Female Founder Office Hours Edition V: Meet the Founders Part II

Learn how past attendees ‘hacked’ the VC pathway to make the most out of Office Hours

Playfair Capital has launched Female Founder Office Hours Edition V in collaboration with Tech Nation and Google for Startups, and with 90 investors signed up, this is our biggest event to date.

In advance of Office Hours, we want founders to be as prepared as possible to maximise the value of the 1:1 meetings. Therefore, we have created a public Notion page collating useful information for this event and for those approaching their fundraising journey overall.

In this new ‘Meet the Founders’ series, we’ll be speaking to eight incredible founders and previous attendees of Office Hours.

In Part I, we focused on how founders can best prepare before meetings with investors. In Part II, we’re focusing on the during and after: how to make the most of the limited time each meeting allows for, and how to follow up in a way that helps you be remembered. The main tips from founders are grouped into three rules of thumb: approaching the event with a clear structure, keep an open mind and build meaningful relationships. Read on for more!

Be honest and straightforward

Noshua Watson, whom we met in Part I, emphasised the effect that honesty and straightforwardness can have in meetings with investors:

“If you are clear about where you are in terms of your vertical, product development and traction, they’ll be open about what their criteria or fund’s strengths are.”

In Meet the Founders Part I, one of the three key advice to preparing in advance was deciding upon the right questions to ask. Asking questions that are clear and aligned with your aim is just as important during a meeting as answering questions with the same level of directness!

Sheena Pirbhai’s top tip is to having a 30 second elevator pitch to kick off the “tell me about what you do” portion of the call with an investor. These 30 seconds should identify what problem you are solving, where you have reached in solving that problem, and ideally also what you are looking for.

This sets the scene and allows for a smoother back-and-forth flow for feedback and questions in the conversation!

Listen and adapt if needed

As much as structure is important in short conversations with investors, sometimes things don’t always go according to plan — and sometimes, you realise your plan needs to change!

Alex Harris is the founder and CEO of Adadot, a Future of Work software that is applying the power of algorithms to fuel resourcing decisions in professional services firms. Alex highlighted the importance of keeping an open mind by telling their own story:

“Come prepared but be prepared to adapt. During our pitch with the first VC I realised that I was doing a lot of talking which did not leave enough time for questions. I therefore changed the pitch until, by the third pitch, the format was ideal.”

This not only illustrates that thinking on your feet during an event like FFOH is essential, but also that listening is just as — if not more — important than speaking during a short meeting with any investor.

Dash Tabor, founder of TUBR, also had a story to tell that demonstrates the importance of listening and adapting. During an investor call, it became apparent that one investor may not be the best fit for supporting the company in the exact way they needed right now, but that didn’t stop Dash from engaging attentively and making the most of the conversation:

“I reached out after the session and he took the time to give me really wonderful, direct pitch deck feedback. You need support from all types, so never discount the value someone can bring or the value you might bring to them as well.”

All the founders we have spoken to illustrated that your approach should change from investor to investor, and that change in approach could be based on research you have done beforehand, or based on new information that comes up during the call! The most important thing is to listen and pay attention, so it’s easier to think on your feet.

Build meaningful relationships

Jules Robertson is the co-founder of Tally Market, which provides companies with a solution for teams requiring hot-desks, meeting rooms, coworking spaces and more on demand. In our conversation, she highlighted something that many founders don’t think about when coming into an event such as FFOH: the value of building relationships not only with the investors, but also with the other founders:

“Network with the other founders, they are all in the same boat. Share your knowledge of investors and or growing a company.”

Now, to address the relationships that take precedence for a founder interested in raising capital: let’s look towards the advice our founders had for building meaningful relationships with investors.

Here is a summary of the actionable pointers the eight founders we spoke to provided for following up after speaking with investors to build a strong impression and relationship:

• Always send a thank-you note on LinkedIn or through email thanking them for their time, with a personalised highlight from your conversation
• Ask for contact details during the meeting if it seems appropriate, phrasing this similarly to “how can I best get in touch with you?” (rather than “what is your email?”)
• Let them know exactly how you are going to apply your feedback, and ask if it’s okay for you to keep in touch with any key updates
• Provide them with any follow-up information mentioned or requested during the call, and have key materials (mock-ups, pitch deck etc.) ready to go if asked
• Follow them on Twitter and LinkedIn and engage with their content where appropriate

These conversations have helped bring clarity around what goes on during and after an event like FFOH. We now know that, for a founder, approaching each everything with a clear structure, keeping an open mind, and building a meaningful relationship are key to making the most out of meetings with investors.

For any founders who have gone through the process of researching and preparing for an investor meeting, these tips can be incredibly helpful to ensure you are maximising the limited time you have with them!

If you either are or know a female founder who would like to join us for Edition V, please register here.

You can follow the Playfair team on LinkedIn, Twitter, Forbes, Vimeo and here on Medium. If you’re a male founder and would still like to pitch us, please submit your application on our open-to-anyone pitch page.

You can find out more about Tech Nation’s Founders’ Network here and Google for Startups’ Immersion: Women Founders programme here.