I pitched 250 VCs. And, eventually, they all said no. This is a failure.
In my interview with @danmurrayserter on the @secretleaders1 Podcast, we talk about failure.
link.chtbl.com/eUsNZeF2
Sure, there were many factors outside our control at Pluto. But also many within our control. Ultimately, I still failed to raise our Seed round.
I think we could all talk more openly and honestly about failure.
Specifically, what I've learnt from my failed fundraise and eventual sale of my business. But most importantly, what I'd do differently.
Aside from raising a newborn, it's the hardest thing I've done in my life.
I managed to get responses from half of them, had a call with ~50 and 2nd/3rd stage meetings with 10 of them. I'm still proud of getting that far. But it just wasn't meant to be.
The most important thing I'd do differently looking back, is to have more of my pitch meetings as conversations.
Even calling them pitch meetings feels like the wrong way to describe them. Unless asked to pitch, I'd have a conversation, and aim to build a relationship.
Some VCs wanted a 'pitch', and sometimes this got me to the next stage. But more often than not, the informal conversations, the unscripted ones, were the most successful.
Your personality usually gets hidden behind a pitch.
I was always worried I wouldn't cover everything. I thought that pitching was the hard part. But I think it's easier to fall back on your slides.
I'd had these informal pitch conversations with our angels and syndicates, who invested £1.3m in our business.
But for VCs, I thought things would need to be watertight and more formal, more structured.
I hope this podcast has some useful lessons for founders embarking on a VC raise.
Kudos to @danmurrayserter and the team for tapping into such a vulnerable founder topic — failure.