Pro tip: Austin tech founders, stop pitching your whole life story in the first meeting

I've been in three pitch meetings downtown this week where the founder spent 15 minutes on their personal journey from college. The actual product demo got maybe five minutes. My boss at our VC firm on South Congress literally said, 'I don't need to know you were a barista in 2015, I need to know your burn rate.' It kills the momentum and wastes time we could use to ask real questions. Has anyone else had to gently steer a founder back to the actual business plan?

3 comments

3 Comments

milesk2720d ago

the_taylor said it builds trust, but I mean, there's a line. I watched a guy talk about his study abroad trip for ten minutes once. It felt less like trust and more like he was stalling because the product wasn't ready. That kind of story just makes me wonder what you're trying to hide. Save the life story for the third meeting, after you've shown me the thing actually works.

the_taylor20d ago

But that personal story builds trust first.

dakotab9319d agoTop Commenter

Okay but what if my life story IS the product? I'm only half joking, I once spent a whole meeting talking about my old band before I remembered I was there to talk about an app. It was a real 'oh right, the business' moment. You gotta save the deep lore for when they're already hooked.