Joanne Chen’s Post

Investors are lying to you. I've worked with 200+ investors. And most of the time, when they pass on a startup, they already know why. But they don’t tell you directly. Here are some real examples: 1. “You’re too early for us.” An AI pre-seed founder heard this after pitching her idea. And she thought she contacted the wrong investor. She didn’t. What the investor really meant was: “We’re not convinced you’ve validated this enough yet.” 2. “Keep us updated.” A proptech seed founder heard this and got excited. He thought he had a potential investor waiting in the wings. He didn't. “Keep us updated” often means: “If you suddenly start growing very fast, close major customers, or make enough progress to change the risk profile, come back.” The investor left an open door for himself, he did not commit to this round. 3. “I need to run this through my partners.” A biotech seed founder heard this after an investor meeting. I told him not to treat it as progress. But he still spent the next month sending: “Just wanted to see if you had a chance to speak with the team.” He never got the investment. Sometimes the partners really do need to discuss it. But sometimes the person in front of you doesn't want to be the bad guy. So turns out investors aren't lying to you. They're speaking in investor language. And if you don’t start speaking it too, you’ll spend weeks chasing investors who have already moved on. The skill is learning to tell the difference between: “We need more information.” and “We don't have enough conviction to invest.”

Founders rarely hear what an investor thought after the meeting ends. On Day Two, Nasir C. Qadree does both halves of that in public. First he sits on the investor side of Capital, Collaboration & AI Innovation, co-curated by Rob Richardson, Founder and CEO of Disruption Now, and Nicole Dunbar, featuring three founder spotlights. Later the same day he takes the stage for his own keynote, Backing the Builders - Investing in the AI Economy. So you see how he decides before you hear how he explains it. He is Founder and Managing Partner of Zeal Capital Partners, which writes early-stage checks into companies closing gaps in wealth, health and skills. Financial technology, healthcare, and the future of learning and work. He calls the practice Inclusive Investing. If you build in one of those three, you are building inside Zeal's thesis. A General Pass covers both sessions and all four days, September 8 to 11. He takes those meetings all year. Ask him what he wants to hear in the first five minutes. JumpStart Ventures Payal Thakur (MBA) Brian Brackeen Bearcat Ventures Marvin Abrinica ryan hays Josette Riep, PhD

Capital did not disappear in the last two years. It got selective. AI startups are raising nine figure rounds at valuations that make even seasoned investors blink. Meanwhile, strong SaaS and enterprise founders with real traction are sitting in extended diligence with no term sheet in sight. Same market. Two completely different fundraising climates. Foundersuite CEO Nathan Beckord has now lived through four of these cycles: dotcom, 2008, the pandemic surge, and this one. His read on 2026: ✅ The slowdown was never market wide. It was concentrated in one category. ✅ Cycles always correct. Boom, overextension, correction, rebuild, repeat. ✅ Early signs of a thaw are already showing: IPO activity picking up, family offices entering private markets, capital recycling from AI exits. His advice for founders raising in a narrow market comes down to one image: a surfer paddling out before the wave arrives, not after. Control burn. Extend runway. Keep building. Stay visible to investors. The founders who catch the next wave are the ones already in the water when it builds. Full breakdown, including why geography matters less than it used to and the one skill Nathan says every early stage CEO has to learn (saying no): https://lnkd.in/gyMnwgbM

