Unclear founder backgrounds or motivations trigger quick rejections at Gradient Ventures
Shabih "Shabby" Rizvi · 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures · Sep 10, 2018 · at 20:19
Shabih "Shabby" Rizvi, founding partner at Gradient Ventures, explains how he screens early-stage startup pitches.
0:00 / 0:08exact quote · 8.7s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“If they can't explain those two things relatively quickly, if that's not clear in a slide or in an email, then I would say it can be usually be a quick no, but a very polite no.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Shabih "Shabby" Rizvi
Rocket ship startups face continuous unsolicited investment offers
“Once you sort of hit this special rocket ship status, I would say there's always suitors waiting to come and invest in your company, which of course can be somewhat jarring sometimes for the founders, because many of them want nothing but to build their compan…”
Saying no graciously is the most important and difficult part of VC
“I think it's actually the hardest part of the job, because ultimately, as we touched on before, this is a services industry, and when founders come and pitch us, they're sharing their life vision, life dream. They've probably spent countless hours Ridiculous s…”
Top founders deeply study past failures in their startup category
“I found that the best founders that are going after some of these categories, or maybe there have been companies that haven't worked up, have actually made an effort to connect with either people on those teams, or try and understand the story intimately well,…”
Regional startup valuation disparities are set by local investor norms
“Yeah, I think it does vary by region, and I think a lot of that is a byproduct of the micro or the ecosystem on the capital side within those regions. So investors within a region really, I think, are setting the price for what may be the norm there, and so we…”
John Doerr combines humility with incisive boardroom problem-solving
“And it was one of the remarkable things about John is just, he lights up a room when he walks in and he's got this incredibly humble personality, but he can really quickly get to the core of a problem or an issue and very quickly start to ask the questions tha…”