🎙️ EP70: Stop Fighting a Rigged System — Allison Byers | InvestHer Podcast

A founder raises almost $10 million, runs out of runway, and sells her company. The all-male team that buys it goes on to raise the $55 million she couldn't. Let's welcome back Alison Byers, who spent the next year trying to work out what exactly went wrong. The answer became Scrubious, the platform she founded, and now Fundraising for the Rest of Us, a book that Names the bias and then hands you the playbook on how to deal with it. The core 10-pitch framework, the ideal investor persona, what to do when they go silent. If you've ever wondered whether it was you or the system, this conversation settles it. Enjoy. Welcome everybody to our latest episode of Investor Podcast. She's back, she's back, Alison Byers, founder and CEO of Scroobius. How are you, my dear?

I am doing great. What a fantastic energy to start this with. I'm so glad to be back. Thanks for having me.

Well, just to remind our listeners and viewers, uh, the, the last time you came, you were here with your policy shaper hat on, you know, saying what needed to change, how you were working to bring in the bill in California. We will talk all about that, but really we're here for a different reason today, which is a really cool reason. We're going to get into that because now we can say founder and CEO of Scrubius, And author, because congratulations, you have just released your first book. Let's see if it's coming up properly for me. Fundraising for the Rest of Us. So it's going— I'm gonna look funny, but it doesn't matter about me. There you go. Fundraising for the Rest of Us. Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

So before we jump into it, tell me, let's, let's start off by saying what's one fun fact about yourself and maybe your recent past that people don't know? that you'd like to share just to get us warmed up?

Oh gosh, a fun fact that people don't know. Well, if anyone follows me, they do know this, but I usually give my controversial food take, which is that I love black licorice. And I was just in Scotland, as we were talking about before we recorded, where I got, I got my fix. Because in the US, you can't buy good black licorice. We don't sell it here, uh, at all. And so I, I came home with a giant Bag of delicious—

well, you know, another place that does good salted black licorice, on the fun fact, is Sweden. Sweden and Finland, they do very strong and salty black licorice that rips the hair off your tongue.

Also great in my bag of treats in my little stash next to me on my desk. So there's, there's my Fun but controversial fact.

I love it. So, okay, I'm really excited to have you back, Alison, because I truly admire everything you do, your background, your journey so far. You are a sister in arms in everything that has to do with helping underrepresented founders get access to capital and the right resources they deserve. And I have been honestly loving your book. So it is called Fundraising for the Rest of Us. I'm going to talk about the rest of us now in a second. For me, like, you're in my ears every morning when I'm walking. I've been listening to you before the book arrived. I was like, I said, I'd better arrive before we start. And we, we weren't here to do a book plug. I'm here to do a story plug. I mean, I am. The book is a huge toolkit. It is for me. Honestly, the fundraising bible. It is for any founder out there, whether you're underrepresented or not. You should read this book. And I mean that wholeheartedly, because if you are set in the United States, in North America, it's particularly United States, you know, Alison, do you do a fabulous job of explaining the different sources of funding there? And because you do a good job, It helps people understand all their resources in other parts of the world. And I would just like to say, I do mean it, for me, it is a fundraising bible, but most importantly, it's the part of your title, For the Rest of Us, okay? You wrote this book for the founders that the system wasn't built for. Tell us more about your why, what led you to write the book, because I want people to hear your insights and your passion.

Oh, I so appreciate that. And, and yeah, I mean, my why is driven by the lived experience, right? I— this is my second company, Scrubious. I had my first time being an entrepreneur after over a decade of being kind of in the consulting world and in the tech world. I didn't know any of this stuff. I had no idea about anything that I wrote in this book. And we did raise almost $10 million for my previous company. which was a medical device innovation that we spun out of MIT and a hospital system here in Boston where I am. And I ran into every fundraising challenge that you work to, you know, to dispel and dismantle that, you know, that I live and I work for now. And we ultimately had to sell the company early when I couldn't raise our Series B round of funding. We were acquired by an all-male team that just so happened to go on to raise the money I was trying to. They raised $55 million. And that was in no light terms traumatic for me.

Yeah.

It really was. And so what I ended up doing was taking that trauma and turning it into curiosity about why. And I researched the space of investing and fundraising and pitching and capital allocation and all of this stuff. researched for about a year to understand how this could have happened. And that's when I found the statistics of capital allocation, which I go very deep on in the book. But I had that fundamental shift of frame of, oh, I didn't fail. Yeah, I didn't understand the system that I was working in.

And the system is broken and rigged.

Well, the system and the evolution of how we got to this place, which is, you know, what I go into in the front half of the book, it prevents anybody who is part of the rest of us, who, by the way, are most of us, most of the population, from accessing a very, very narrow slice of capital. And so, you know, my motivation for Scrubias, for policy work, for advocacy, and then ultimately for writing this book as well, is everyone needs to know the playing field.

Yeah.

