5harathFounding Growth Lead, Willow Voice

The Framework for Entering VC - Zehra Naqvi, Undefeated Underdogs #shorts

26 Sept 2023 · 1 min

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1:00

In this short interview, the speaker reflects on the common perception that VC‑backable businesses are inherently more valuable, noting that her first startup was not VC‑backable. Through internships ranging from a pre‑seed fintech firm to a Series B consumer goods company, she repeatedly heard founders discuss fundraising difficulties, regardless of stage or sector. This recurring theme sparked her curiosity about the investors on the other side—who they are, how they think, and what criteria they use to decide which companies to fund—leading her to pursue a deeper understanding of venture capital.

Chapters

There's almost this notion that certain businesses that are VC backable are of more value than businesses that aren't. And the first company that I founded was certainly not VC backable. And although that experience was really formative from my founder perspective, I think the internships I did throughout college went anywhere from like a pre-seed fintech company all the way to like Series B consumer companies. And the constant conversation I was always hearing, like the founder, the CEO talk about was fundraising. And I knew what VC was, obviously I had heard about it, but seeing like a pre-seed fintech founder and then like a CPG Series B founder have the same problems when it came to fundraising was just like something that kept coming up over and over and over again. And naturally from like the founder perspective and working with incredible founders, I wanted to understand who were these people on the other side? Like, what were they thinking of? How did they decide what they want to invest in? And what does that entire breakdown really look like? And so that was kind of like why I got interested in VC.