How to Get a VC to See Past Your Resume
As a 3x founder turned Pre-Seed VC, one of the things that I find the most frustrating about certain early-stage investors is their inability to see past what a founder has done before. You know the ones I’m talking about: the VCs who, upon meeting a founding team, immediately focus on all of the things that aren’t on their resume:
They never did sales before
They haven’t managed a team before
They don’t have any business experience
They’ve never released a production product
And so on.
These investors expect every t to be crossed and every i to be dotted from a team perspective, no matter how early the company is. It’s as though they presume that founders aren’t capable of growing and learning.
Here’s the thing: they’re not entirely wrong.
In order for a startup to go from zero to hero, it needs to develop all manner of capabilities. One framework that effectively captures the areas of responsibility necessary to build a successful company is the trio of “hipster, hacker, and hustler”:
The Hipster: who’s going to make it cool? (who’s going to make sure you’re building the the right product for the market?)
Market research
Product management
Marketing
Customer success
The Hacker: who’s going to build the product?
Engineering
The Hustler: who’s going to make money and keep the lights on?
Sales
Operations
Finance
HR
While not all investors use this specific terminology, ultimately these are the core capabilities they’re worried about when evaluating a founding team. The more effectively you can demonstrate that someone on the founding team can credibly own each one of these areas — either now or in the future — the more likely you are to secure an investment.
So how do you convince an investor that your founding team is capable of excelling in areas where you have no obviously relevant experience?
You show them what’s possible.
Who’s Going to Do It?
First and foremost, it’s important to convince potential investors that there is at least one person on the founding team who is genuinely inclined to own each of these areas. If you’re a team of engineers and everyone avoids eye contact when the topic of sales comes up, that’s a problem.
“Although we all come from technical backgrounds, our experience and interests naturally lead to complementary areas of responsibility…”
In many startups, the CEO is the person who came up with the original idea and/or has the most direct experience with the problem you’re solving. That person may-or-may-not be naturally inclined towards sales, fundraising, etc., but the end of the day, they signed up for the job. It’s essential that the CEO comes across every bit as excited about market research and solving customer pain points as they are building the product if you hope to get investors across the line.
What Relevant Experience Do You Have?
Second, try to demonstrate that the owner of each of these areas has some level of applicable experience, even if it’s not direct. That could be in the form of coursework at school, membership in extracurricular activities, leadership positions in non-profits. It can also be implied by virtue of the startup’s early progress:
“While Monique and Ryan were focused on building the initial MVP, I met with 10 - 15 potential customers each week in order to understand more about their pain points, buying processes and willingness to pay for a solution.”
What’s the Plan to Grow?
Finally, show potential investors that you have a plan for supplementing your existing capabilities and filling any obvious holes through hiring, advisors or even mentorship:
Our goal is to grow from $5K MRR today to $50K MRR in 12 months. We know that in order to achieve that, we need to expand our current capabilities. Here’s how we plan to do that:
- Hiring a junior marketer who will work directly with X to focus on testing user acquisition channels
- Meeting weekly with our [advisor / mentor / angel investor with relevant experience] to review what’s working / not working in terms of customer conversion so that we can more effectively iterate on our GTM
- I’m is a member of a peer group of PLG startup CEOs that meet monthly and have an active WhatsApp group where we share strategies and learnings. We’ve already overcome X, Y and Z challenges with their help.
The Startup FAQ
In general, it’s going to be difficult to cover all of these topics during an initial 20-30 minute meeting. Having a “Startup FAQ” that you send potential investors after your first call is a great way to preempt these types of concerns. As part of your fundraising preparation, ask your advisors/angel investors/founder friends to share the top questions/objections they would have about your company. Some will be incorporated into slides in your deck. Others, like those covered above, might make more sense in a written document you share after the meeting.
Some VCs will never be able to see past your resume. But the more effectively you can paint a picture of what’s possible with your team, the better you position yourselves for success.