Why I wrote a book about 180 failed VC meetings instead of a success story
The post-mortem of raising from U.S. VCs as a non-U.S. founder: what stopped each meeting, in order.
I'm the founder behind this. Not the founder who raised the round — the one who ran the process that didn't.
We contacted 180 U.S. venture firms. About 90 replied. 40 took a first meeting. Zero produced a term sheet. Most books about fundraising are written by the people who won. This one is written by someone who lost 40 times in a row and went back to figure out exactly where, and why.
What I found wasn't 40 different mistakes. It was the same four walls, in the same order, every time: Exit logic, corporate structure, due diligence, valuation. Most meetings never got past the first wall. The ones that did just hit the next one.
The book is that autopsy, plus the order I'd use if I did it again:
Customer → Numbers → Exit path → Structure → Proof → Valuation → VC
12 chapters, 72 checkpoints, written under a pen name to keep the actual companies and investors out of it. If you're a non-U.S. founder about to start this process, chapter 1 is free.
Free chapter: https://ventureinsider.gumroad.com/l/free-chapter