𝐀 𝐘𝐂 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤..... 212 investors contacted. 250 meetings. 171 rejections. 24 ghosted. 17 said yes. 98 days to close $1.5M. And here's the part nobody talks about: Demo Day generated 100 investor leads. Not a single one invested. Attention is cheap. Commitment is not. A few things that stood out from their breakdown: → The first 50 meetings weren't about raising money. They were about learning how to pitch. Most investors didn't understand the product at all. → There was a "valley of death" where nothing moved for weeks while they were stuck at $300K. What they couldn't see was that a lead investor was doing deep diligence behind the scenes. → Every rejection carried a nugget. A reframe. A sharper answer to an objection. The pitch that eventually worked looked nothing like the one they started with. → Around meeting 100, the difference in confidence was obvious. That kind of confidence doesn't come from preparation. It comes from repetition. → Once momentum started, it moved fast. They went from struggling to close small checks to closing investors in a single day. The pattern most rounds follow: slow, uncertain, then suddenly fast. Most founders give up just before the curve breaks upward. 👉 Recently, we shared 50+ Y-Combinator startup pitch decks which raised over $450M+ in our Venture Curator newsletter. Check out here: https://lnkd.in/dm8DF_gY Shared by: Matija Sosic (Via X) 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆, 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗨𝗣𝗦 & 𝗔𝗜 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗖𝗘𝗦 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 (𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀.) 👇 1️⃣ How is your seed valuation actually decided? (It has almost nothing to do with your company). 2️⃣ What should founders never automate with AI? The signal vs. repetition framework.  3️⃣ What VCs are really asking AI founders during due diligence? (And what you're expected to show). 4️⃣ 40+ investor contact databases and 50+ fundraising templates every founder needs 5️⃣ How to Build Your Personal and Business AI Agents With Claude (No Coding Required). I’ve shared all the links in the comments. . #startups #venturecapital #vc #investment #investors #founders

Founders can be obsessed with the biggest check in the room. This is the wrong focus. Q1 of this year, AI startups pulled in something like 80% of ALL global VC funding. Four companies hovered up close to $188 billion between them. These are wild numbers. And every founder in my DMs right now wants to know how to get in front of "the big funds." But here's the bit nobody says out loud, the investor with the biggest check is almost never the right investor for where you actually are. I've sat on both sides of this table now and raised rounds at Cake, now I help founders raise theirs at TORUS and Rally Roadmap. The rule holds every single time: Pre-seed to seed → you need someone who picks up the phone. Not someone three portfolio companies deep in AI infra who can't tell your deck apart from the other 40 in their pipeline. Series A → you need someone who's actually operated through the stage you're in right now. Not someone whose only reference point is a $100M mega-round. Growth to exit → now the big check and the big network start to earn their keep, because distribution and follow-on firepower matter more than hand-holding. Match the investor to the stage, not the stage to the headline. Right investor beats big investor. Every time. 🔥

How to get the most out of your investors - a really fun topic for any VC Platform professional to talk about, and one made extra fun when you do it alongside peers you truly admire and enjoy. Yesterday, Jim Conti, Shannon (Stobbe) Shroyer and I got to share our thoughts on this topic at Twin Cities Startup Week (TCSW)'s Investor Day. We talked about a whole bunch of things including: *How we all got into the Platform world and what our job typically entails (is there ever really a typical day in Platform though?) *That it's ok for founders to do their own diligence on a firm and even to ask an investor about how they reacted when one of their companies didn't go well *How we never want to get in the way of one of our companies but encourage our founders to use as a resource - whether that's to get them a better answer than Google (or these days claude) or to be a sounding board for new ideas Such a fun way to spend the morning and hopefully one that was useful to the audience! It was part of a wonderful day on the campus that included seeing some great student startup pitches and hearing from brilliant minds like Matt Lewis Charlie Rybak Mary Grove Lucas Giambelluca Patrick Meenan Robert Weber Ryan Broshar and more on the future of the MN economy and the role VC can play in it.

What separates pre-seed founders who reach Series A from those who stall? Usually, it's access to the right table at the right time. Plug In Ventures is deepening its commitment to Atlanta—starting with the founders building the city’s next generation of high-growth companies. On September 17, we’re bringing our Founder & Investor Roundtable Series to Atlanta in partnership with Wells Fargo. The gathering will bring together pre-seed founders, investors, banking leaders, experienced operators, and ecosystem partners for an afternoon focused on building companies that are ready for capital, customers, and sustainable growth. This is not a panel or pitch competition.  Founders will participate in small, facilitated roundtable conversations where they can ask direct questions, pressure-test their strategies, and receive practical guidance from leaders who understand what it takes to build and fund an early-stage company. Conversations will explore: • Identifying the right capital pathway at the pre-seed stage • Building the financial foundation needed to become fundable and bankable • Turning early traction into a compelling growth and fundraising story • Accessing customers, corporate relationships, and strategic partnerships • Using AI to strengthen operations and accelerate growth • Avoiding common legal, financial, and fundraising mistakes The roundtable will also help Plug In Ventures connect with founders for an emerging Atlanta pre-seed cohort designed to provide continued technical assistance, investor access, peer connections, and hands-on support beyond a single event. Our goal is to build a strong, connected pipeline of Atlanta founders—and ensure they have the relationships, knowledge, and resources needed to reach their next milestone. Atlanta, Georgia September 17, 2026 2:00–5:00 p.m. EDT Powered by Wells Fargo.

