Author: Robert Hokin

Thirty years as an investor, distilled into under five minutes?! Well not quite, but here is an investor-lens segment I made for for VC26: what I wanted their early-stage founders to know before they pitched. I recorded it for that particular cohort, but it holds for anyone raising pre-seed or seed. No theory, no jargon. […]

Read More… from 3 Mistakes Killing Your Fundraise! 5-minute video

An investor reads your LinkedIn profile. Then they click your co-founder. Or your Head of Sales. And the profile looks like it belongs to a completely different company. That inconsistency is a yellow flag and most founding teams don’t even know it’s there. […]

Read More… from What Investors Notice on Linkedin, But Don’t Tell You

“Use of Funds” is Not a Strategy. Milestones Are. Most pre-seed decks have a slide called “Use of Funds.” Most of them are useless. […]

Read More… from Milestones Over Runway: Framing Your Pre-Seed Ask Slide

Don’t wait to think about your cap table until an investor asks to see it. By then, the mistakes are already baked in. […]

Read More… from The Cap Table Ten Commandments

After reviewing 300+ investment pitch decks, I can tell you this: roughly 60% either skip the competitive analysis entirely or deliver something so weak it would have been better left out.  […]

Read More… from Competitive Intelligence: The Slide Most Founders Get Wrong (And How It Costs Them)