Ask a VC

“I don't think of it as getting funding. The founders we back have a rare, almost unreasonable conviction about why the world should work differently, and they've usually found early customers who agree. My job is to spot that before the data makes it obvious.”

“I look for outlier founders in an interesting neighborhood of an idea with a unique insight into the customer or space, and I care less about the stage than about whether that spark is real. At Sequoia we have written the first check into founders with just an idea and zero lines of code, because the founder and the insight matter more than the deck.”

“Don't practice on mediocre investors. They ask the wrong questions, so you rehearse answers that won't matter when a top investor dials into the two or three things that actually drive the decision.”

“I don't spend much time grading pitch decks. I spend it trying to understand whether the founder has a clear problem, a contrarian insight, and the relentless execution to make it real. The deck is just the map; I want to meet the person holding the compass.”

“I spent my early years chasing every VC with a checkbook, and the worst meetings were the ones where I was pitching strangers who had no reason to care. The investors you want almost always come through a founder they've already backed, so your real job is to make those founders want to vouch for you before you ever ask for an introduction.”

“I don't want founders to tell my story; I want them to tell theirs. The pitches that land are the ones where I walk out wanting to get on that person's team, not just the idea.”

“Most founders I see raise well start with a warm introduction to the right partner, not a firm, because venture is a relationship business and that first meeting is the start of a decade-long partnership. After that, what wins the term sheet is clarity: why you, why this market, and why now, with the numbers to back it up.”

“I treat fundraising like car shopping, not dating: run a parallel process, target the right firm and partner for your stage and sector, and get a warm intro from a founder who made that VC money. Your pitch needs to set context, be crisp, and be credible in the first five minutes, because partners decide in minutes whether to spend more time.”

“Most early-stage companies don't have enough traction for traction to be the lead story, so the pitch has to be a believable narrative about the future that hangs together. I spend a lot of time with our founders translating the story they want to tell into a story investors can repeat in their own heads.”

“The best way in is a warm intro through someone the investor already trusts, but if you don't have that network, cold outreach works if you do the work: personalize it, know who you're writing to, and stand out. We've backed founders who reached us on Twitter and through cold emails, but never from a to whom it may concern pitch.”

“Treat it like a sales process with a tight target list, not a coffee tour. Run a CRM of investors, cluster first meetings, and chase the partner who actually knows your space, not the marquee brand.”

“I raised money for my own startup and then for Afore, and the thing that held true across both was that the best founders don't raise on an idea, they raise on a few months of real work. Build the cheapest prototype you can, talk to customers, then go to investors with evidence, not a deck.”

“I raised $5.5 million for VitalSigns in 1997, but only after Monte Kirsten and I put in our own money, took no salary, and shipped a product with six engineers so we could walk into those VC meetings with real adoption rather than a deck. If you can de-risk the company on your own dime first, you keep more ownership and you get a very different conversation with investors.”

“I raised the first $320M for Neo by treating fundraising as a relationship business long before I needed the money: decades of backing founders and helping them without asking for anything created the LPs who wanted in. My real advice is don't raise until you have happy paying customers and real momentum; desperation makes you marry the wrong people and give away too much of the company.”

“I raised money for Open Market and Appex, and the best advice I can give is: stop treating fundraising as validation. The amount you raise, the valuation, the name of the VC—none of that proves the business works. What matters is whether you have evidence that customers will pay and a clear plan for the milestones that get you to the next round or to cash flow positive.”

“I don't think of it as raising money; I think of it as choosing business partners for the next decade. Build a real relationship before the round, because the term sheet is the beginning, not the achievement. With UiPath, Daniel wasn't even fundraising when we met, and that trust is what made the Series A fast when it happened.”

“I raised $75 million for LearnVest, and the single best move I made was asking the five smartest people I knew to tear my business plan apart before I ever pitched an investor. Their negative feedback became the exact questions I had to nail, because fundraising is less about selling a dream than proving you have already stress-tested it.”

“I usually challenge founders to first ask why they need the money, because too many jump to fundraising as the default move. With Product Hunt, investors were courting me before I was even sure I wanted to raise, and I only did it because I needed to hire and had no personal capital to pay them.”

“I watch founders raise best when they stop performing for investors and start showing the thing that is already working. At seed, I care more about paid conversion and how fast you ship than a perfect story. Once a product starts to click, confidence spikes, and the pitch almost takes care of itself.”

