Tell it, don’t sell it — the critical fundraising mindset

Everyone is talking about storytelling — myself included. But why?
Why is storytelling so important when it comes to your fundraising mindset? And why should you focus on telling investors your story instead of selling them on your product?
Here’s the key: investors are not customers for your product, they’re a partner for your business.
We sell to customers, but we pitch to investors.

Talk to investors like partners, not customers

The moment you come into a meeting and try to sell your product to an investor, you make them feel like customers.
In other words, they feel like you’re trying to get money out of them in exchange for something.The atmosphere in the room becomes transactional.
Investors aren’t your future customers, they’re your future partners. This is an internalization process that every founder must understand before getting into a room with an investor.
A partner takes risks with you. They support you, provide guidance, and help you and your business grow.
It is very likely that if your business fails, they stand to lose more than you.
You won’t get that level of sacrifice from an investor if your pitch is technical and product-oriented, based on heard-it-all-before templates.
You simply won’t be able to connect to your investors on a higher level.
Here’s what you need to do instead:
- Deliver your story with contagious genuineness
- Express your real world, problem solving story that inspired you to start your company
- Showcase your belief in what you do
- And, most importantly, spark their imagination by TELLING your story instead of SELLING it.

In early-stage pitching (Seed to Series B), investors aren’t expecting your business to be a money-printing machine. So it’s pointless pretending.
Here are four things that can kill your presentation and story before it even starts:
- Promising return on investment (ROI) — You and the investor know that those numbers are far-fetched.
- Bragging about your total addressable market (TAM) — The goal of early-stage investment is to get the ball rolling and lay the foundations to help you hit $200M ARR. This is roughly the point that today’s businesses go public, so don’t bother talking about your multi-billion dollar TAM.
- Claiming to be the Uber of your industry — There’s nothing more pretentious than suggesting you’re the Uber, Netflix, or Airbnb of whatever you do.
- Saying you’re number one The same goes for buzzwords like “disrupting” or “reinventing”. Just focus on the business process you’re trying to change.

It’s easy to say that storytelling is important. But where do you plug it in? And how?
Here’s your answer: right at the beginning.
- It’s a well known fact that investors can qualify a founder within the first five minutes of their - presentation.
- This is where you need to dive straight into your story and the source of inspiration that led you to start your company. Forget the lengthy founders’ background overview or bragging about the couple of big shots you were able to get on the advisory board.Go for the connection first.
- Start with a quick intro, then jump into the real life story that shows why you matter.
- By opening with your story and the purpose of your company, you can clearly demonstrate the business process you’re trying to change, improve, or eliminate.
- And remember, simple words and real-life examples work best.

When entering the room — and this is super hard to do — remember that there is equal opportunity at the table. You need an investment, but the investor has a great company to invest in.
So, don’t think of it as a one sided game where you are coming in for a big ask.You are coming in for a partnership.
Investors can sniff out money-seekers a mile off. Coming into the room with an I need money mindset will automatically drive you into sell mode and kill the tell mode.
This doesn’t mean you need to be cocky or act like your company is the best thing on the planet and the investor must have FOMO of a lifetime.
No, it just means you need to leave the sales speak at home and come in with the right fundraising mindset. Easier said than done? Yes. Powerful when achieved? Absolutely.
So, I’ll leave you with one piece of advice: don’t sell stories, tell them. It will create the connection, engagement, and partnership that you are looking for in your potential investor.
Let the investor want to be with you rather than buying from you.