// Tagged with 0—100k ARR
One thing that’s always been important to us at AIBoomi is listening.
Every year, we try to take feedback from founders, investors, and everyone who interacts with the community, and ask ourselves a simple question:
How can we push ourselves to do a little more next time?
After VCBridge last year, one piece of feedback came up repeatedly from both founders and VCs.
Founders felt they weren’t fully prepared to make the most of the short time that they had with investors.
A VCBridge meeting is short (that was also one of the take-aways so this year from 15 minutes we increased the time to 25 minutes). And when you’re a founder who’s deeply immersed in your product and market, it’s not always obvious what you should focus on in that limited window.
Should you talk about traction?
The product?
The market?
Your background?
And just as importantly what are the things you should avoid doing?
So this year, we decided to do something simple: run a prep call for founders before VCBridge.
The idea was to help them think through how to approach these meetings the do’s, the don’ts, and the things that can help them make a stronger impression in a very short amount of time. How can they make the best possible first impression?
And like so many things in this community, the moment we asked for help, people stepped up.
We reached out to Div, founder of WizCommerce. Div used to work as a VC and has also raised multiple rounds as a founder. Few people understand both sides of the table as well as he does.
His response was immediate.
“Of course. Happy to help.”
We also reached out to Yash, who has been a long-time volunteer with SaaSBoomi through our accelerator programme SGX and also part of the AIBoomi Annual ‘26 VCBridge Team, and asked if he’d help moderate the session.
Again an immediate yes.
That’s honestly one of the things I love most about this community.
You only need to ask.
On a Friday evening, around 40 founders joined the call. It turned into a very candid and practical conversation about how investors think, what actually matters in early-stage meetings, and how founders can make the most of those 25 minutes.
Here were some of the biggest takeaways.
The Goal of a 25-Minute VC Meeting
The goal is not to get a decision.
It’s not to get a term sheet.
It’s not even necessary to get an intro.
The goal is simply this:
Get the next meeting.
Once founders internalise that, the pressure drops a little and the conversation becomes much more natural.
Div made a point that really stuck with me: these meetings work best when they feel like a conversation between equals, not a pitch.
When founders treat it like a dialogue, two things happen:
- The conversation flows better.
- You actually get signals on whether the investor is interested.
If you turn it into a monologue, you lose both.
How to Think About the 25 Minutes
In reality, once introductions and pleasantries are done, founders probably have about 15 minutes of actual content time.
A simple way to think about it:
First few minutes introductions
Introduce yourself and quickly understand the investor.
What stage do they focus on?
What sectors excite them?
Have they looked at your space before?
It helps calibrate the conversation.
Next 10 minutes market and customer
At seed and pre-seed, investors are primarily evaluating two things:
- Is this a big, exciting problem?
- Is this the founder who can build something meaningful?
Everything else supports those two questions.
Div shared that when he talks about WizCommerce, he actually spends time first explaining the customer wholesalers and distributors, how they operate, the size of the businesses, the dynamics of that ecosystem.
Leave time for questions
One of the biggest mistakes founders make is talking nonstop.
Instead, pause every couple of minutes.
Ask if something resonates.
Let the conversation breathe.
You learn a lot from the questions investors ask, sometimes even more than from the answers you give.
What Really Matters at the Early Stage
At the early stage, investors are not really making spreadsheet decisions.
They’re making belief decisions.
Two questions sit at the center:
- Is this a meaningful market?
- Does this founder have the potential to build something large?
Traction, revenue, design partners all of that helps.
But it doesn’t compensate if those two things aren’t clear.
In fact, going too deep on numbers can sometimes work against founders. You won’t have enough data to make a compelling case yet, and suddenly the conversation becomes a spreadsheet exercise.
If you have meaningful traction mention it briefly.
Then move on.
The Founder “Spike”
One concept that came up in the conversation was what Div called a founder spike.
Something about you that makes an investor pause and think:
“Okay, this person might actually build something big.”
It could be:
- Deep domain expertise
- Industry experience
- A strong technical background
- Prior startup attempts
- Or even something unexpected
The key is not to overthink it.
Just ask yourself:
What about my background would make a stranger trust me to build something large?
Market Size
Investors don’t expect perfect market sizing in a short meeting.
But they do want to see that founders have thought about the market carefully.
A simple way to frame it is:
Start with the large market, then narrow down to your segment.
For example:
“B2B distribution is a $10 trillion GMV category. We’re focused on about 2,000 wholesalers in the home decor and furniture segment doing $5–100M in revenue.”
It shows both scale and focus.
A Few Mistakes to Avoid
A few patterns came up that founders should watch out for:
Turning the meeting into a pitch
These meetings work best as conversations.
Going too deep into numbers
Early-stage meetings are rarely decided on metrics.
Talking about exits
Too early.
Investors want founders who are focused on building something large, not planning how to sell it.
Slides or No Slides?
Div’s preference was interesting.
No slides.
Slides can sometimes break the conversational flow, and in 25 minutes, you won’t get through a full deck anyway.
If slides make you more comfortable, bring them. But realistically, you’ll probably cover two or three charts at most.
In many cases, a simple conversation works better.
The Best Part of the Session
Beyond the insights, what stood out to me most was something else.
A founder who used to be a VC is taking time to help other founders.
A long-time volunteer stepping in to moderate.
Forty founders are showing up on a Friday evening to learn from each other.
That’s really what AIBoomi is all about.
Founders helping founders.
And if there’s one thing we hope VCBridge enables, it’s exactly that giving founders a chance to have meaningful conversations, build relationships, and take one step closer to building something large.
// Tagged with 0—100k ARR
