He invested in 30 early-stage startups. Here's what he looks for in the founders he backs. | Gopi Rangan, Founder of Sure Ventures

Gopi Rangan has invested in 29 early-stage startups from scratch. He shares a simple but powerful approach to picking the right VCs, structuring your pitch (long-term vision + short-term plan + fuzzy mid-term path), and proving you are the sort of founder every pre-seed investor craves. 

If you’re raising a pre-seed or seed, Gopi’s tips will make your process faster, more targeted, and a lot less painful.

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Why You Should Listen

1. The 2-minute test for "real" pre-seed investors – Spot VCs who truly lead early rounds vs. those who waste your time.

2. His 3-step framework for finding your perfect lead – Forget the 100 investor pipeline. Zero in on 10 prospects who’ll actually write a check.

3. How to balance short-term execution with a massive mission – Win over pre-seed VCs by knowing your next 6 months and your 10-year ambition.

4. Why "business acumen" beats everything – Gopi explains how it trumps domain expertise or brand-name credentials.

5. When to be fuzzy, when to be precise – The counterintuitive approach that shows you’re open to customer feedback while still having big vision.

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Keywords

Pre-seed Funding, Early-Stage VC, Business Acumen, Go-to-Market Strategy, Founder–Investor Fit, Strategic Networking, Seed Round Pitch, Warm Introductions, Mission-Driven Startups, Conviction Investing

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(00:00:00) Why Ruthless Prioritization Wins

(00:03:29) Why Investing at Pre-seed is Personal

(00:08:36) Investing When There Are Still Typos in the Pitch Deck

(00:12:23) Spotting Founders with Exceptional Business Acumen

(00:17:21) Great Ideas in the Hands of the Right Founder

(00:26:29) The Practical Guide to Raising Your Seed Round

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Ruthless Prioritization Wins
• 3:30 Why Investing at Pre-seed is Personal
• 8:36 Investing When There Are Still Typos in the Pitch Deck
• 12:23 Spotting Founders with Exceptional Business Acumen
• 17:22 Great Ideas in the Hands of the Right Founder
• 26:29 The Practical Guide to Raising Your Seed Round

Transcript

Gopi Rangan (00:00):
So, the ability to attract talent, the ability to learn, and the ability to solve problems and figure out which balls to drop. By definition, startups are chaotic. Startups are broken. The master of this game needs to know which balls to keep up in the air and which balls to drop. That ruthless prioritization matters a lot. For me, the combination of right idea in the hands of the right person at the right time matters a lot. First step, find startups who are in your zone. Second, find their investors and use your network, your angel investors and your friends and ex-colleagues to go meet those investors. If you don't have anyone, look at their portfolio of the VC.

Previous Guests (00:41):
That's product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. I called it the product market fit question. Product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. Product market fit. I mean, the name of the show is product market fit. Do you think the product market fit show has product market fit? Because if you do, then there's something you just have to do. You have to take out your phone. You have to leave the show five stars. It lets us reach more founders and it lets us get better guests. Thank you.

Pablo Srugo (01:06):
Gopi, welcome to the show, man.

Gopi Rangan (01:08):
Thank you very much. I'm really excited to talk to you.

Pablo Srugo (01:10):
Yeah, man. No, it's great to have you on the show. I mean, you have your own podcast where you interview a lot of founders and VCs. And so, looking forward to kind of getting, you know, because I'll tell you, like you can tell me, but like for me, one of the things I've been most surprised about doing a podcast. And maybe it sounds a little naive, but it's just how much I've actually learned from doing it. Like, I don't know about you, but it just it's almost different. Like you can talk to people at events. You can certainly for me, like I talk to founders when they pitch me when it's a podcast set up like it's so different. You know, people are just like more open and you tend to learn a lot more. At least that's been my experience.

Gopi Rangan (01:46):
No, I don't read a lot of books. I have a lot of symptoms of dyslexia, so it's really hard for me to read long-form content. I've always believed that conversations are the best way to learn, especially two people talking is the best way to learn about a topic.

Pablo Srugo (02:01):
100%. Well, why don't you give us kind of your background a little bit and then we'll kind of go from there. But that would just set some context.

