Yesterday was a good day. We embarked on our pre-seed fundraising journey a couple of weeks ago and it's been a rollercoaster of emotions, not dissimilar to how this entire process since founding a business has felt like for me.
Some days are good, and on those days I am full of energy and motivation to keep building my dream. Other days are not so great, and on those I am consumed by fear, self doubt and the unshakeable feeling that I am making a big mistake.
I woke up today with a positive mental attitude (#PMA!!!). It's Saturday, the sun in shining and, as I said, yesterday was a good day. I had a call scheduled for 9am with a successful entrepreneur and investor whom I had reached out to for mentorship and advice. He operates in a completely different market and geography to mine, so I thought it was a good opportunity to have an unfiltered conversation with no ulterior motive.
I rang him, he was driving and had asked me to send questions I wanted to discuss in advance, which I had done. I asked if it would be helpful for me to start by introducing myself and my background, which he refused and asked me to jump straight into my questions. I could tell he wasn't going to be very friendly, but I can live with that. Before I got a chance to speak, he kicked off with the feedback that he had looked through my LinkedIn profile and he didn't quite understand what my business was doing or my value prop. I must address that point immediately, he stressed, as venture capitalists have limited time and need to get it in 1-2 sentences max. Valid point, solid advice. Note to self: I'm going to revisit my blurb.
The conversation only went downhill from there. I explained my business model and he didn't like it, to say the least. He went on to say several times that what I was speaking about was not interesting to him and that he just didn't see it. He asked me to stop talking whenever I tried to address the concerns he had about our model, and kept apologising for being rude all whilst continuing to be extremely rude. I have developed thick skin since I started down this path last year, but there are always going to be people who test that to the limit, who push what I am able to take before it starts to really hurt. He did that and then some.
I kept my usual friendly and appreciative tone of voice, thanked him for his time and hung up. The excruciating chat led to a single valuable takeaway for me - I'm going to revisit my blurb now. Valuable, sure, but the price was high. I burst into tears and my mind started spiraling with the usual existential questions. What if the market isn't there? Is he right? Maybe my idea is just not good enough? What if I made a colossal mistake putting everything on the line for this business? Am I going to be able to raise the funds I need to execute? And that dreaded feeling clouds over me- I'M A FAILURE.
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