You're Not from Around These Parts...
It’s a scene familiar from countless spaghetti westerns. The camera pans through a bustling saloon in a remote frontier town. The bartender pours stiff drinks while locals talk vibrantly over a jovial piano player in the corner. The doors swing open, a stranger slowly walks in and the music and talking instantly stop.
You’re not from around these parts…
For international founders pitching Silicon Valley VCs, the same scene can play out. But why does this happen and what can you do about it?
Why Does it Still Matter Where You’re From?
In an era of remote work, when startups can simultaneously exist everywhere and nowhere, it might seem antiquated that investors still think about where a company is based when considering investment decisions. No investor will dispute the fact that successful startups can now be founded anywhere in the world. But in the eyes of many Silicon Valley VCs, locations remains a significantly influence on the likelihood of success.
Whether or not you agree with the above statement, it’s important that you understand this perspective when fundraising. Startups located in Silicon Valley have access to all of the talent, experience and best practices that have developed there over decades of startup cycles — an advantage that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. To gain investment from a Silicon Valley VC, you need to convince them that you can win the world despite being based in another country.
One way to increase your odds? Don’t advertise that you’re from “the rest” of the world until they’re already bought into your vision.
Here are 5 ways Silicon Valley VCs can instantly tell that “you’re not from around these parts…”:
1. Footnotes in Your Pitch Deck
Footnotes in a pitch deck is a dead giveaway that you’re from a Commonwealth country (Canada, UK, Australia, etc.). Our shared cultural insecurity manifests itself in the form of endless footnotes, endnotes and other entirely unnecessary forms of external validation.
I promise I did the research!
Founders from these countries — especially ones with academic backgrounds — often believe that if they don’t include a reference for every fact, that they might be accused of misleading investors or be challenged on their sources. That never happens. Most of the time, VCs don’t really care about the actually stats in your pitch deck, since they’re generally used in support of your narrative. When investors do care, they’ll either (a) ask you about it or (b) do their own research afterwards.
The primary goal with your pitch deck is to tell your story and convince investors to dig in further. Extraneous text — including footnotes and endnotes — gets in the way of that.
2. We Will Dominate <Insert Country> and then Enter the US Market
I’m always amazed by how many international founders think that a Silicon Valley VC will in any way, shape or form be interested in a startup whose go-to-market plan focuses on winning another country before entering the US market.
Canadian founders (and some investors, for that matter) seem particularly prone to this delusional train of thought: that it’s a compelling strategy to stay on the “safe” side of the border for the first few years and only enter the “scary, competitive” US market when they’re good and ready.
That’s like saying you’re going to train kids in hockey without any physical contact until they’re 16 years old. Guess who’s not making the NHL?
To be clear, it may be that the right strategy for your business is to focus on your local market first. But while you’re doing that, a bunch of American startups are busy taking the US market. So just understand that if you’re still on the “safe side” of the border, it’s unlikely that you’ll be of interest to Silicon Valley investors.
3. Someone Other than the CEO Reaching Out
To Silicon Valley investors, nothing screams “inexperienced” quite like someone other than the CEO reaching out for fundraising. This typically comes in two forms:
An employee other than the CEO doing the outreach
A fundraising “broker” pitching VCs the opportunity to invest
Today is your lucky day!
In the former case, an inexperienced CEO might try to divide-and-conquer by having other members of the founding team and/or business development team do investor outreach. While this sounds great in practice, to VCs it raises warning flags that the CEO doesn’t have their priorities straight. With the exception of cases where another employee already has a warm connection to the target investor, all outreach should come from the CEO (even if it’s other employees ghost writing the emails 😉).
The use of fundraising brokers (people who pitch investors on behalf of a startup) is common in other parts of the world, such as in the Middle East, but in Silicon Valley it’s an absolute no-no. It sends the signal that the CEO is attempting to outsource what is arguably one of her most important responsibilities. Warm, third-party introductions are great. Cold emails from the CEO can work. But anytime I receive an email from a third party I’ve never met pitching a startup, it immediately goes to my spam folder. That includes investment bankers.
4. Not Translating Your Deck into “American”
When I flip through a pitch deck for the first time, I generally have no idea where the founders are from, what they look like, or what language(s) they speak. As a result, subtle (and not so subtle) aspects of the deck can giveaway the fact that the company isn’t from around here.
Look at me! I’m American 🇺🇸
If you’re planning to raise from Silicon Valley VCs, make sure to go through the following steps:
If English isn’t your first language, have a native English speaker (or two) proofread your deck for spelling/grammatical errors
Convert all currencies into USD (and remove “USD” from your deck - of course it’s in USD!)
Translate Commonwealth English into American English (“cheque” —> “check”, “maths” —> “math”, etc.)
Convert dates from international formats to American formats (“14 Nov” —> “Nov 14”, “14/3” —> “3/14”, etc.)
5. “Frisco” / “San Fran”
There’s nothing that sounds like nails on a chalkboard to residents of the Bay Area quite like hearing San Francisco referred to as “Frisco” or “San Fran”.
A distant part of my memory recalls using these terms in my younger days, but at some point during my time in SF, a light switch flipped. Now, it’s a cringeworthy tell that someone has never spent meaningful time in Silicon Valley.
It may seem silly, but rinsing these terms from your vocabulary is one of the easiest ways for you to blend in as a local. (“San Francisco”, “SF” and “the City” are all acceptable terms.)