Gopi Rangan (02:09):
Yeah, certainly. I'm a venture capital investor. Like you said, I'm also a podcaster and I'm a faculty of entrepreneurship at INSEAD. I teach entrepreneurship courses. I am an immigrant. I live in Silicon Valley. I started my career as an engineer, switched to the venture capital side in the business world, and I love what I do. It's a pleasure and an honor to have the opportunity to work with ambitious founders who have great plans and great vision for what they want to build. And getting even a front row seat to watch that journey is a privilege. And I get to participate in that journey and occasionally try to be useful to them. It is such a pleasure to be able to do that.

Pablo Srugo (02:45):
And so, you have like your own fund now, is that right?

Gopi Rangan (02:48):
Yes, I started my firm SureVentures about seven years ago, and I have invested in 29 companies. As of this week, I invested in a new company. Typically, the investments are made at the pre-seed or seed stages, usually the first institutional round of funding. Sometimes these startups go through an accelerator or an angel investor round of funding before I invest, but they don't have to. I like working with founders at super, super early stages. Some of the areas I focus are like insurtech, fintech, aging, mental health, neurodiversity, personal finance, those kinds of topics.

Pablo Srugo (03:26):
What attracts you to specifically that stage, that pre-seed stage?

Gopi Rangan (03:29):
See, when I started my firm, I wanted to focus on a team that lasts for at least a couple of decades. So, I started looking at which direction do I want to go. I could have gone the AI route, I could have gone the deep tech route, and I spent some time at a financial services company, so I chose that sector. Having lived in Silicon Valley for, at that time, about 15 plus years, I was a certified geek, and I loved technology, and I really went deep into some of those areas. I invented a bunch of things. I filed for 40 patents, co-authored them. I felt like at the end of that journey, there is plenty of advanced technology, and there is more to be discovered, and there are quite a few people doing that. But can we take the advanced technology that already exists and apply it to the real world? And that's where I felt like there is a massive opportunity. Living in the Silicon Valley bubble, I didn't see that. But when I went out of the bubble and I went into the financial services world and saw how the insurance world works and how the banking world works and how the investment management world works, it was a stark difference. Many of those sectors are stuck in Stone Age. But those are the sectors that form the backbone of our economy, macroeconomically speaking. And also, they touch our lives on a daily basis. No normal family has a data center in their house, but pretty much every family has access to banking accounts or insurance accounts, and if they don't have access to it, it's a big problem. And that's when I felt like, okay, this is where I'm going to spend the next 20 years of my life or 30, 40 years, whatever, however long I want to be a VC. That's what I want to focus on. I want to bring the potential for advanced technology to transform legacy industries and touch people's lives in a meaningful way and also have a substantial impact economically so that we can get to a better future for all of us. So that's when I decided that that's what I want to focus on.

Pablo Srugo (05:42):
So, I get that in terms of the spaces, but why precede versus, let's say, Series A or Series B or some later stage where you still, let's say, impact those spaces, but you just do it further down the chain?

Gopi Rangan (05:54):
I used to invest in Series A, Series B stages, sort of on boards of companies prior to starting my own firm. At those firms, I spent about 10 years in corporate venture capital, where I learned the art of venture capital. I got very lucky to work with some founders early on in their journey, and I saw how the trajectory of the startups take off, especially when they're successful. A couple of companies went IPO, many acquisitions. Financially, it was a very rewarding experience. It was a great outcome returns-wise. The strategic value was also fantastic because it was a corporate venture program and strategic value is also equally important. What I felt was that the bonds that I formed with founders was not as strong. It's really hard to be a meaningful, important person in the journey of a founder if I appear in front of them at Series A, Series B. And the only way to even have a meaningful role at that point is to write a very big check. And that's not how I wanted to live. I really wanted to form meaningful relationships with founders. So, the founders that I work with now, they are not just professional relationships. I know a lot of their families. They know my family. And whether this company becomes successful or not, I'm likely to invest in their next company. The nature of the relationship is not about showing four times a year at board meetings. It's more about texting at 10 p.m. Hey, I remember we talked about this big customer. We won the customer. We signed the contract. Or, oh, shit, my lead engineer is going to leave. And he just told me that Google made a low-credit offer, how can we keep him Friday morning panic conversation and we brainstorm over the weekend to see if we can do anything about it. Those are really fun conversations. The night before the board meeting, I get to see the dirty slide deck with a lot of typos in the slides to see how do we polish this and how do we take it to the board meeting. What message should we share with the board and what should we make sure that we don't confuse the board with? That's the kind of conversation I like having with founders. So, pre-seed and seed stage is great for me because I want to get in quite early in the relationship. I really want to unleash potential in these founders if I can. And watching that journey, building that relationship from the early on, from the early days, is just very, very fulfilling for me. That's why I do that.