“I raised Lux's first fund with no track record by building real platforms, not just pitch decks, and by getting Bill Conway at Carlyle to bet on us before we had one. For founders, the money follows a story that makes uncertainty feel knowable: how much capital turns which unknowns into facts in what time.”

“I pitch the way Jeff Jordan taught me: tell the vision, show the progress, and name the two things you still have to prove. Investors are paid to be cynical, so if they catch you hiding one weakness they assume you are hiding three.”

“I’ve watched thousands of student pitches, and the ones that land money are never the ones with the slickest deck. They’re the ones where the founder can answer why this problem, why me, and why now in about 90 seconds, then turn the meeting into a conversation instead of a monologue.”

“I don't pitch much anymore, but I sat through over 500 pitch meetings my first year at Founders Fund, and the ones that landed started with the quest, not the spreadsheet. The founder had to make me believe the world was worse if they didn't exist.”

“I pitch investors by telling a story about how the company changes the world, using Joseph Campbell's hero's journey more than Schumpeter's disruption. I also make sure to show the non-obvious truth I see in the market, especially if the business is in an unusual space.”

“When I listen to a pitch, I care less about the single moat people were coached to recite and more about whether they can map out everything that has to be true for the company to win over seven to ten years. I want to see the founder who does not know how thick the wall is and runs at it anyway, because that willingness to take risks is what changes markets.”

“I don't want a one-line email that makes me guess, and I don't think most VCs do either. A 30-second Loom or a tight Notion memo that shows you did five minutes of homework on why we're a fit saves everyone time, including you.”

“I don't think there's a generic playbook anymore. In AI especially, the best pitches I've seen lately are live demos and viral product moments, not polished decks. Show the thing working, then explain why you're the team that will ship it fastest.”

“I wasted months of my life cold-emailing VCs as a first-time founder, and I am here to tell you it just does not work. The real path is warm introductions from founders whose companies made those funds money, because investors trust the operator who has been in the seat more than any deck.”

“The best introduction is from another founder, ideally an outlier portfolio founder of that VC, because VCs trust founders who have already been through the ringer. Cold outbound is the worst use of your time. If you cannot get a founder intro, target angels or operators the VC respects, but never lead with a same-stage VC intro; it reads as a negative signal.”

“I found my best investors through warm intros from other founders, especially the Y Combinator community after my first company. Build relationships before you need the money: always be raising, never be actively raising, and when the first term sheet lands, move fast with a polished deck in hand.”

“I would start long before you need the check. My research and teaching consistently show that the best introductions come from someone the VC already trusts, and that the relationship is built through months of update meetings, not a single pitch. Do your homework on which partner, not just which firm, actually invests in your space.”

“I start with founder friends, angels, and other investors in my network, then use AngelList, Signal, and LinkedIn to fill the gaps. The best intros come from founders or angels who can vouch for you, not from someone who just happens to have an email address.”

“The best investors usually come through people who already know you or know your market, so start with the founders, operators, and angels in your specific domain rather than cold-casting a wide net. I spent five months getting to know the Chronosphere founders before we did the deal, because founder-VC fit matters way more than any pitch deck.”

“The best way in is through founders already in their portfolio, because VCs posture but founders will tell you who actually shows up. I also think you should pick someone whose brand lends you credibility in the conversations that matter, not just the highest price.”

“I look for founders first, then the company: the best introductions come from people I've already backed or worked with, because trust transfers faster than a deck. When I led Sumo Logic's round in 2012, the deal came through that network, not a cold pitch.”

“I found Lux by Googling nanotechnology venture capital in 2007 and reached out offering diligence help, not asking for money. Build relationships before you need the check, because warm introductions through people you've worked with are how most real deals happen.”

“The best way to get funded is to stop treating it like a sales process and start building real relationships months before you need the money. I passed on leading Goodfire's seed because I was too late, wrote a small check, spent months helping them, and when they raised again they had seven term sheets in three days and chose us because they knew us.”

“You get funded by building real momentum before you ask, then telling the story as a set of provable assertions. I raised money when I had customers and metrics, not when I had a pitch.”

“Venture funding starts with knowing exactly what hypothesis you’re testing and what cards you’ll flip with the money, because equity is for big, risky outcomes, not incremental cash flow. I usually tell creators to use the market to test their idea’s validity, but only raise if giving up a slice meaningfully increases your chance of success.”

“I would say the best way to get venture capital is to make raising it almost an afterthought. At Eventbrite, the most valuable stretch was the early 24/7 loop with customers, not chasing term sheets. Build something people love, show real traction, and the checks become a simpler conversation. Then be deliberate about who you take money from: pure capital at the highest price, or a partner you want in the trenches.”

