Think of Me Like a Smart Middle Schooler

Middle school Leah raising the roof about a science project, along with my middle school brother and cousin (and our very patient grandfather).

Sounding like you know what you’re talking about is cool. Actually understanding what you’re talking about is cooler.

As early-stage investors, we are tasked with generating opinions about inherently uncertain markets and ideas; this process requires informed (and often outsized) confidence. To develop this confidence, we have to see a lot of companies, in hopes of knowing a little about a lot of things. Going deep on every idea would result in stagnation.

These realities lead many investors to quickly call out what’s wrong with a founder’s idea before listening to what they’re being sold — a skepticism that’s counterproductive, yet often viewed by peer investors as a sign of intelligence, as I explored in a previous piece about what doesn’t make sense in VC.

What’s the alternative?

One solution I’ve adopted as an investor comes from advice I received as a journalist:

To ensure you fully understand what your interview subject is telling you, ask them to explain their argument, business, or idea as if they were speaking to a smart middle schooler.

As a journalist, I couldn’t afford to misunderstand the experts I was interviewing then quoting. As an investor, I believe the same standard should apply. The “explain to me like I’m a middle schooler”…