📢 VCs are just a tease
Hello! Adam Thornhill here. ‘The Podcast Guy’ saving you 10 hours a week.
Ready for the 63rd edition of Podup? Enjoy the best bits from SaaStr Podcast.
Time is the most important currency. As a founder or business leader, juggling responsibilities leaves little room for waste. Jack Altman, CEO and co-founder of Lattice, cautions against falling into the seemingly innocuous but costly trap of non-strategic meetings, particularly with VCs.
Misaligned goals
VCs will say you should get to know us ahead of the next round. There is something to that. Going in completely cold is a little bit hard.
But founders have to remember that you have a lot of jobs: build a product, get customers, manage a team, manage your burn, fundraise. Fundraising is a relatively small bucket compared to all of the things you have to do.
For the VC, meeting with you is their whole bucket. It’s their whole job. There are people at VC firms who’s job it is to specifically reach out to you because that’s what sector coverage looks like.
That does not mean that they want to invest in your company. It means that they want to do their job which is to talk to everybody.
Most companies aren’t ready to fundraise. VCs have different goals to you. The problem with having a casual chat with them when you’re not ready is it distracts you.
Also, it’s not casual to them. Whatever you talk about is going to get logged in a CRM. If you don’t go with your story nailed down then you’re doing yourself a disservice. It’s not on your terms.
Jack Altman
Why it matters
A single meeting might seem harmless, but the aggregate impact on your productivity can be huge. Every meeting demands preparation, follow-up, and mental bandwidth that could be better spent building your business.
As Jack puts it, if you're going to engage with VCs or any other external stakeholders, approach it with the same discipline as you would your product or sales strategy. Identify potential investors for your next round and initiate discussions with at least half of them before you raise.
The lesson? Do it properly and take the right meetings — or don't do it at all.
Next steps
Being selective about meetings extends beyond investor interactions. It applies to engagements with recruiters, partners, SaaS vendors, and service providers. Before you take any meeting, ask yourself:
Why am I taking this meeting? Is it solving a current pain point?
What do I aim to achieve from this conversation?
By doing so, you ensure that every meeting you take contributes to your startup's progress, ensuring a worthwhile investment of your time.
Your thoughts?
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Quotes were pulled at different points of the episode. Sentences were left out to make the narrative more concise. Podup is not associated or affiliated with any podcast.