Rakhesh's diagnosis after eight months of failed pitches: "I spent too much time solving for the optics rather than trying to build a great story of the company that I wanted to build and why the investor should invest." The fix was making himself — the founder — the centre of the pitch: "at the very, very early stage, you are the reason they're investing."
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Early on, Rakhesh absorbed too much generic fundraising advice — "tell them this story, make sure you got at least 18 months runway or else they won't invest" — and thinks that's why he failed at so many pitches. He didn't build enough of the pitch around the unique context of his team, company, and product. "If instead I had focused the story very sharply on: this is who I am, this is the company, this is the story, this is the product, and this is why the opportunity is so exciting — I think we could have got there quicker."
The underlying logic: "the idea, the market and everything is gonna change so much. The only thing that's constant is you, the founder." So you have to make very clear why you are an investable resource — not just your background, but what drives you, what motivates you, who you are as a person. Investors need to know that when it's really hard — and it will be hard — you're going to be there, working through it, getting results regardless.
You know the pitch is finally working when the dynamic flips: in the meeting with the fund that issued a term sheet 16 days later, the investors started pitching his own company back to him — bus depots, truck chargers, the electrification of transportation — "so yes the opportunity is 100x the market today but it's actually gonna be much more."