Analyzing pitches to find what gets VCs interested in a meeting

A trusted introduction can even overcome a bad deck in some cases. But there should be no reason to have a bad deck now-a-days as there is ample reference and knowledge share.

First-time founders: Please don't pay for access. Services like this, in my opinion, are dubious at best. Work on building a network, blogging, open source, meeting other founders, going to VC events, tapping your alumni network, etc.

This is 100% true and 10,000% annoying. Effectively it blocks anyone who has an idea for an idea for a business that needs seed capital from competing unless they're already wealthy (directly or able to raise funds from within their own network of friends and family). 15 years ago seed capital was exactly that - money that was available to fund a startup based on little more than an idea and a persuasive team. It was massively high risk but that was kind of the point. The taste for risk that VCs once had is gone. Today what people call seed rounds are really Series A. You need to have already done the high risk proof of concept work and actually have something on the market before VCs will take your call.

That's entirely up to VCs of course. If they want to do that they can. And no doubt they'll still make a lot of money. But society as a whole is faced with dull ideas thought up by middle class kids who want "innovative" ways to pay someone to do their chores because of it, and that pisses me off a lot.

End Rant.

That said, having a realistic plan on how your idea turns into a sustainable business is certainly key too. That’s even more important with the economy we’re heading into where startups that are not financially stable are not long for this earth.

15 years ago, there weren't any "programming bootcamps" or "entrepreneurship workshops" or "become a UX ninja in 7 days crash course" to the extent that there is today, Harvard MBAs didn't give much of a crap about working in tech, computer science students were there for the nerdy stuff, not because they wanted to be the next Zuckerberg.

There just isn't much risk left in tech. The path is that now you start a weird crypto startup (which aren't even that weird anymore because there's dozens of them) while you're comfy at Stanford, you hope to get a fat check before you graduate, and if not you go work to Google. Or you quit Google, start your company, get some investment because you were at Google after all, and hopefully a few years later your startup gets bought by Google.

Tech startups just aren't weird and new and unknown anymore, as far as the money people are concerned. Does it fit their idea of what a company on its way to a billion dollar valuation looks like? If yes write a check, if not tell them thank you and let the next team in.