Do not let investors treat you like a Tinder swipe, or you will be discarded like the desperadoes on it.
First off, you sending an investor your pitch means in a dating analogy the boy gives the girl his phone number, and the girl does not. I would not and have refused to do so as an entrepreneur raising money on Sand Hill Road.
Sure, you need the money to build your business, but raising money from the wrong investor is the kiss of death to innovation. I have seen many innovations be destroyed by the weak and wrong guidance of venture investors in addition to the subpriming of venture capital as the arbitrage of innovation as a whole.
So, it behooves you to connect with the investor personally (your prospective future board member) and discuss the alignment on upside first before you send a pitch. Not in the least because venture capital investors are known to use ideas from entrepreneurs they do not fund to attempt to repair their subprime portfolio picks of the past. I should know, I have seen this happen on quite a few occasions as a (part-time) venture partner hobnobbing on Sand Hill Road.
To continue the dating analogy, when you know the girl you fancy is still dating around, with your phone number in her pocket, she is not taking you all too serious. Neither is an investor who does not want to meet with you to discuss the foresight related to your upside first.
After a face-to-face meeting where you can gauge whether you can work with the investor and the investor shows signs to want to work with you should you take the next step of asking what they want to see to promote your deal in the Monday morning partner review meetings, where new “deals” are generally voted upon.
What the general partner (do not send anything until you reach general partner level) wants to see is very much dependent on the alignment of foresight between you and the investor, and determines what precisely the lead general partner needs to sell the proposition in the Monday morning meeting to his peers.
Do not let investors treat you like a Tinder swipe, or you will be discarded like the desperadoes on it. So, only after a successful meeting with a general partner, ask and deliver.