Pablo Srugo (08:29):
And when you think about pre-seed or seed, how do you define the difference between those two stages? How early are you willing to go in?

Gopi Rangan (08:36):
I usually say that I invest at the stage when there are typos in the slide deck. And if the slide deck is already polished and no typos, it's a little too late for me. I've invested in founders right at the time of incorporation. I start talking to founders even when they're in their current jobs, thinking about starting the next company. I brainstorm with them on multiple different ideas over months, iterate over it for a long time, and then they land on something that they really like, and we feel like, yeah, that's something worth pursuing. I'll give you an example. My current investment I made about a year ago. It's a company called Lumber. I've known Trisha for a long time, and I helped him with his previous company. StrikeDeck was acquired by Medallia, and Medallia were an IPO. And when he came out of that, he was very hungry. Like, next time I build a company, I'm going to take it all the way. I'm like, great. Let's come up with some ideas. And he would come to my office and we would whiteboard and brainstorm. And every three, four months, we would come up with a new idea. We kill the idea. We poke holes. And the last one he came up with, he's like, wow, this is really interesting. He's building an automation platform for the construction industry. And when we landed on that, I was literally the first investor. And if I had a bigger fund, I could have taken the whole round if I wanted. That is perfect, but it doesn't happen always that way. So sometimes I invest a little later as well when the company is already formed and maybe they have a product or maybe they have a team in place.

Pablo Srugo (10:13):
Do you always know the founder beforehand or are you just taking meetings and if you like something, you just have the founder, you'll invest as well?

Gopi Rangan (10:21):
Pablo, this is the beauty of venture capital. We cannot only choose to work with people who we've known for many years. That's a very myopic view of how to be a successful venture capital investor. We have to. We are forced to get out and go make new friends. I can't think of any other sector in the business world where your success depends on finding the next new person. And that is very exciting. And these relationships that I form, also, they're not like childhood friends I've known for a long time, not like my nieces and nephews and uncles and aunts. These are all people, strangers I never met and started brainstorming. We clicked, and that's how these connections happen. It can also happen in a matter of days. I meet a founder and a couple of meetings later, it's like, this is really exciting, let's go. That can also happen. That happens more often. Do you invest mainly in first-time founders, mainly repeat founders, or either way? I'm very agnostic. I would say about half of my portfolio is first-time founders and half of them is repeat founders. First-time founders are awesome. Many, many successful companies we know are built by first-time founders. Repeat founders have a special hunger. They did it once and it didn't go all the way and now they want to do it again and they want to do it even better and they have a lot of lessons they've learned. The filter I use is a very high business acumen. Whether they're a 22-year-old or 55-year-old, it doesn't matter. Business is not a science. Business is more like art.  Just because you went to business school doesn't make you a better business person. And someone who never went to school at all, don't forget business school, could be an amazing business person. So business is something that can sprout out of someone at an earlier age or the spirit of entrepreneurship can unleash later in their life. I look for that. I look for someone with a very high business acumen.

Pablo Srugo (12:23):
What does that look like? What's an example of high business acumen? Do you remember anybody that comes to mind? You're like, this person, there's just something they said or something they did that was like, yeah, this person gets it.

Gopi Rangan (12:33):
I'll give you an example. I invested in this company called Power. Founder is Randy Fernando. I helped him with his previous company, which was sold. He had a successful exit. Very, very sharp business acumen. He is a magnet of talent. He's able to attract amazing people. I mean, if you look at that, I'm like, really? You're going to convince that guy to join you? I mean, he blows my mind away every time I talk to him. The pace at which he learns is just a fast clip. I would tell him, point him in a few directions and connect him to a few people. Six weeks later, I come back and talk to him. He has mastered something because he's unlocked a whole new set of things that wasn't accessible to him previously. He is such a fast learner. So the ability to attract talent, the ability to learn, and the ability to solve problems and figure out which balls to drop. By definition, startups are chaotic. Startups are broken. The master of this game needs to know which balls to keep up in the air and which balls to drop. That ruthless prioritization matters a lot. When you hit something out of the park, it really needs to go all the way. And there's no point hitting one run here and 10 feet out. That doesn't make a big difference in the startup world. The ones that areas where you choose to be successful, those areas you need to be 10x better than status quo.

