium.”
Future
- “We’re about to hit an inflection point which will dramatically improve our value; we just need funding to get us there.”
- “We can and plan to achieve profitability without further funding, and here’s a conservative projection showing how.”
