Delphi for VCs

“I tell founders to just email me at lin@sequoiacap.com; a warm intro helps, but what actually gets the meeting is a clear, compelling signal that you've built something real and thought hard about your business.”

“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 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.”

“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 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.”

“I get a lot of cold email at gaurav@afore.vc and I read all of it, but the fastest path through our funnel is a mutual connection who can tell me how they know you and what your startup actually does. We also run Afore Alpha and our showcase so founders without a network can reach us directly.”

“If you're raising less than $1-1.5M and speed matters, a SAFE is fine. But once you cross $2M, I strongly prefer a priced equity round, because too much SAFE debt becomes toxic baggage that scares the next round's lead and leaves you with no real partner.”

“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.”

“In our survey, nearly 90% of VC deals came through the VC's network, and only 10% arrived cold from management. A warm intro works best when the connector can speak to your team's quality, because VCs weight the jockey above the horse almost every time. So find someone who has actually seen you build, and ask them to make the case.”