Comments on: 11 Questions Founders Need to Ask Investors During the First Meeting

By: 창업가들이 투자자와의 첫 만남에서 물어봐야 할 11가지 질문 – THE BRIDGE

창업가들이 투자자와의 첫 만남에서 물어봐야 할 11가지 질문 – THE BRIDGE — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 05:25:04 +0000

[…] 이 기사는 Alex Iskold의 영어 원문을 축약 한 글 […]

By: Tired of Rejection? Try These 7 Tips to Get The Yes - Inc

Tired of Rejection? Try These 7 Tips to Get The Yes - Inc — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 04:16:05 +0000

[…] Iskold, Managing Director of NYC Techstars, recommends in their first meeting that founders directly ask whether an investor is interested in potentially […]

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By: Tired of Rejection? Try These 7 Tips to Get The Yes – Marketmonitor

Tired of Rejection? Try These 7 Tips to Get The Yes – Marketmonitor — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 21:56:21 +0000

[…] Iskold, Managing Director of NYC Techstars, recommends in their first meeting that founders directly ask whether an investor is interested in potentially […]

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By: Shahar Pitaru

Shahar Pitaru — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 18:15:32 +0000

I’m not sure why you had only 15 minutes, but as a general tip, I’d avoid one-on-one meetings with investors that are planned in advance for only 15 minutes. A typical meeting with investors is planned for 45-60 minutes. So if someone is only willing to invest 15 minutes of his time in hearing about your company, it’s a signal that he’s not really interested.

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By: Pia Sharma

Pia Sharma — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 18:03:01 +0000

This is very useful! I have only really had one investor meeting and with only 15 minutes I didn’t plan my time well enough to include these questions! next time

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By: Alex Iskold

Alex Iskold — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:13:28 +0000

You are right, although sometimes you can’t tell. Not all investments are disclosed and there can be some investments that are in progress so you can’t really tell.

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By: Vinish Garg (@vingar)

Vinish Garg (@vingar) — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 03:40:53 +0000

For some of the questions such as *Have you invested in a competitor? OR, What was the last company you backed?, OR even “What is your investment process?”…. is that not typically a part of founders’ homework before they meet an investor?

So for example, I would rather put my question as “I see that you backed ABCD which is one of our competitor (or they operate in the similar space). So what made you invest in them?”.

It just shows that founders have done their homework for the meeting. Correct me if I am wrong.

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By: pitarus

pitarus — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 18:39:25 +0000

Re the question ‘What is your check size?’ (item 3), it’s important to understand that VCs like to invest when it’s time to add fuel to the fire – i.e. when their money will be used for growing the business, rather than for building the initial product and proving the business concept.

Therefore, there’s usually no point in pitching VCs if you don’t have clear evidence that you’ve reached product-market fit (i.e. there’s a real fire). They’d usually also want to see clear metrics on the customers’ acquisition cost and life-time value. This helps them validate that the business can scale economically, and thus it makes sense to add fuel to the fire.

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