TBC: Why Every Founder Needs Third-Party Feedback

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There's something. I talk a lot about when it comes to preparing for fundraising and it's this idea of the importance of getting third-party feedback. In order to, to start talking about this today. I wanted to reflect on something. I realized when meeting with a founder just a couple of days ago. Uh, they had sent me over a deck that felt like a complete mess.

I didn't know what I was looking at. Um, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way for various reasons. And then when I sat down with him at a coffee shop, he ran me through sort of word vomit of all the things that he was working on and the reasons he was doing it. The. The passion, driving it, the expected outcome, the vision, all these things way too much [00:01:00] information. But it was like I was in the matrix and could kind of see through all of the code.

And so exactly what the story should be. I saw what the most important parts were, what he should focus on and all the rest. That all the rest of the stuff that he should just completely cut out. It was so obvious to me now. I do believe I'm really good at this. I do this when I'm reviewing decks, I do this when I'm helping people adjust their stories.

I do this when people pitch me. So I have a lot of practice and I am quite good at it. But there's an advantage that I have that these founders don't have, which is. I'm a third party. I'm an outside party and there's something magical. There's something special about having a third party perspective that. Removes all the weird emotional attachments you have for the different parts of your narrative. It removes all the over intellectualizing that you do. On different aspects of the business that you think are [00:02:00] important that are maybe not so important.

And it allows someone to just say, you know what? The thing that really resonated with me, it was that you should talk about that.

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[00:03:00] And the thing that I'll share that double underlines, how magical and how important that is, is even though I am very good at taking a very messy story. and adapting it, changing it, cutting it down.

Reorganizing. I'm very good at seeing a deck spending. a handful of minutes on it and knowing how it should be reorganized, knowing how it should be cut down. Even though I'm so good at that for others when it comes to my content. When it comes to decks that I make. When it comes to emails that I write. When it's really important and I need it to hit hard.

I always try to get third-party feedback. That third party feedback, that unbiased opinion around what is important, what resonates. Is magical and someone that has as much experience as I do still needs that. So, if you are not getting feedback, if you are not asking for people's opinions on the stuff that you create, especially when it comes to [00:04:00] fundraising materials you're shooting yourself in the foot. So set up some people, either co-founders family members, partners, friends, et cetera, set some people up that, you know, you can send, your materials to, to get initial feedback before you ever send out important documents or pitch a story. All right. I hope that's helpful for you guys. And I'll see you guys on the next episode of the back channel.

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