Video by sammrchant

Seven years of venture capital advice in 60 seconds. Never pitch your ideal investors first. Your pitch gets better over time, so you want to go out to your ideal investors once you've refined it and you've practiced with other non-essential investors. Your data room should be prepared before you go out to raise. Nothing says, I don't have momentum in my round more

than people who haven't got a data room ready to go when an investor asks. Your pitch deck serves one purpose, and that's to get you on a call with an investor. You should give enough information that they have questions, but don't overwhelm them with information. On a first pitch investors are trying to answer four

key questions. Why you? Why now? Why this solution? And why this problem? Focus on answering those four points. If an investor is trying to charge you fees or recommends that you bring certain people onto the board you can always walk away. No money is often better than bad money. And the last point

you don't need to raise VC money to build a good business. There are so many examples of people who bootstrapped and built stuff on their own without venture capitalists. Go get it.