“I see founders get funded when they can articulate, in one or two lines, why their idea is interesting and how it becomes a consequential company. At the early stages I focus on, relationships matter as much as the deck, so I tell people to build those before they need the check. If you have to run a process, a crisp memo can be more useful than slides because it helps me bring my partnership along.”

“I raised our first fund by telling the story of The Pitch to 230 listeners who trusted us with their money. The founders who get funded are the ones who can prove they can sell to real customers, not just the ones with the prettiest deck.”

“Most founders think fundraising is about the pitch, but the real work is making investors feel like they already know you before you ask. I spent years sending good deals to VCs, helping their portfolio companies hire, and building communities like On Deck and Village Global so that when founders raised, I was their first call. If you want capital, start by giving value to the people who have it.”

“Venture capital is two things bundled together: capital and partnership. The founders I back are usually people I can authentically help close great talent, and I have to believe their insight could build a really big, defensible business.”

“I start every deck by writing the slide titles as complete sentences, so when you read them in order they tell the whole story in one paragraph.”

“I keep it dead simple: the world is a certain way, something changes, the world is better. That problem-solution-impact story is the spine, and everything else is just proof. Practice the hell out of it, know your metrics cold, and pitch in your own voice because investors are buying you, not a template.”

“I don't build pitch decks, I read them, and the ones that get a second meeting are rarely the prettiest. They answer three questions fast: what problem you own, why your team can solve it, and what the capital will buy that changes the outcome. Everything else is decoration.”

“I see hundreds of decks, and the ones that stand out make me feel the problem before they explain the solution. The best founders treat each slide as a test of whether the reader still cares enough to turn the page.”

“I never made a pitch deck that won by looking pretty; ours worked when it told a story we could defend. At Anchor, Silicon Valley was anti-podcast, so we raised the seed on a splashy launch and a manifesto more than metrics, then the Series A only after we forced 10% weekly creator growth and could prove the curve.”

“I don't make pitch decks, I make things you can believe in: a working prototype, a short video that shows the thing breathing, and a one-page story about why this has to exist now.”

“I used to run the Startup Bootcamp at HBS, and in eight days the best we could get to was a deck that outlined the theory of the venture, mostly showing where the team still needed real data.”

“I raised $2.2M for Mirra, and the decks that worked best told a story about a broken thing people already felt, not just product screenshots. Andrew Chen put it well at one of our panels: if you're only explaining your product, no one listens.”

“I look for a deck that tells me the founder has clarity of thought: what are you building in the next six months, and what does the five-year master plan look like if every green light flips.”

“I score every pitch across five T's: Team, Traction, Thesis, Terms, and Target Market. Team matters most to me, because a lovable, obsessive, first-principles founder makes money, talent, and customers flock.”

“I look for early signs of product-market fit first, then whether customers could love the product for decades, and whether the founders are clear-eyed enough to tell me what's actually not working. When I ask a founder what's keeping them up at night, the best ones don't deflect, they diagnose.”

“Investors look for a 10x edge in at least one dimension, not competence across the board. Marc Andreessen and I used to frame it as market, product, and team; the strongest startups are exceptional on one and messy on the others, because de-risked investments have no upside.”

“I look for three things: a massive new user and business opportunity, whether a startup can compound into owning it rather than big companies, and whether this is the best team and approach to get there. I also want to see that a small group of users already loves the product, because 100 people who use it religiously tell me more than 10,000 who touch it lightly.”

“At seed, I'm looking for the founder more than the company: the obsession, the speed of learning, and whether I'd bet on them when the idea changes. We backed Vlad and Baiju at Robinhood pre-launch because the person was right, not because the product was finished.”

“I look for founders who make a problem that looks tiny today feel inevitable tomorrow, the way Whatnot turned Funko Pops into a category and Kindred made house swapping a real travel option.”

“I look for a learning flywheel: every action the founders take should de-risk something or teach them something about their customer. If that loop is moving, the rest tends to follow; if it's not, I usually lean away regardless of how polished the pitch is.”

“I like a priced round when you can get it, because then everybody knows exactly what they own and the cap table stays clean. A SAFE is fine for a quick first check, but I have seen those stack up into a messy conversion later, and the founder ends up surprised by who owns what.”

“The best warm intro comes from a founder we already back or an operator we've worked with, because their reputation is on the line, not just yours. If you don't have that line, build it the old-fashioned way: do something impressive, make it visible, and let the network find you.”