And everyone needs to have transparent access to information and guidance that reflects who they are and their lived experience.

Yes.

Because almost every book on this topic that is widely available is written by someone who does not share that lived experience.

Exactly. Exactly. And I think one thing that I love about how you've written this book and the structure of it is at the end of every chapter, you go into this for the rest of us, this for the rest of us. So you give us that that angle that is sorely missing from the other literature out there. So you go on to explain this source of funding, and by the way, for the rest of us, it looks like this, and you give us great case studies. And I want you to share kind of some of those stories because I know you have them off the tip of your tongue because you've been living with the book and the material for a while, I would say. So Let's start at the beginning though. When you— the part 1 of the book is about the real funding landscape. What would you say that founders most get wrong about that part? Like, what is it that they get wrong about the funding landscape before they even start looking?

Yeah, this is so critical. You know, we have today more educational programming, uh, and accelerator programming and classes in universities on entrepreneurship than we have ever had. I mean, it's exploded as an industry, just the education of entrepreneurship. But it all majority points founders toward venture capital. It's very, very focused on venture as the source of funding. And what's fundamental to know is venture as a business, as a source of capital, was never intended to be the thing that fuels innovation in a wide sense. It is dictated by its own business model, which requires very specific things about a business to be a match for it.

Mm-hmm.

But we have millions of innovators being told, go get venture capital, and it's not widely accessible, uh, to understand all the other ways that you can access money for your business to grow it. Right? So we end up with this kind of myopic view, and founders just grind themselves accessing a type of money that is not the right type for them.

Yeah.

And so it's not necessarily a mistake that I see founders make, but it's a fundamental misunderstanding and limited view. It's like we put blinders on all of these founders where there's this whole other menu of options of how you access the capital and the resources you need to build a successful business, which is the goal, right? The money is just a vehicle to build a successful business.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Alison. Yes, 100% behind you. So true. Like, I remember many years ago interviewing a woman founder, and she said, like, raising capital is It's a means to an end. It's not the end in itself. And that's very important because a lot of time, raising venture capital is glorified as the route that any good startup founder or innovation founder should take. And as you said, it's not for everyone, and not everybody's going to build a business that is venture-backable. So we need to understand that from the get-go. And I think you really— in fact, I know you do that beautiful job of explaining it. In the book. So what do you want a first-time woman founder in particular to feel after reading it?

I want them to feel— any founder, and yes, in particular, you know, female founders. There's a lot in the book for, for anyone who feels underrepresented. But of course, my own lived experience is as a female founder, and we are the largest, you know, demographic of underrepresentation, being half the population. Yeah, I want them to feel informed and empowered knowing that they have options.

Yeah.

And knowing how to, first of all, name bias if it is happening to you.

Yeah.

That is something I could not do or understand when I was raising for my last company. When you can put a name to something that's happening to you, you shift the locus of control, right?

Yes.

You shift into being in control where you felt out of control. And then knowing how you turn what's happening into a positive for yourself. So that's a lot of the strategies. And, you know, the for the rest of us parts at the end of each chapter to say, here's the mechanism that you're experiencing, and here's how you handle it. And then you can go into things with so much more confidence and control of the situation.

Absolutely. And I love it because It's very practical the way you lay things out. You explain the situation, give a real example of a founder from The Rest of Us, and then give the key tips. Okay, so when, not if this situation arises, when it arises, you now know that that's the frame that certain people are putting you into. Now you can reframe it, and by the way, you do A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Right? So it's great because you arm us, the rest of us, with the information. It's so great because you can feel— and I mean, from working in this field for the past 13 years, I can feel the wealth. Everything you say, I swear to God, walking on my walks, I was just going, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Every single sentence of what you were reading out to us, it just resonated so much. And it's, as you say, it's the playbook we wish we'd had. before you had your experience, before I had my experience as well in different things. Because what I love about your motivation and your why, and it's one of the things you explain in the book, is very important even when it comes to the deck and all that stuff, is you need to explain your why. Why are you creating this company? Why are you the right person? Why are you passionate about this problem to solve? But in, in, in your why, it's— you were deeply affected by an experience that was out of your control and had nothing actually to do with you, and more to do with the capital allocators on the other side of the table who knew how to play a rigged game better than you did at that time. And it was nothing— you were killing yourself to build an incredible business, to get it funded. You successfully got that first big round of $10 million, which is no mean feat. And in the scientific field. And to have that then taken, I want to say taken away from you and taken, that is very difficult. I think honestly, the rest of us, all of us, male, female, who come from any group that is not white man cisgender, we have all felt that at some point in our lives. And many of us feel it every single day of every of our lives because the systems are rigged against us. So, I mean, thank you. I just wanna say really thank you from the rest of us for calling it out, for naming it, because as you just said a minute ago, once you put a name on it, on the bias, then you can have a strategy and you can do something about it. But when you don't even know why is this happening to me, why does this feel so off, that can be very heavy. And what can tend to happen is we turn the blame or the negative voice inside our heads towards ourselves. When it wasn't us who were at fault.

