Your Pitch Deck Isn't the Problem. You Are. | Heather Lawver

About this episode

Heather Lawver discusses the importance of understanding investors and building relationships over perfecting pitch decks.

"Every investment I've ever gotten was human to human. It baffles me that no one addresses 'know your investor' — because this is a relationship you're hoping will last a very long time." — Heather Lawver Heather Lawver out-marketed Warner Brothers at 16, launched her first company at 13, and has since helped early-stage founders raise over $220 million in venture capital . She didn't do it by perfecting the pitch deck. She did it by understanding the human being on the other side of the table. In this episode, Karl and Heather get into why most founders are still treating the pitch as an information delivery system — and why that's exactly backwards. The goal of your first pitch isn't to close. It's to get the next meeting. Everything else is noise you're paying for in investor attention. Heather also shares the story of a "no" that became a "yes" — not because she improved her deck metrics, but because she sent a thank-you note, took the feedback, and came back coachable. A senior investor later told her: "You make it easy to believe in you." That's the pitch. Everything else is slides. What you'll take away from this conversation: Why founders can't see the trees for the…

People in this episode

Host: Karl Pontau

Guest: Heather Lawver

Topics covered

• pitching
• investor relations
• venture capital
• founder advice
• relationship building

Keywords

• pitch deck
• investor
• venture capital
• founders
• relationship
• feedback
• coachable

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Warner Brothers

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