Pablo Srugo (14:06):
100%.

Gopi Rangan (14:06):
Those are the signs I look for.

Pablo Srugo (14:07):
It's funny you say that, you know, I still just very much remember this moment when I was first time founder at GymTrack, my last startup. And there's just so many things to do. Like the list is so long. And I remember, you know, trying to kind of write out a list of all of the things we had to do. And I don't remember, let's say it was 50 things. I mean, it was a lot of things. And over time, I realized that at any given moment in a startup, whether it's a week, a month, a quarter, whatever that timeframe is, you actually can't prioritize like you normally would in a normal job. We say, these are the things we got to do. This is the most important. o we'll start there. You, I started thinking in ones or zeros, like something is either a one, I have to crush it. It has to get done urgently, immediately. It's exceptionally important or it's a zero. Like I am ignoring it completely.  And that was a better framework for how to deal with just the amount of things you have to do, especially like at that pre-seed stage. As you get towards that series A, you have people, you can kind of make those gradients work. But at the beginning, like it's just, it's either a one or a zero. And that ability to do that, I agree, is fundamental.

Gopi Rangan (15:17):
Founders I like to work with have very high business acumen, but that's not the only way to be a good VC. There are plenty of VCs who would choose to work with two engineers in a garage with very little business acumen. And this is actually how the venture capital industry got started in the 1990s. There are lots of famous stories about how the VC was essentially an engineering manager or a project manager. And they had these founders who were brilliant at building things, but didn't know much about market sales and marketing and various other.

Pablo Srugo (15:50):
But then they would get replaced and bring in a CEO who was, you know, was also messy in that sense. Ups and downs.

Gopi Rangan (15:56):
Yes. Sequoia was very famous for doing that many times and successful as well. And then the next wave of VC firms started, they came out with this message that, well, look, we respect founders, and we want founders to continue to stay in the business. We believe that founder-led businesses do really well long-term, and we will not displace you. Then the need for business acumen improved, increased. Also, information became a lot more easily available. It is a lot easier to have short business acumen today because you've got Wikipedia, you've got YouTube, you've got all these avenues to learn and far easier to access people, network, and get to know what's going on in the world. That was not the case in the 1990s until 2005 or 2010. But now it's a lot easier. So having the high expectation, if I were using this strategy in 1980s and 90s, I don't think I'd be successful because there are not that many people with very high business acumen and also building something outlandish.

Pablo Srugo (16:59):
Well, just like anything, I mean, the game evolves and you have to evolve with it. So walk me through this. So you find somebody that has like business acumen. What about like the idea itself? Like what do you look for? What's a great idea? to you, especially at those super early stages where you can't rely on growth or even like conversion ratios. Like you almost, you have like no revenue, I assume a lot of times when you go in.

Gopi Rangan (17:21):
Oh yeah, 90% of the companies I've invested in have zero revenue. When I invest with barely a slide deck in place, like there's really no revenue at all. The question comes up, do you invest in ideas or do you invest in people? For me, the combination of right idea in the hands of the right person at the right time matters a lot. If Mark Zuckerberg came up with the idea of Google organizing information in the world and making it accessible to everyone equally, I mean, that's not his style. That's not his way of doing things. Or if you gave the idea of Apple to Sergey Brin and Larry Page, I don't think that would have worked. Apple required someone like Steve Jobs that was a true visionary product leader who knew what the customer needed even before the customer knew they would be addicted about it. That is the right idea in the hands of the right entrepreneur is magic. That's what I look for. So, I'll give you an example. I invested in this company called TaskHuman. Ravi Swaminathan is the CEO. He had been brewing on this idea for a long time. He's a very seasoned leader. He was a vice president managing a billion-dollar business unit at a large company. Unrelated to what he's doing now. TaskHuman is about one-on-one coaching. It's like Uber for coaching. So, you can go online, find a coach on thousands of topics that they have, wellness-related largely, but now they're branching into marketing and sales and leadership training. Those are building a marketplace, building a coaching platform. None of those things were in his prior experience. So, when I saw what he was building, the idea was just mind-blowing. He had really thought through multiple levels of depth. And every time I would ask him a question, what about this? And what about that? How do you add the next category? And how do you find if there's a huge demand in certain types of coaching? How do you go find the right kind of coaches? How do you make sure that the unit economics still works? And every question, this is what I love about venture capital. I become a student and I learn from a master who has researched this like their life depended on it. They are the world's best expert on that topic that they have been researching. I watch for that. In my conversations with founders, especially in the first, second conversation, I look for, can I be a student and learn? If I ask a question, am I going to be given this thesis that I hadn't even thought of? and open my eyes to a new way of looking at the world. That is mind-blowing for me. That's what I look for.

