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Siroker: Tough questions from junior VCs signal intent to pitch partners

Dan Siroker · Dan Siroker: Second-Time Founders Are More Investable & Why Not To Hire People Out of College |E1153 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 15, 2024 · at 47:49

Dan Siroker explains how founders can interpret the intent of junior VCs during fundraising pitch meetings.

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“Oftentimes, especially I found this too, when you very quickly can tell the person you're meeting with, they just, they have an inclination. They want to invest almost from the beginning and all of their questions you'll find out. I actually, I think are often the questions they think their partners or the senior partner at their firm will ask them. So they just want free, give me some ammo so that when my senior partner comes back to me and say, wait, hold on, how is this differentiated in AI? And isn't this commoditized? And how are you going to pick something in the app layer? You have all of the things ready to go. You're sort of like, you've done their job. You've kind of done their homework for them. And that's, when you, and you're in a good mood, when you're in a investor meeting, and you can kind of get this vibe that they're asking the questions, not because of their interest, but because they're about to go sell their partners, that's a good sign.”

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