Politicians can make optimistic promises for the future, even if they know deep in their hearts that it will be (almost) impossible to deliver. Four years is a long time, memory is short, and the average member of the audience is unlikely to go through the numbers in detail. A VC (venture capitalist) pitch is totally different. If you make it pas the first VC partner meeting, a gruesome due diligence will start that will bring every fact to the surface. It won’t start in four years, it starts tomorrow.
Management team integrity (“can I trust this guy”) is probably a more important investment criterium than your actual business idea. If you flunk this test, you will have blown your VC pitch for your current venture, but worse, you are black-listed for years, maybe even decades to come as:
- a person to invest in
- a person to do business with
- a person to build a partnership with
- a person to hire
- a person to believe
What to do if there are some not-so-great-details about your startup?
- Avoid the subject as much as possible in a “cold-call” presentation, a deck that you send out to the world and is mostly read without you being in the room (“more data about customer uptake in recent pilots will be provided upon request”)
- Once in the VC partner meeting, have your perfect explanation ready: why it happened (including the explanation “I -beep- up”, and what you will do to turn things around.
It’s your only option, think about your integrity, reputation, consciousness, and your chances of winning the VC pitch.