Call Me, Maybe?
Zooming straight to the info — what do investors want to hear on intro calls?
One of the post-pandemic phenomena I have observed is the transition to a standardised 30m intro call. This week, I have had two very distinct examples of how to use that time.
In one case, a second-time founder sped through all the salient information at a pace that I could just about keep up with. I was furiously typing notes as he went from his date of birth to exit strategy in under 15 minutes. And then breathed.
In the other conversation, the founder only offered information that was specifically requested, and was otherwise fairly content for us to smile at each other and whittle away the minutes. Serene, if a little uninformative.
Both were lovely chats, and both will be progressed to a longer conversation to learn more, BUT it got me thinkin’… MAYBE it’s wrong to assume that founders know what is expected of them in introductory calls. So, no black-box VC going on here, this is what the SuperSeed intro call looks like:
1. Pleasantries — very important, must maintain high degree of Englishness at all times. What IS the weather like today!1?
2. Introduction to SuperSeed — what do we invest in, what are our preferred spaces, why should we be top of your list?
3. Cede centre stage to founders — who are they, what are their roles within the business, and what are their origin stories (not that they’re villains, but I want to know what informed the decision to leave the world of cushy in favour of risky and gritty)? How much domain expertise do they have, and how well positioned are they to solve the problem they’ve identified? What are the most unfairest of their unfair advantages?
4. Where did the business idea come from — what experience triggered the “RIGHT, that’s it, I’m gonna fix this”?
5. Who experiences this problem, and how painful do they find it? How much would they be willing to pay to solve it? How does the business define its ICP, and has it started to think about articulating a customer ROI?
6. Has there been any market pull? Customers? POCs? LOIs!?
7. What’s the Go-To-Market strategy moving forward? We know a problem, an ICP, a price point that we reckon is roughly in the region of ‘about right’: how do those things coalesce to make some repeatable, scalable babies?
8. “AHA — I’m a VC and I have a contrarian opinion based on information I’m fairly sure is accurate. How do you respond to this?” (This is not necessary or written in to any call format docs. I’m just being realistic). Good opportunity to demonstrate Challenger Sale abilities, and oodles of mental dexterity.
9. What can you tell me about the piece of the competitive landscape you’re choosing to focus on for the purposes of conveying your differentiation? (Statistically improbable that ALL startups occupy the top-right-hand corner, but we’ll go with it).
10. THE RAISE. How much are you looking to raise? How much do you actually need? At what point last week did you run out of money?
All of this with the enormous caveat that we’ll probably interrupt you (lots), disagree with you on things about which you are much better informed, and jump between topics with the agility and focus of an electrocuted frog.
We’ll then let you know what our process looks like, what the next step is, and when you can expect to hear from us with additional questions [/veiled disagreements]. In our case, this should always be a Monday afternoon.
If we’ve had a particularly good day, we might even ask if you have any questions.
Fin.
