Digital Ventures

This is a short but important thing to learn if you want to convince a VC about anything…avoid the fluff and hyperbole – cut out those “adjectives” when trying to persuade.

David Hornik of August Capital puts it this way:

….one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to company pitches (and board meetings for that matter). I hate adjectives. I don’t want to hear that one of the company founders is a “fantastic sales exec.” I want to hear that she was Presidents Club the last twelve years running. I don’t want to hear that the product is “revolutionary and paradigm-shifting.” I want to hear about the specific features of the product that are differentiated and how. I don’t want to hear that the company has “massive market traction.” I want to see a graph of progressive quarterly sales and a giant sales pipeline.

Adjectives are not convincing. Facts are convincing. I may not agree with the conclusions a company draws from those facts. But I will at least be in a position to appropriately assess those conclusions. Whereas adjectives are all about conclusions without the underlying facts.

See more in his useful post here.