A VC wants to meet with you

What do you do if a Venture Capital (VC) investor reaches out BEFORE you’re ready to pitch?

Let’s say you’re running a small business or bootstrapped startup and out of the blue, a VC investor reaches out to you for a conversation.

Let’s assume you’re not 100% sure you want VC investment, or you haven’t officially prepared for it,

But you might want it in the future, so saying yes to a conversation makes sense.

What should you do to prepare?

Here are my Top 5 Tips:

1) Know that whatever happens in the meeting will be remembered. VCs talk to tons of startups. So they keep notes. If you make a bad impression in this meeting, it might stick with you. Whether you leave a “good” or a “bad” impression depends on whether or not the VC you interview thinks you might be a good founder and your company might be investible.

2) Research the VC - Go on their website and/or crunchbase.com to see who they invest in, their investment philosophy, how long they’ve been around, etc. If they don't invest in companies like yours or if they invest in your direct competitor, know that this meeting will be for practice/asking for intros to other VCs because they won't invest in you if either is the case.

(You can actually go really deep on this research step - I might devote an entire newsletter on just this sometime soon. Let me know if you're interested!)

3) Take a peek at this seed stage slide deck template - This is what VCs typically look for in a pitch deck. You likely don’t have time to put this together. Instead, think through which of these slide topics are really strong for your business - Excellent team? Awesome traction? Amazing market? Killer problem/solution? Great. Go to Step 4:

4) Throw a slide deck together, max 5-7 slides, surfacing only the strongest aspects of your business. This should not be a full pitch deck. You will mention to the VC that you did not have time to do a full pitch deck since you aren't yet looking for funding. You will tell them that you just threw some quick slides together to support the conversation.

5) Practice describing what your business does in under 30 seconds. The VC might be reaching out to YOU, but VCs still want you to keep it short and sweet. A concise elevator pitch that actually effectively explains what you’re doing is seen as a universal sign of a good founder.

Good luck!

And if you need a quick Pitch Deck Teardown before your call, I'm here :)

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