Hollie Wegman

Listen along the way and adapt your pitch to your audience. You don't have to say exactly what is on the slide just because you've prepped that material. I've seen great founders and sales leaders stop a presentation altogether and jump into a demo or spend significant time addressing a concern that wasn't covered in the presentation. Listen carefully for cues and be ready to adapt to what you audience needs to hear rather than what you want to cover.

Preparation for a good pitch goes beyond having a good pitch deck. A pitch is a presentation but also a conversation. Investors will ask questions and dialogue will happen. 1. Build a question and answer (Q&A) prep doc 2. Rehearse your presentation with people interrupting and asking questions And, avoid the temptation to overcome every possible objection in the presentation itself. A really simple pitch deck and a well prepared speaker is more effective than an overwhelming presentation that covers every possible angle.

If your startup is 10 people and next year it will be 20 then 50% of the builders of your company will be new next year. Every single hire matters so much when you are a startup. If you're going to spend your time on something spend it on hiring. ✨

Startups need to move fast and the last thing a startup needs is a months long goal setting process. That doesn't mean startups don't need goals, they do. It just means they need to get a strong grasp of the top-line metrics first. Typically this is going to be revenue, product usage and burn rate. There's tons of nuance and it's definitely possible that these three things look good and there are deeper issues. That said, not understanding these three things first can lead to problems. It's easy as a startup to get caught up in nuanced metrics and miss the big picture. When measuring performance start at the top first and work your way down.

A lot of startups have a similar base set of tools including: GSuite, Webflow, Notion, Zoom or GoogleMeet, Slack, Figma, ChatGPT, Miro, Gusto, DocuSign, Brex and Attio. Many of these tools offer free tiers which is great for an early stage startup. Software that is multi-function is great too. Notion is a great example of this since you can use it for note taking, building a database or a kanban. You can even build a web page with Notion! Choosing versatile tools keeps the tech stack light and allows the company to keep everyone in the same system. It can also be more secure for the company since there are fewer tools to monitor and manage.

When a startup first establishes product market fit (PMF) it can suddenly find it has more work than people to do it. Outsourcing is a way to deal with this. The trick is to find the places in the business where it makes sense to outsource versus develop expertise internally or hire. A company that is highly opinionated about the brand might be better off hiring in-house design than an agency. Similarly, a company that has an exceptionally high technical bar won't want to outsource engineering. The same companies might be happy to have accounting or bookkeeping outsourced or maybe getting external help with recruiting. It's all about understanding what's most important for the company and outsourcing selectively.