Yes. And I think that's, that's one of the biggest gifts that I can give to people who are living through this is that understanding that it isn't you.

Yeah.

And you, you have to shift, right? I blamed myself entirely, and it was really detrimental to my health, both physical and mental. And I know so many others do that to themselves. And once you understand and you can see what is happening, it— you just— that weight is lifted.

Yeah.

And you have an entirely different outlook. And when you know that there is a system that is not going to let you win, you can shift. Again, a lot of the book is about shifting and reframing and say, okay, well then where can I win? I don't want to be in that system anymore. Like, I'll stop fighting it and I'll start looking at something else.

Exactly, exactly. So I love it because you have a very sharp line. You're like, pattern recognition, it needs to become— is, is becoming pattern replication. So how does bias actually operate in fundraising? Let's start at that beginning. You've said, okay, this is rigged, let's get into it. How does this bias show up in the fundraising process for the rest of us?

Yeah. And it's, you know, it's really interesting when you, when you do study kind of how did venture start. And I'm not going to give a whole history lesson here, but if anyone wants the history, you can read about it in the book. But it, it makes sense when you look at it. And deep down, really, the core mechanism that drives almost everything when humans are the ones making decisions is something called familiarity bias, where we view things that are familiar to us or like us as safer or less risky or more likely to succeed. And it's not always overt, right? And we do use words like rigged and it is, but most of the people operating in that system that's unjust and inequitable don't know that they're doing these things, right? It is innately human to have this familiarity bias. And so when the overwhelming majority of check writers in, you know, let's take the venture capital class are white men, 93%, I think, is the most recent statistic. Of course, the recipients of the checks are going to mirror the homogeneity of the check writers because they view people like them as more familiar. So if you're not like them, you're going to be risky and unknown and maybe not such a safe bet for the money that you are investing on behalf of others, right? That's the business of venture. But if we take that familiarity bias And apply it elsewhere and say, okay, well then who would find me familiar? You enter these other worlds of capital sources and in particular private capital, which you can access in a number of ways, right? We all know the term angel investors. There's a whole bunch of other sources of private capital as well, but they are individuals making decisions about their own money.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Not businesses like venture capital, full of folks who have shared qualities or affiliations with you. You open, you increase the denominator of people who might find you familiar, and therefore you raise your chances of securing access and capital.

So it is what you're describing is finding your tribe, finding the right tribe, and, and at the also Understanding a bit what you said earlier on, there are many more options out there than we might have necessarily thought of at the beginning. Like, so how do you coach founders to navigate this bias without absorbing it as their own failing? Because that's, that's really hard, isn't it?

I mean, and it definitely is.

I mean, There's different—

there's a lot of different angles to answer that question, right? But again, we, we're talking a lot about venture, and of course we are, right? Because a lot of companies are venture-backable and not able to access it. And, and we do still need that as a potential option. And so there's ways that when you encounter bias in that more formal process, you, you know, that I coach founders to handle that. And then there's ways outside of venture capital where you again can use it in the positive. Yeah. So one of my big, big tips when you encounter it in, say, a more formal pitch meeting is one, always to name it, right? But then 2, to react with curiosity. And my first company, when I got, you know, biased questions like being, you know, the prevention versus promotion is a big one. I was constantly asked prevention questions, you know, like, well, how are your competitors not just going to squash you? How do you know your market will buy?

Why?

All, you know, all these kind of negative intonations. I would get in really heated arguments with like big name VCs, right? Where I was like, why? Why are you asking me? Like, this is such a ridiculous question. Now, you know, I know, okay, that's not the approach. The approach is to take their question, frame it in the way I want to answer it, and then answer it in the positive.

Mm-hmm.

And if it continues down a negative path, start asking them some questions to really get at the root of what they're trying to understand or where that uncertainty may lie. But reacting with curiosity and reframing is a much better approach for everyone. Uh, and then on the—

That's hard.

That's so—

I mean, that's coming now with the benefit of hindsight and experience of having worked with hundreds of founders and interviewed hundreds and thousands of investors and It's so— I hear you. And when you're in the moment and somebody is— can you maybe walk us through an example? Give us a practical example of a question that's very biased, skewed, and how you would reframe it with the curiosity. I'm putting you on the spot a little bit here, but yeah, yeah, I know you've got loads of examples up your sleeve. Go on.

There's so, there's so many examples based on the company, but like, so prevention versus promotion questions for any listeners who maybe aren't familiar is there's a whole lot of research showing that when men are pitching, they tend to be asked promotion-oriented questions like, how big could this get, right? Envisioning these really great positive things. And women overwhelmingly get prevention-oriented questions, which are very negative and defensive in tone. And when you have a defensive tone to your, uh, meeting, it likely results in a negative outcome, right? You get a pass or you get a lower amount of money offered or harsher terms. Those are all linked to these different tones of the meeting.

