Stachel: Founder Storytelling Outweighs Pure Tech in Early-Stage Startup Success
Aaron Stachel · Investing in Emerging U.S. Markets and Founder-Led Growth with FirstMile Ventures · Jun 26, 2025 · at 33:40
Aaron Stachel, partner at FirstMile Ventures, reflects on what he learned transitioning from the military and corporate M&A into early-stage venture capital.
0:00 / 0:37exact quote · 37.9s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“The tech is, is, is extremely important, but all of our best investments, you know, I could understand what they were trying to do and the opportunity and, Get excited about it in that sort of first meeting because the people were so good at sort of articulating the opportunity, and that's just a skill set that, you know, that, you know, narrative, storytelling, selling, you know, it helps you sort of get investment. It helps you hire great people. It helps you secure your first customers. You know, there's a skill set there that is extremely important that has nothing to do with the technology.”
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 Aaron Stachel
Stachel: Pre-Seed Founders Are Best Served by Local Partners
“We have a geographic thesis that you can build great companies anywhere. And that at the pre-seed sort of first check stage, you know, you're best served with a local partner.”
Stachel: Injecting large capital into early startups defeats the purpose of seed
“You get these big funds injecting large amounts of capital into these very early companies, which sort of defeats the purpose of seed. Where, you know, our whole idea is like we take a capital efficient team, give them enough money to go run their experiments,…”
Stachel: Colorado produced half a dozen multi-billion dollar startups since 2015
“There's half a dozen sort of privately held multi-billion dollar companies in Colorado that were started around that time, and we're fortunate to be in at least one of them.”
Stachel: Founders must handle sales directly to capture vital market feedback
“A founder, they may not love doing sales, but the feedback that they get by getting in front of a customer in hearing what message resonates with them. Are they going to buy if they don't buy why? You know, what is their reason for not buying and getting that …”
Stachel: Startups should invest in sales when the CEO becomes the bottleneck
“They're doing the whole thing from front to back, and it's when they can no longer handle that volume, it's like, okay, they're starting to find product market fit, and we can start to spend a little bit more on sales.”
Stachel: Hiring salespeople before establishing a playbook is usually rough
“Those people are really good at what they do, but they often don't want to build a playbook. You know, they want to come in and execute a playbook, you know, generate sales, generate commissions, you know, generate growth. That sort of nebulous stage when you'…”