Dear SaaStr: What Are Some of the Most Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make Pitching VCs?
I’ve invested almost $200m as part of SaaStr Fund / 2024.
A few top mistakes founders make:
#1. Not making cold email truly great. Don’t ask to pick someone’s brain, or coffee. Make the cold email so great, you’d want to invest based on just it alone.
#2. Not researching a VC enough. Is this the type of investments they do? They right stage? Etc.
#3. Hiding anything. VCs don’t expect investments to be perfect. But they are spooked by surprises. Don’t hide the bad stuff. Instead, just share it, and explain how you’re addressing it.
#4. Claiming you have no competition. Everyone does, at least for budget. This makes you look less than savvy about your market.
#5. Not having a great CTO. It’s just too competitive today. No one wants to fund a “great business guy” without an A+ CTO there as well.
#6. Not growing quickly enough. VCs can only invest in folks that can hit $100m+ in revenue or more in 7–10 years. If you’re not even close to that pace, 99% of VCs won’t invest.