Hmm.

So when you don't know that that's happening and you get a prevention-oriented question, it could be something like, well, you know, as you grow, aren't your costs gonna get outta control? Like, right, that's prevention. You're on the defense, right?

Mm-hmm.

And you can take that and say, okay, you know, in your head, this is prevention. How do I reframe it so it's a positive, it's a promotive? And say, oh, you know, that's a really good question. What I think you're asking me is what is the strength of our relationship with our manufacturers so that our costs decrease over time with scale? And then you can answer that. Right? So—

Nice. Nice. Beautifully done. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It, it does. It takes practice. It's, you know, difficult. But that's where if you can't in the moment assess or know that you have to assess, is this prevention or promotion? If it's prevention, how do I make it promotion? Then you can't even get to that place. Right? You have to be intentionally aware. of that happening.

And I think also as part of the reframing is maybe before you're walking into that meeting is just preparing yourself and say, no matter what comes at me, I can handle it and I'm going to be able to reframe going in with that positive and curious mindset unless there's some really bad— I mean, how do you handle really bad behavior? I mean, like, seriously, if somebody is completely out of line, asks a question that is Probably illegal to ask for whatever reason. Like, how do you handle that, that situation? Because it does happen to the rest of us much more often. It never happens to the white guys, frankly.

All the time. All the time.

Yeah.

When I look back, I, as I was writing this book, I had a lot of self-reflection, right? Of like, oh, that I had that happen and I just didn't do anything, right?

Like, I didn't Now I know.

So yes, there are lines that are crossed. And if that happens, I mean, my guidance is to just politely end the meeting.

Exactly.

You don't have to be spoken to that way, and you don't have to get fiery about it, which, again, easier said than done. I definitely got fiery about things, and now I act differently. But yes, you can just say, you know what? Thank you so much for your time. I don't think we're the right fit for each other, and I'm going to respectfully just end the meeting now. And you can do that. Yeah. And what I'll say, the thing that empowers you to be able to do that again is knowledge. And part of that knowledge is that there are so many people out there who invest who you do not know, so many sources of capital. If you are in a situation where you are uncomfortable with someone who is a capital provider, you don't need them. Yes.

Yes.

Get in this place of like, I need this to work. I need this money. I need to convince this person. You shouldn't have to do that. If you are needing all those things, you have put yourself in a weaker position and you have decided Already that the other person is more powerful than you are or knows more than you do. And that isn't true. So if you can go into it saying, you know what, investors don't make money if they don't invest. I am going to make money for them. If they don't want me to do that for them, that's fine. On to the next. Stop. I'm not going to waste my time. Right? And then you can go into it already with the confidence you need to be able to end the meeting. But you have to have that mindset reframe.

Exactly. You have to go in already thinking you're talking peer to peer, not they're up here and you're down here. That's very important. Very, very important. And also, you mentioned in the book, one of your key points is about raising capital on your own terms. I think that leads beautifully into what you've just been describing. Tell us a little bit more about that. What, what do you mean by on your own terms and about not accepting crap? If it's presented on a silver platter, like, no, that's still not going to be good for me.

You know, it's been a very interesting journey and my, uh, my time in entrepreneurship between my last company and this one, it's now been over a decade, uh, in this space. And I, I obviously have a very different mindset about it all based on the experience I've had, but the ability to step back and always remember your why. Why am I building this company? You decided to start a company for a reason. There is no rule on how you must build your own company. When you're in startup land and culture and hustle and all of the things, it's so easy to get wrapped up in, yeah, oh my God, well, this person raised and this person did that and I'm never gonna do that and oh my God, I gotta move I gotta move faster. I gotta hustle. Yeah, you don't have to. You build the way that is sustainable for you and the growth that you want for your company.

Amen.

I mean, to give you a personal example, right, there's trade-offs across the board. My last company we did, we went the VC route, right? It was exhausting. And every year raising all the time, you're on that cycle of, you know, into the letter rounds and all the things. This time around with Scroobius, I have said no to 2 different venture funds. I have raised, but all from individual sources of capital or very aligned capital that grow the way I want to grow. I have said I do not want a board of directors until I am ready because I don't want someone else having governance over my company, which comes with institutional money.

Yeah.

And it's all because I made that conscious decision of I want to grow. It's gonna be slower, maybe slower than I would like it to be because of the way I have access to capital, but I'm gonna grow on my terms in a way where I can live my my life alongside building this company and I don't burn out.

Yes.

The decisions I want to make and hire who I want to hire. And it all is in line with what types of fundraising I do, right? And I have put a big focus on revenue generation as a source of my funding, which we often don't talk about either, is reinvesting capital you get from people who pay you.

Yeah.

Even if it's part of your core business model or adjacent. That is a capitalization strategy.

Yes.