Six years ago, we started with a simple belief - great founders deserve easy capital and great investors deserve better access. Today, we mark our 6th anniversary with something that reflects how far we have come and where we are headed. Bolstart is evolving. Meet Robynhood.vc Same mission. Sharper tools. A bigger vision. Robynhood is our next chapter, an AI-powered investor matchmaking platform that helps founders find the investors who will actually back them. Not just a list. A match by sector, stage, geography, and shared backgrounds from a verified network of 62,000+ investors. Because the fundraising problem was never about access to a list. It was always about finding the right person, at the right time, with the right conviction. Over six years, we've backed 21 startups, deployed $2.5 M in capital, built a community of 600+ angel investors. We've learned that the most powerful thing we can do for the ecosystem isn't just to write cheques, it's to build the infrastructure that connects conviction with capital, faster and smarter. Robynhood.vc by Bolstart is that infrastructure. To every founder who trusted us with their most important raise, every investor who backed founders before they were obvious, thank you. You are the reason this chapter exists. Here's to 6 years of investing and to everything we build next - robynhood.vc

Founders don't fail to raise because they lack ambition. They fail because they're pitching the wrong way. Today (Sep 17), I'm joining the free Virtual 1:1 VC Pitch Conf and I want the right founders in the room with me. Here's what the system looks like: → 550+ VCs, angels, family offices and LPs in one virtual room → 1,100+ startup decks from the event, accessible to investors → 20 startups matched to each investor by sector, stage and geography → 7-minute 1:1 pitches — no panels, no cold intros, no gatekeepers → 2 hours of co-investor speed networking after the pitches And 4 hours of VC insights from a16z, 500 Global, Plug & Play, Antler, Entrepreneurs First, Alumni Ventures, SOSV and more: I build systems that turn brands into fundable, scalable business. This conference is the distribution layer for that system: matched founders meeting matched capital, on a schedule, with a decision at the end of every conversation. If you're a founder: attend today, see your top-20 VC matches on the site, and if you decide to pitch 1:1, my code VCPITCHTAHIRAYUB10 gets you 10% off. Register here: vcconf.com/?6685 One question for founders: What's the ONE thing that decides whether a founder gets a second meeting — the deck, the traction, or the operator behind it? Drop your answer below. I read every comment.

The best ideas I came across this week challenged some common assumptions about startups, investing and success. 1️⃣ The truth about investor referrals. | Trace Cohen The best investor referrals aren’t something founders ask for after a pass. They happen naturally when an investor has enough conviction in the company to want others to see it, even when the deal doesn’t fit their own fund. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eHJScTCh 2️⃣ The 4-year vesting problem. | Kristina S. Subbotina, Esq. Startup timelines have stretched, but founder vesting hasn’t. When a co-founder leaves around year four nearly fully vested, the result can be significant dead equity, and a cap table that creates problems for the founders who stay and for future investors. 👉 https://lnkd.in/e2hmxRby 3️⃣ Stop setting goals, start becoming them. | Nico Rosberg Goals can motivate you temporarily, but identity changes how you operate every day. Instead of defining success by a finish line you either hit or miss, focus on becoming the person who naturally lives the behaviors that lead there. 👉 https://lnkd.in/e8w8k87U 4️⃣ 90% of new ideas will fail soon after launch. | David Y. Great vision, strong execution, users and funding still don’t guarantee product-market fit. The real danger is deadly optimism: seeing every positive signal as proof you’re on the right path instead of testing assumptions, listening carefully and adapting fast. 👉 https://lnkd.in/ebT8kvgH 5️⃣ 6 lessons from inside Sequoia. | Harry Stebbings A fascinating look inside Sequoia: relentless deal sourcing, relationships built over years, conviction over financial engineering, more deliberate decision-making and unconventional ways to evaluate founders. Six lessons on what actually drives one of venture capital’s most successful firms. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eW67eh2F 💬 Which one stood out to you? What’s one great post I missed this week?