Zach Coelius: Startups need a repeatable soundbite to survive VC telephone
Zach Coelius · The Secrets to Working with VC Associates, Scouts, Syndicates....& the True Gate Keepers to Venture · Sep 8, 2022 · at 27:20
Zach Coelius, Managing Partner at Coelius Capital, advises startup founders at SaaStr Europa on crafting concise pitches that survive internal VC discussions.
0:00 / 0:24exact quote · 24.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“So you go to the associate, and you're like, this is what our company does, and you have one sentence, and you describe it. Now imagine that associate is going to go tell the partner that, and they maybe are going to garble it and jumble it on the way, and then imagine that partner has to tell it to another partner, and then they're going to garble it as well. So having a soundbite that easily carries through that game of telephone is incredibly important to getting to the end result you want, which is a firm getting excited about what the business does.”
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 Zach Coelius
Zach Coelius: Hedge fund reneged on a $50M term sheet before closing
“We went out to all the VC firms, hedge funds, the usual late stage check writers, and a hedge fund came in. They're gonna put in fifty million dollars at a four hundred million dollar post... It's supposed to close on a Friday. On Thursday, the hedge fund's li…”
Zach Coelius: Venture fundraising difficulty is returning to 2008 levels
“And 12 months ago, you could have gotten a term sheet a week after you got, you walked in that door. Now it's going to be a much longer, much harder, much more arduous fundraising process, more similar to what we saw two or three years ago. Certainly what we s…”
Zach Coelius: Untrustworthy syndicate leads make founder pitches dead on arrival
“Because if you work with one of those folks, and they have a bad reputation in the industry, they can absolutely sink, sink your fundraise on the spot. Because there are people in the business who are not trustworthy, who run around with shitty deals, who gene…”
Zach Coelius: Founders should choose unaffiliated angel money over venture scouts
“Because if I had to choose between taking scout money Versus taking unaffiliated money. I would always take the unaffiliated money rather than taking the unnecessary signaling risk when you work with one of these firms, but without having them deeply involved.”
Zach Coelius: VC associates cannot close deals, but they can kill them
“One thing that I always like to tell the, my companies that I work with is that the associate can't necessarily get the deal done themselves. They're your advocate, but they can absolutely kill it. So if you don't make friends with your associate or whatever a…”
Zach Coelius: Founders should avoid venture partners lacking deep domain expertise
“Whenever I think about a venture partner, it's all about the expertise. If they have a deep expertise, super powerful, awesome. But if they don't, I wouldn't waste your time. They just, they're, it's going to be very challenging for them to get a deal through …”