So this is what I mean by intentionally looking at if you know the full menu of options of all the ways you could get access to what you need, then you can be more intentional and say, okay, well, I don't want the hypergrowth. I think that's not sustainable for me. So if I grow a different way, which sources of capital align with how I want to build? Yes.

Yes, absolutely. Real quick, Anne here. InvestHer Summit 2026 is coming to Paris in October, connecting global scaling women entrepreneurs with investors, corporates, and others to scale faster. Tickets at investhersummit.com. That's investhersummit.com. Okay, so now I want to get into the nitty-gritty of a big part of the core of the book, which is around the pitch and the playbook that you've to round it. And again, you have based your structure— you talk very much about the Core 10 pitch deck framework. What is that system and the biggest deck mistake that you see? So tell us first about your Core 10, and then what's the biggest mistakes that you see? Because you've seen thousands of decks at this stage.

Oh my gosh, more decks than I don't know, uh, than you care to remember. Yeah, so You know, when I was doing all that research in the beginning, I took that year, right? And I said, I really want to understand the system and how do I make a change here? How do I impact it? You know, and ultimately decided a company is one of the ways that I think I can change the system. I also did a very deep dive into all the pitch deck guidance out there.

Mm-hmm.

From, you know, secondary research, academic research, real-world interviews with investors, right? All the things, because there's so much.

Yeah.

Out there, and there is no definitive way you're supposed to do this. And every time you pitch, someone gives you feedback like they're a pitch expert, right? And they're like, you should do this, you should do that. So I identified 10 just core sections of things that an investor needs to understand in order to decide, are you worth a second meeting or a third meeting? Yeah, right. So every pitch is meant to just get another meeting. It's not meant to get a check. So what do they need? And then the flip side of what do they need from each section of these core 10 is what is the risk they're looking to mitigate by understanding that?

Yes.

And that's the piece that founders don't often get told. And that's what I center the core 10 on. It's not just the section itself and what should go on a slide, it's every one of these carries a risk and you have to think like an investor to understand the risk they're trying to mitigate so you can tell them what they need to hear to do that.

Yeah.

Right? So like, for instance, we start with the very first section is your origin story, which is not clearly labeled in a lot of pitch deck guidance. A lot of it tells you to get right into the numbers. I can tell you every single investor needs to understand why you are doing what you're doing.

Yeah.

And if you don't have it in your deck, and particularly the rest of us tend to leave that out because we think we have to be more formal and we shouldn't get into the personal. But the risk is that you're gonna leave, right? When someone invests in you at the early stage, you are making all the decisions about how to spend the money they're giving you. You are building this company, and if you aren't in it for a deep enough reason, then you're just gonna start mentally checking out or maybe just close the company or leave or whatever. That's a big risk. That's a really big risk. So if you don't describe it, how are they gonna know?

Yeah.

You know, and then also human— I'm a psychology nerd. Human psychology says that if you feel an emotional connection, you actually pay more attention and retain more information to everything else that person says. So not only does the investor need to know, but you're using psychology in your favor.

And in, like, in the book, you share a lot about, like, you give the example of Shark Tank and how, you know, they do zoom in. It's like Dragon's Den for those on this side of the pond in Europe. But basically, tell us a little bit more about how that comes into play on those TV programs. But it is representing real life because they do show, they do focus on the founder story before getting into the nitty-gritty part of the pitch?

It always comes up. I mean, and we've had, we've had a bunch of founders who have been on both of those shows who have come through Scrubias. And it's not really real life, right? It's a show. They, uh, produce the heck out of it. But if you watch every clip, every segment, if the founder doesn't start with that why, that deeper reason, At some point, one of them, you know, the dragons or the sharks asks—

I'm out.

Yeah, well, they'll ask, they'll say, why are you doing this? Tell me why. And then it's a tear-filled moment and they pant to everyone's face, you know, being like, oh, like feeling it, right? There isn't a pitch that you see that doesn't have some element of that. And that's on purpose. That's the way they produce it because that's what ultimately draws human to human.

Yeah.

And humans are making the funding decisions.

Yes, exactly.

I love it.

Okay, so go through a little bit more in the core 10. So you, you kick off— because what I like is this is not like, okay, these are the 10 slides you need to have in this order. You talk about that. Okay, that we can find anywhere, even on ChatGPT.

Yeah.

But what's different in the book is you, you go into detail in each for, for the rest of us. And as you were explaining earlier, no, this is the angle that you need to showcase to show that you're de-risking this for the investor. So can you tell us, so you start off with your origin story, then walk us through the 10, just so we have that hero's journey to the next meeting.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, so we do say like the way we have ordered the core 10 does have a strong narrative arc, but you can mix them around as long as you hit all of them. So the way that it flows well is you start with your origin story or why you're doing this. Almost always there's a very natural bridge into the problem, right? So you have some association with the problem you're solving, and then it transfers into, and this is a really big problem.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right? And here you have to explain that this problem is big and thorny and exists independent of how you solve it.

