Ask HN: Do founders get honest feedback on their pitch decks?

[johnzakkam]

I've been through a few VC meetings and noticed a pattern: friends and advisors are too polite when reviewing pitch decks. They miss the brutal questions VCs actually ask.

Thinking about building a tool that generates realistic VC questions based on your pitch deck - the skeptical stuff like "Your TAM math doesn't add up" or "Why can't BigCorp clone this?"

Is this actually a problem other founders face? How do you currently get honest pitch feedback before investor meetings?

[GianFabien]

The key to the disparity is that potentially having skin in the game is what makes a potential investor more analytical and critical than any non-investor. Furthermore, every investor has a different set of criteria. I don't believe that any simulation whether available persons or some software can ever be a viable substitute for reality.

I suggest a simple process, one that I have used in the past:

    Make a list of at least 5, pref 10+ potential investors.
    Rank them in order of how much you would like them to invest.
    Start with the lowest one on the list
        Present and gather feedback
        Refine pitch deck to incorporate feedback
    Repeat with next investor, working up the list, repeat the feedback and refinement process.

Ideally by the time you reach your more ideal investors, your pitch deck is much improved and you increase your chances of a favorable outcome. In fact, you could end up with bidding rounds.

[fzwang]

I used to work in VC and second this. Nothing really preps you better than the real deal. Line up some practice rounds with low-stakes investors first.

The issue with using founders/friends is that they're too emotionally invested in you to ask the hard questions in ways the investors will. Founders also think differently than investors. For example, a friend who has built companies before would look at a potential issue and their "operator brain" would automatically come up with ideas on how to address it. As a result, they may downplay the problem. Whereas an investor may laser in on it to test your thinking/confidence.

If you had to practice, making the question submission anonymous (as you can) may help. I know I hate giving harsh feedback to friends directly, even if they ask for it. The sting still lingers around. Not knowing who asked the question could be helpful, but it's possible they would still be able to tell if they know you.

[johnzakkam]

This is incredibly valuable advice, thank you! You're absolutely right that nothing replaces real investor feedback - the skin in the game factor is huge. Your process of working up from least preferred to most preferred investors is brilliant and something I wish I'd known earlier.

I'm thinking the tool might be more useful in the prep phase, before you even reach out to that first investor on your list. The goal wouldn't be to replace your process, but maybe help founders feel more confident before that first real conversation? Especially founders who don't have experienced networks to practice with initially.

Does that positioning make more sense, or do you think even that prep stage isn't worth the effort vs just jumping straight into real conversations?

[muzani]

You ask the VCs for feedback. Being turned down isn't rejection, it's a data point. Do it early. Don't "practice" on people who don't know what they're talking about.

Often friends aren't simply polite, they just don't have the experience. They haven't invested in things that fail... heck, many won't even know a guy who invested in a failure. And when they do, it's a single data point and they'll come to some dumb conclusion like "it was losing money," as if every successful startup wasn't.

[sandra_vu]

Hey, this is a super common problem founders face.

And you will encounter them again again even during your GTM phase.

The team at Wiz (acquired by Google for USD 32 billion) has the perfect strategy to overcome the sugar-coated feedback when pitching. They called it the "false positive"

I covered it here https://www.sandrasletter.com/p/the-design-strategy-behind-t...

[r_thambapillai]

i did a round of feedback with some fellow founders and they were way, way more difficult than the VCs were.

[johnzakkam]

Interesting! That's exactly the kind of insight I was hoping for.

Just checked out your profile, you probably had access to other experienced founders who'd been through similar fundraising experiences. Were they more difficult because of that direct experience, or just naturally more critical in their review style?

I'm thinking most early founders don't have that kind of network though, maybe that's why they're getting much softer feedback.

Did you find the VC questions predictable after getting grilled by fellow founders, or were there still surprises?

[r_thambapillai]

I think the questions were 90-95% predictable/seen before from Founder, which is fair because most VCs want to understand the basics first. We must have met with 100-200 VCs when we actually did the raise, so after the first 50 or so, I stopped getting new questions