Pablo Srugo (20:02):
And is that, I mean, that has to do a lot, I would argue, more with the founder because it's about how in-depth they've gone into the idea than the idea. Like, do you worry a lot about, I don't know, market size or market trends or competitive landscape, things like that? Is that part of your rubric or not so much?

Gopi Rangan (20:21):
It's very hard to turn this process into a formula. Look for a large market. Absolutely, market matters. Are you solving a problem for a customer? Show me how the customer is using the product and do you have validation? At least a conversation with a few potential customers. Have you gone through their customer discovery process? Yes, that's important. But by definition, these companies are Building something that doesn't exist in the world. Even if the team has had experience working in the past, it's kind of a new team that's come together. So there's an unproven team. The market may or may not arrive. How could you have done market size analysis for a company like Airbnb? There's no way you could have done anything. It's just all hypothetical. And even if I look at the spreadsheets with any of the companies I've invested in, it's all hypothetical. It's really hard to know. It's not the numbers that matter. It's the logic behind the numbers. It's the thoughtfulness behind the arguments. That is what is interesting. In the rubrics of how to build market size, is it up-down or top-down or bottoms-up? How do you build a team? Do you have a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive set of team members with skills? All of those things are important, but how do you get there? And what is most important? How are you going to go from zero to one? That is the conversation. Without the rubrics, you can't have the conversation. It's just no vapourware.

Pablo Srugo (21:49):
And then walk me through the investment process. You're a solo GP, so you don't have an investment committee. You don't have to go through any of that. How quickly do you typically make decisions? Is it like you meet someone at the end of that call, you know, within the first 10 minutes, you know, or is it usually like a series of meetings until you kind of decide whether you want to do it or not?

Gopi Rangan (22:06):
The solo GP thing is new in the venture market. I believe that pretty much every successful VC is a solo GP, whether they're part of a large firm or not, or on their own. The reason is that it is really, really essential for that investor who has conviction and becomes the champion for the deal, whether it's a large firm or as a solo GP. I need to form that conviction, such high conviction, that I would say, yes, I want to get behind this. It's a lot easier for me to form the conviction independently without having to convince another smart person to say that they please also believe in this. And they may or may not. And it's very difficult, especially very large firms, like six, seven partners and consensus-based decisions. I win all the time. Not about just winning the transaction. It's about winning the hearts and minds of the founder. I form a much stronger bond with the founders. I tell them the truth. I actually am forced to tell them the truth. I cannot hide behind, you know, I really like this, but my partner doesn't. I can't do that. I have to tell them the truth that, look, I don't like this. I wish I could form higher conviction on this, but I'm not able to because of this reason, X, Y, Z reason. And they hear the truth. I've been practicing this now for almost a decade, so I'm getting better at it, but it's a skill that's worth learning for everybody. I can make these decisions in one meeting, but if I want to take six months to do due diligence, I don't have to explain the process to anyone. I just need to get comfortable with it. And when I'm ready, I expect to have higher conviction than the founder does because I want to be the source. 

Pablo Srugo (23:49):
Is there something typical? Like, would you say it's more like one meeting or more like six months? I mean, what do you think? Is there even a normal or it's just totally case by case? It's totally case by case.

Gopi Rangan (23:58):
I can form conviction in less than an hour. I may need 100 hours to form conviction, 100 hours not just with the founder, but on my own as well, doing research on talking to people, talking to potential customers and doing - If you ask me, when am I able to make a quick decision? When I have an informed mind. If I've noodled on the topic previously, I know that, oh yeah, this is a really interesting idea. I've researched this. I've talked to a bunch of people in the past. Those are topics where I can make very quick decisions. Most often I make these decisions in one or two meetings. It's very, very rare that it takes more than a few weeks for me to make a decision. It doesn't need to. If I don't have the informed mind and I'm starting research today about something, it's going to take a few months for me to learn the various aspects of the market. And that's a waste of time for the founders. I encourage founders to find investors who have an informed mindset.