Yes.

It has to exist in the world as is because you can solve a problem in a whole bunch of different ways. You're then going to tell us how your solution is the way to solve this problem, but the problem is independent, right? And that's the risk you're addressing, is that maybe there isn't actually a big acute pain point that people would be willing to pay to solve. That has to be true. So go right into it. Now we all believe in the problem, right? Okay, here's how you solve that problem. Not a different problem, not a whole bunch of problems, right? And this is part of the storytelling and the risk reduction is we figured out how to solve this problem for this group of people where it's so painful that they're going to pay, right? They're going to pay to solve that problem. So now those are the tickets to the game. That's why they're the top 3 of your section. If I don't believe you're doing it for the right reason, if I don't believe this problem is big and hairy and exists, and if I don't believe you can feasibly solve it, I don't really care about anything else that you're going to tell me because it doesn't really matter, right?

Yeah.

Like, those 3 have to be believable and compelling. That's why they're at the top. For all those guides that start with, oh, you better start with market size, I don't understand that instruction. There's no context yet.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, um, so those are the top 3. Then the rest of your pitch really is more about business mechanics. How are you going to make that all come true that you just told me, right? And this is why you need money, why you're pitching, to say, if I have the resources to do it, here's how that all plays out. So, you know, you've got your business model, okay, you've got a great solution, how does it make money? And this is such a key one, particularly for life sciences or deep tech or hard tech or things that maybe you don't start generating revenue until later, right, is to understand— or you're a scientific founder, okay, but who's paying you? Yeah, for this, and how are they paying, and why is that the right model for what you're selling?

And you do make that distinction very clearly in the book around like, you have to be very clear about who's payer, who's the buyer, and who's the user. They're not always the same person, and we can tend to forget that, or it can be so clear to us that we don't articulate it clearly to the investor on the other side of the table. So this is where, you know, you need to— if you're coming at it What do I need to give that investor? What information do I need to give him or her so that they can better understand what I'm talking about? Not, oh, I'm gonna tell this amazing story, and I have to get all these features, and I have to tell you everywhere. And they're just so psyched up because that's what we usually see. I mean, we usually see, and that unfortunately, a lot of accelerator programs format those founders. They push them through the same process, and they make them go on road and to like. Spit out. And, and maybe yes, they can be very eloquent and do a, a great showman version of a pitch, but it just is a polished little speech. It doesn't actually mean anything, you know. And so, and then if you're put on the spot, once they've gone deviated from the speech, they're like, uh, because they haven't maybe done the thinking and certainly not the de-risking and coming at it from the angle of the potential investor.

Totally, completely. And, and that is an unfortunate byproduct of a lot of accelerator programs. And I, I go into this into the book too. There's different styles of pitches that achieve different purposes, and accelerator programs usually culminate in a demo day.

Yeah.

Which is a performative style of pitch.

Exactly.

It has a very different purpose than an in-person meeting with an investor. you know, side by side. Uh, and yeah, they're, they're very different. Uh, so you still need to cover a lot of these same things in the Core 10, but again, totally different style. And when founders just memorize and get trained in their, you know, showmanship and performative, then they don't know how to act when it comes to the real-world meetings that happen after the accelerator program.

Exactly.

Uh, but yes, business model is, is a big part of it, and you don't have to have all the answers. No one believes leaves, you know exactly what's going to happen. But this is the risk that they're assessing, is do you understand who your paying customer is, right? And a lot of times it is different, especially for mission-driven, social-driven, you know, scientific-driven companies. Who ultimately benefits from your solution is not the person who pays you.

Pays.

And if you're looking for investment capital, the person who pays you is the one that matters. Yeah, that's the story that the investor needs to hear. Yeah, right. And even example from my last company, I had to really learn about CPT codes, right? Because—

What's CPT code? So you need to explain to us.

In the US, yeah, in the US it's part of, um, uh, how you get reimbursed for medical expenses because we have a ridiculously complicated private healthcare system. Uh, but if, uh, if a code, if the way that you can be reimbursed for a medical expense changes, which is controlled by the government, it can completely blow up your whole business model. So you have to look into when was this code established, do doctors currently use it, do they know how to use it, when is it up for reevaluation. These are things where if you're the, uh, you know, scientific inventor and founder and CEO, maybe you didn't even know you had to think about that stuff.

Yeah.

And then if you get asked that question in the business model part of a discussion with an investor, well, that's a risk if you didn't know that you had to know that stuff, right? Because you're selling a business, not—

Yeah.

Some big invention.

Yep.

