PepsiCo Labs GM Anna Farberov took to LinkedIn to reveal five mistakes startups make when seeking funding and support.
“I’ve sat in ~3,587 startup-to-corporate meetings. I noticed these five mistakes,” she said.
First of all, there is no privacy. “Most startups use a general pool of investors to pitch to VCs, corporate innovation teams, and experts. The experts don’t care about the market size and earning potential.
“They want to know how to help their pain. Don’t waste valuable time on irrelevant background information.”
Secondly, lack of transparency. “I was asked to review a startup. “I read the ship and their website and could only gather the last mile delivery connection, but I didn’t know what kind of problem they were going to solve and how they were going to solve it,” commented Farberov.
Thirdly, to respond defensively to questions. “Some startups react defensively when we ask questions about different scenarios to understand how the solution works. Bonus tip: If you pay attention to the questions, you’ll get a preview of important and important industry needs.”
Fourth, reduce organizational complexity. “In an attempt to succeed and sell their solutions, some startups overpromise their ability to quickly scale back and integrate with a larger organization.”
“They can’t keep up with rapid scale, which can paralyze or even kill a startup because they direct their resources to one (big) customer, if not all. If you give up and lose loyalty and focus, it’s hard to recover.
And last but not least, not answering the question. “On the one hand, I admire their determination.”
“On the other hand, these startups go to ten different executives after the experts said no earlier, asking the executives to re-evaluate the same startups. This only leads to inefficiency, wasted time, and frustration,” Farberov said.
More details on PepsiCo Labs here.