Pablo Srugo (25:01):
Yeah, I think that's right. If I speak for myself, within the first meeting, I mean, it's not that I make a decision, though I have sometimes. I think the latest investment I made was literally within 10 minutes. I'm like, I'm pretty confident I want to do this one because the story was so amazing. But in general, definitely within one 30-minute Zoom meeting, I'm like, yeah, this is really interesting. You know what I mean? I want to dig in. And that's why I like, I will say like post COVID, like obviously for us, teams are so important because we're investing so early. Meeting them and spending time with them is critical before you make the decision. But I find like the new world of these like 30 minute Zoom meetings as the first call is so much better for everyone. Because I remember it used to be like you'd go into in-person meeting for everything, even the first meeting. And honestly so like you go it takes 30 minutes to get there you spend an hour it takes 30 minutes to get back founders spend two hours and within the first 10 minutes you know the VC might know like this is just not a fit for whatever reason you know what I mean so it's just great that it's moved that way so let me do this like let me ask about we've talked about a bunch of different topics like let's get some practical kind of advice out there thinking about the early stage founder and fundraising you've been on the receiving end of a lot of pre-seed raises, and I'm sure helped a lot of founders with their seed or Series A raises. Take me through maybe at a high level, and then we'll go as specific as possible. What is great fundraising? What are the sort of things, sort of common mistakes you tend to see, the sort of common advice you tend to give to founders?

Gopi Rangan (26:29):
There's a strategy founders can follow to simplify their life and save a lot of agony. And I find that a lot of founders are not very organized about this. I've thought about this myself, and I'll break it down into a few steps. And I also follow the same steps for my own founders when they raise the next round of funding. The first step is go and find four or five startups in your zone, in your geography, in your domain, in your stage. Actually, stage doesn't matter as much, but find a few companies that have raised funding in the past one or two years. Not eight years ago, but in the recent past. Those are the startups in your zone that are like you. If there are direct competitors, watch out for them to see who their investors are and avoid them because you don't want to talk to a direct competitor's investors and they don't want to talk to you as well. o that's a blacklist. Now you look at these five companies, each of them has three or four investors, a lead investor and a couple of other investors at the precedence each stage. Who are the investors for these companies at that stage? o now you've made a list of 10 to 20 investors. That's it. That's your golden list of investors that you want to target. If it's a lead investor, they're investing about 50 to 80% of the round of funding. So, let's say, theoretically, for an example, a $2 million round of funding. The lead investor is going to write a million to million and a half check. The fund size for that investor is somewhere between $30 to $75 or maybe $100 million in that range. If the founder speaks with an investor who has a $500 million fund, it's highly unlikely they're going to invest. They're never going to invest in the first place anyway, but they'll take the meeting just to find out what's curious. And they're all interesting. So, they want to learn from the founders because they're the experts in that field. If the founders raise their focus on VCs who are actively investing in companies like theirs at this stage and the check size, it's a lot more effective for them in the first meeting, second meeting to sort out and see whether this is going to be a fit or not. On the other side of the spectrum, smaller funds, there are VCs who write $100K, $250K, $500K checks. They don't lead, but they're actually great friends for you. If you can find one of them and make them part of your journey, they will get excited about it, and they'll work with you, and they're also whisperers to lead VCs. They know the market. They know which lead VC has done the homework on this, who has an informed mindset, who's really wanted to invest in a company like this but missed out on an opportunity. Or they are allergic to certain things and it's not worth talking to those investors. That kind of gossip is very, very helpful for founders to learn from. It's not worth the founder's time to do two years of research to go do all of this and learn about this because it's not really helpful for their business. But this small investor who can become a part of that journey or friends in the journey, they can provide all that insight. So, first step, find startups who are in your zone. Second, find their investors and use your network, your angel investors and your friends and ex-colleagues to go meet those investors. If you don't have anyone, look at their portfolio of the VC. They will have 50 to 100 startups on their website. Find a founder who can help you and hustle your way to get that warm introduction. That's the highest quality introduction you can get. Third step, get one of those smaller investors to help you along the way because you don't want to go at it all alone by yourself. This is the framework that I use for my own startups when they raise the subsequent rounds of funding.

