Author: Paul Singh

• What are common mistakes that founders make when they pitch an investor?
• Do you ever get used to saying “no” to founders?
• Why is your beard so epic?
• What questions should I ask investors to build trust, uncover hidden problems, overcome objections and speak to desires?
• What’s Dave like in real life?
• What is the most effective way to follow up with investors that are slow to decide (or have previously said no)?

• Indian founders don’t have clear role models… at least not within the Indian startup ecosystem. That being said, that will likely change over the next 3-5 years as the founders of companies such as SnapDeal, FlipKart, Naukri, MakeMyTrip, Inmobi, Directi (along with many other fantastic companies) continue to grow.
• The communication style of Indian founders is quite different than other places. It seems like a cultural thing: founders (and perhaps most people) seem to think that they are establishing authority by giving longer answers to specific questions. I’d like to see founders improve their communication styles: be direct, be crisp and be passionate. By doing that, they’ll be able to better communicate with cofounders, potential team hires, press and investors (both foreign and domestic). More tips here:Your Solution Is Not My Problem. (On a side note: There’s huge opportunity for a speaking coach to make a metric shit-ton of money in India.)
• Pound for pound, the Indian technical founder has far more raw horsepower than I’ve seen anywhere else. I suppose that’s why nearly every pitch I’ve heard from Indian founders has been heavy on the technology powering the solution. Unless you’re building a startup that *is* technology, your pitchshouldn’t contain any mention of the technology you’re using.
• I’d like to see more Indian founders try to solve problems for the Indian market. Until now, it seems that most focused on building online products that could be sold to the West and that made sense: the Western internet user was way more likely to buy online. Internet penetration is rapidly increasing in India, that’s no surprise — Indian founders should start to focus on the Indian internet user because more of them are coming online daily, their comfort with purchasing on the web is growing and, frankly, because outsiders are less likely to understand the cultural nuances of the Indian customer.
• No surprise: most of the Indian investor community isn’t founder friendly. They can be very slow, deal terms can be onerous and the overall experience for founders is rough. For investors, there’s a lot of opportunity in this — just be more founder friendly and I suspect your dealflow will rise considerably.
• Investors seem to inherently distrust founders. Investors should only take referrals from trusted sources and initial check sizes should be smaller while the relationship is still new. Founders should take it upon themselves to present themselves in the most truthful way. Regardless, I think you’ll begin to see investors prosecuting founders publicly in an effort to make a statement to the market.
• As a first generation Indian-American, I find it interesting that many founders and investors born and raised in India seem to be more pessimistic about India’s prospects than I (and, by extension, other outsiders) am. As Sasha Mirchandani has said in the past, my hope for India is that it changes from a pessimistic society to an optimistic one.

I’m certainly not the first one to say this but, even with all the challenges that exist, India has no where to go but up — the question isn’t *if* but *when* it will happen. We’ve made a handful of investments in Indian startups over the past year and we’re planning to aggressively ramp that up immediately. Watch out India, the 500 train’s coming!

This rule came from a three-day poker camp I went to seven years ago. One of the pros got up to the front of the room and asked the question, “What’s the goal of poker?” Of course, someone put their hand up and fell into the trap. “To make money” they said.  Wrong. “The goal is to make good decisions, not to make money,” countered the instructor. If you make good decisions — better, more consistent decisions than the other guy — then you will end up making money.

In poker, if you approach the game to make money as opposed to making good decisions, you can fall prey to things like going on ’tilt’ after a bad beat, feeling ‘lucky’, continuing to fire bluffs at an opponent who’s clearly shown you he’s willing to call you all the way down, or playing in games that you can’t afford. When you hunger only to make money *now*, then you end up making bad, mostly emotional, decisions.

It seems to me that many people tend to “armchair quarterback” other investors’ thesis. (After all, if it seems crazy, it must be crazy – right?) Unfortunately, there’s no crystal ball when you’re dealing with early stage internet startups.

Here’s the analogy I like to use: if you’re going to walk into a casino, you already know that the odds are in favor of the house. Always. So, you’ve got two choices on how to approach the games:

1. The first option is to wander around the gaming floor while you try to “feel” a good table. In the process, you’ll likely spread a few bets around while you try to get a sense for the momentum on the table. If you win, you’ll pat yourself on the back. If you lose, you’ll likely move on to the next table. If you’re investing for fun, altruism or any other non-monetary reason, this approach is probably OK as long as you recognize what you’re doing.
2. The second option is to have a plan before you enter the gaming floor. Pick a thesis (eg, a game and a plan: “I’m playing blackjack, hitting on any 17 or lower.”) and play the hell out of that thesis until you’ve either uncovered new information that suggests you should change the thesis or you win.

To put it more bluntly, would you rather try your luck at the roulette wheel or do you try counting cards on the blackjack table? If you’re an angel, you’ve got the option to choose either path. If you’re a VC (eg, investing other people’s money), I believe the second option is the only option.

If you’re an investor, your job is to write checks *and* add value. Here’s the paradox of investing in early stage companies today: we all know that the venture capital industry is a hits-driven business but thebest companies/founders don’t need your money. Thanks to platforms like AngelList, early stage money is becoming a commodity — investors need to be differentiated. Keep your deal terms simple, move fast and answer the phone when they call.

If you’re on the government or policy side of things, your job is to make it easy for investors and founders to work in your region. You could help investors via financial incentives (see NRF, Startups Chile, etc) but the fact is that early stage money follows founders now. It’s becoming easier for founders to raise their first round of money without having to move to Silicon Valley full time but, especially as the company grows and thinks about later stage money, founders are likely to follow the money (read: they’llmove closer to the VCs). If you want to kickstart the entrepreneurial vibe in your region, start by making it appealing for founders to locate their companies there. If you do it right, they’ll want to stay where they are for the long term.

Again, it’s our collective responsibility to be a bridge to venture capital and functional expertise — as private citizens and as a country. The United States is where the internet started and, when you think about economic development and job creation, it’s where some of the most successful internet companies have flourished over the past few decades. However, the internet landscape is changing: more people are online than ever before, technology costs have dropped to an all-time low, and early stage capital is becoming a commodity.

As the internet becomes more accessible across the planet, we’re seeing that early stage internet startups can operate from anywhere: as the web gets bigger, the world gets smaller. From an immigration standpoint, it’s incredibly important that we encourage the best startup founders around the world to start their businesses here in the US — after all, they’re less likely to move here once they’ve planted their roots elsewhere and business starts booming.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

–Maya Angelou

My time here has been so rewarding and I’d do it again if given the opportunity. But, I regret that I haven’t figured out a way to stay on top of things in both my personal and professional life: I’ve lost touch with old friends, thrown wrenches into my personal relationships and left more than a few current/future founders hanging while they wait for me to catch up on email and phone calls.

So, consider this my public apology to anyone that’s felt unimportant because of my actions (or lack thereof) — that’s not the case at all. I’m doing the best I can and, one day, I hope to make it up to all of you for being so incredibly patient with me.

I’ve met a lot of people over the past few months and I’m starting to realize something: you can’t teach intellectual curiosity. You might be able to inspire or briefly encourage it, but you can’t force people to be genuinely interested in learning new things.

Target a niche, launch the MVP early, iterate often and find product market fit as fast as humanly possible. After that, focus on distribution — traction is defensible and, more importantly, you need to be within the top three products within your niche.

The winners take most of the market, everyone else gets the scraps.