So once you talk about your business model, then you get into the market size. Okay, I know how you generate revenue and from who. How much revenue could you generate? How big is this opportunity? Uh, in business model, I mean, I teach these workshops a lot. It is one of the most complicated sections for founders and the scariest, but I promise it doesn't have to be. I go into so much detail in the book in an easy way to conceptualize it. Um, there's a lot of misinformation out there that makes it harder than it needs to be. Anyone can do their market size. Um, but that's the risk is you actually couldn't sell enough, there's not a big enough total revenue opportunity to support somebody's investment. It doesn't mean that it doesn't support you getting capital from somewhere, but it could mean maybe you look at more debt resources or you need to focus more revenue generation because an investor wouldn't be able to get a multiple return because the market's just not big enough.

Mm-hmm.

And then we, you know, we're, we continue on. I, you know, I could go through all of it. There's, you know, there's your going to market, which really is about your customers. Do you understand how to reach them, how to sell to them, right? There's your team who's doing it with you. Doesn't have to mean you've hired a whole team. There's lots of ways to talk about who's building with you.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, uh, and that's really, you know, creating that story arc. Where you're leading someone through a very clear de-risking narrative of why this is a good investment opportunity. And, and at the end of the day, that's the story you're, you're telling, an investment story, which isn't intuitive because you don't— no one else needs that story but the investor.

Okay. So having— so you talk about the core deck, you talk about also in like, as we, a lot of founders know and love and learn, you need to have your appendices, you need to have other stuff up your sleeve, you can go into more or less detail, you'll have different versions that you add on and all that good stuff that's in the book. And we're not going to, as we say, lay it out blow by blow here. Because that's why you need to go read the book and get the insider side also around the what it looks like from the— for the rest of us, which is really, really useful and fantastic the way you do it. And as I said, it ain't a small book. Okay, guys, ladies, gentlemen, this is meaty beyond purpose. It's a Bible. It's a something to have that you can work with as you move along. So, given all of that context, Alison, what would you say are the biggest pitch deck mistakes that you've seen? Because again, you do that also through Scrubious, through your years and years of experience and what you— how you solve that part of the problem. What's the worst pitch deck mistakes that people make?

Oh, I mean, Today, a really big one is having AI just make your pitch deck.

Yes.

A newer problem, but it is immediately clear if you used something to generate these slides and just generate your content, and it— and you don't have the fundamental understanding behind it, and you haven't formatted it in the way that an investor needs to hear, which is what we just talked about, right? AI still, it cannot read the human behavior.

That's the whole thing. Yeah.

No. And a lot of founders use it because they might be uncomfortable with the graphic design of the deck. They feel like they can't produce something that looks as polished as is needed. But that's a way to use AI that is separate from the content that you put on your slides.

Yeah.

You have to think through your story. So like a big mistake that I see people make is they'll have a slide that maybe looks really polished, but it has a bunch of text and it's not really clear what even the point of this slide is. They're just throwing things in there.

Yeah.

An investor will just tune out. They, they won't take the time. They don't have the time.

Yeah.

To elicit what you wanted them to know. They're not reading all that text. So an answer to the mistakes— I always like to give the tactics of like, well, what do I do about it? Uh, and I go through this in the book— is putting a header statement at the top of your slide that just says the point of the slide. It is the number one thing that you can do, and investors love it because they'll use that as the backbone of your narrative.

Yeah.

They'll flip through and read all your headers and get the story, and then they can go back and look at the details that you're giving them. you've put on the slide itself. But AI doesn't do that, or doesn't say the right thing in the header. And founders will just have this spit out and send it because they think it's a numbers game, but it's not. It's a human game.

I love it. I love it. Okay, so what is the favorite tool or framework from the companion resources that you share in the book that you would kind of want to highlight?

Tool or framework? Um, that's not an— okay, so one tool that I would highlight is doing, uh, an ideal investor persona.

Yes.

So we, we all are taught about the ideal customer, right? Build your, your ICP, your ideal customer persona. Uh, you have to do that for investors too. We're kind of full circling back to the beginning of our conversation, which is great, which is Founders, you don't know who is an investor or not.

Yeah.

Honestly, you don't know who you talk to every day who might be an investor themselves or who might have access to the right investor for you. And a lot of the times we discount that. We say we need a list of investors or we need somebody introduce me to investors. But especially when we talk about private capital, You, you don't know. People don't have to go out there and say they are. And oftentimes people will gate that they do have the means to invest or the desire until they feel like they trust you.

Yeah.

Because that's when they open their access.

Yeah.

So when you build an ideal investor profile, and I have, that's one of the companion, you know, workbooks that's available to anyone with the book, is to think through. What type of person, regardless of whether I know they're an investor or not, what type of person would just get it?

Yeah.

They would get what I'm doing. They would get the problem. They would get me. Where do they live? What has their career been— look like? How old are they? What communities do they hang out in? Think through all those things. Then you have focus to find that person, to find your IIP. And then you have a conversation where you're both like, oh my God, yes, yes, right? You're, you're— it's so exciting. You start developing trust, you get access to their network. Maybe they have means that you didn't know about. That's how you raise in a relationship-first way, is you stop focusing on the investor title. Yeah. And you start focusing on the people. Yeah. That understand what you're doing.