Pablo Srugo (30:18):
What do you think it takes to raise a seed round these days? Like, you know, whether it's revenue or growth or some other proof point, traction point, like what is, when are, when do you think like a company and maybe it's none of that, right? But like, when would you say a company is like seed stage ready for, let's say two, three, $4 million seed round?

Gopi Rangan (30:36):
Break the process into long-term, short-term and mid-term. What is the long-term vision for the company? Where are you going? Why does this matter to you? Will you go through ups and downs and never give up until you get to that vision, realize the vision? That's the most important conversation to have. If the VC is not ready to have the conversation, they're not in the business of investing at pre-seed and seed stage. Move on. Pre-seed, seed stage investors usually look for that vision. They want to know that this is going to be a massive game changer. Explain that. Brainstorm with that. You know what? Surprisingly, if you get to the right investor, whether they invest or not, they will ask you questions that will unleash some potential you hadn't thought about as a founder. And that's a good conversation. Once you have a few conversations like that, you will see that the mission-driven founders clearly stand apart compared to founders who are trying to build something for the short term. The second step is short term. What are you going to do in the next six months to two years? What is your plan for execution? How are you going to hire people? What is your initial go-to-market strategy? In phase one, what segment will you focus on? In phase two, what segment will you focus on? And how is the sales process going to work? What product are you going to build? Those are the kind of questions. A lot of these questions come up, especially if the founders don't have a lot of experience, because the investors want to get comfortable with how is this execution going to work. If it's a seasoned founder in certain areas, then there are fewer questions on those topics. You can move on very quickly. The midterm is where it's okay to fail. Have a fuzzy outlook on where the business is going to be two to five years from now in that window. You actually want to be fuzzy, intentionally fuzzy, because you don't want to be adamant about this is exactly how I'm going to build a business. Because you never know. You put the product out, and the customer looks at it. They might be using it for a totally different reason, and that might shape the company in a completely different way that you hadn't thought about. That is important. You want to let the market lead you in a direction. There are few companies where the company is exactly the same way as it was on the first day, but most companies are not. It's a strength to have the flexibility that in the midterm, I'm willing to go in a direction and let my customers and my product lead me in that direction. I'm still going to be the visionary who will shape that process, but here are my rough thoughts on here's my second, third, and fourth verticals that I would go after, or second, third, and fourth versions of the product, what I would build. Be a little fuzzy about it, but not get too married about the plan that that's exactly what you want to do. Long term, short term, and midterm.

Pablo Srugo (33:27):
Well, let me end it there, Gopi. And maybe the last question I'd like to ask is, when you think, and especially in your case, you've worked with so many founders, what's maybe one of the most common pieces of advice that you tend to give founders these days?

Gopi Rangan (33:43):
I try to not give advice. I give founders the space to brainstorm. My suggestion to founders is surround yourself with at least one or two people who can give you the space to brainstorm? I'm very helpful in brainstorming existential crisis. Do I chop off my left arm or right arm? Like very difficult decisions, dilemmas. I'm very helpful in difficult conversations to have inside the company, founder conflicts or customers, things like that. I can help them. I'm not really good at the product management and go-to-market strategy very clearly on this is what you do, building a sales motion, some of those things. It's helpful for the founder to compliment me with someone who can provide those things. That mastery of how do you surround yourself with two or three people who can be your go-to advisors for certain topics. Now, I usually say that don't go to a Japanese restaurant and ask for fried rice just because they have rice. That's not the place to buy fried rice. You go to a sushi restaurant, get sushi. Go to a Japanese restaurant, get sushi. That's what they're good at. So, if you learn to do that, then you're going to amplify your potential with all these people helping you in exactly the right way.

Pablo Srugo (35:10):
Perfect. Well, Gopi, it's been great to have you on the show. Thank you for spending the time.

Gopi Rangan (35:14):
Fantastic. Thank you for the insightful questions through this conversation.

Pablo Srugo (35:19):
So, picture this. It's months from now, years from now, and one of your founder friends, a really close founder friends of yours, guess what? Their startup went bankrupt. And it turns out if you had just shared the product market fit show with them, they would have learned everything they needed to, to find product market fit and to create a huge success. But instead, their startup has completely failed. You have blood on your hands. Don't let that happen. You don't want to live like that. It is terrible. So do what you need to do. Tell them about the show. Send it to them. Put it on WhatsApp. Put it on Slack. Put it where you need to put it. Just make sure they know about it and they check it out.