So I love it. That's really, really good advice. Really, really good advice. Okay, now let's talk about reading the room. Okay, in the book you talk about silence is data, but not the way you think. So, because like basically what we're talking about here is when you get ghosted by investors, you have had 20 million conversations, you've done the WhatsApps, you've done 5 versions of the deck, you have given them the customer acts, You da da da da, and then suddenly silence. What can you say to the rest of us about how do you deal with that silence? It is so painful. And it's like when you're a first-time founder going through this process, you're like, again, it's like, what's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Okay, so help us navigate this silence.

Yes, there are many different reasons that silence or ghosting can happen, um, and it is infuriating and unknown and frustrating. I'm validating all those feelings, uh, and I kind of go back to, you know, the, the insight that I know and that I share now, which is try to react with curiosity.

Yeah.

Like, one, right, you You don't know why the silence. Again, it's all people. And if you take, if you take a venture fund, if they're the ones ghosting you, it could be that they, they just didn't have conviction. They weren't sure, but they don't have a yes or a no. And now you're kind of falling away, especially if you're waiting for them to follow up because you think you're top of mind, but, but you're not. In reality, you have to ping them consistently.

Hmm.

If it's a private investor, like I'm an angel investor, I am so underwater all of the time, and my ability to invest ebbs and flows as I have time to dedicate to it. Sometimes I really just don't have time, and it has nothing to do with the founder. I, you know, I'm missing out. That's on me. This has happened a bunch of times to me. And that could be the case. You know, you just never know. And so, So if you react with curiosity, you're able to send a communication that breaks through because you can say something like that, or you can ask questions, right? You can say, hey, you know, I've pinged you a few times. I thought we had really great rapport, and I thought you were really interested. Is that the case, or is maybe something else going on and you need some more time? Just let me know, right? And, and I do this all the time. You can also say— and I love when I get this kind of thing— like, hey, I'm gonna send you an email once a week for the next 3 weeks, and then I'm gonna stop, right? Like, you let me know.

Yeah.

And then you've put it out there, and someone— I can tell you, for someone reading that, you break through the crowd because you now have shown that you have that human curiosity and you're not just push, push, pushing. You're trying to understand.

Yeah, I love that. And I, I think that's such great advice, to approach the whole process with curiosity and not with stress and the trepidation. The stress is going to come because you want to get the money as fuel to be able to grow the business and take it to the next step. And you are juggling 20 million bowls and plates in the air at the same time, because that is what it is like to be a founder and a CEO or, you know, C-suite in a startup.

So I really like that. You know, that's what it's like to be an emerging fund manager too. Yeah, just having that empathy for the other side, right? Especially for the rest of us, we do tend to go pitch more emerging fund managers who will see us as familiar, right, who invest in women-led or minority-led businesses. They also are frantically trying to raise money for their fund.

Yeah.

From LPs who don't distribute equitably.

Yeah.

They are getting an enormous inbound of pitches. They can't invest in everything and they can't respond to everything as well. And So even just showing that empathy and saying, hey, I think we're in the same boat here, but I need to be able to move on if it's not of interest. Such a great way to maintain a relationship.

Very elegant. I love it. And it is, you, I mean, you say this very well throughout this conversation and also in the book. It is, I mean, funding, fundraising is a relationship game. It really, it, when it boils down to that. And so being mindful of the human on the other side of the table or the other side of the of the screen. It's everything, you know. And when somebody's going through a tough time, say that at the top of the call and say, hey, I know you've been going through this, I recognize it, and I'm sending you my best in this situation. Like, don't skid over it and just get down to business. We are humans at the end of the day, even though, you know, as you're saying, a lot of investors have so much on their plate. They really do. And there is this bias, and most of it is not intentional. That's so important. And therefore, we cannot take it personally, and we often do. Yeah. So I think all of those things are really, really important to remind ourselves. And also, another thing that you mentioned is about trust and how it's not built in the pitch. It's built in those moments before and after. It ties in very well to what we're just saying about the human side.

Yes.

Can you unpack that? A little bit more for us.

Yeah, I mean, this is why we see the bias that we see already, right? Is that access follows trust. Yeah, it follows relationship development. Capital or writing a check is a lagging indicator of the trust that has been built over time, right? If we take my own example, my origin story at my last company, Those funding discussions had already happened, right? Like, let's get real, that wasn't a cold pitching game by the folks who were able to raise after they acquired our company. They'd already talked about it. They already had a relationship. Of course they did.

Yeah.

We need those relationships too.

Yeah.

And because the rest of us haven't had access and we have been taught to try to access a thing that is inaccessible to us, we walk around with a lot of scarcity mindset, and we don't want to ask for things until we need them, and we focus on the transaction. But you're too late.

Yeah.

Right? You can't, you can't compress relationship building when you are having a transaction mindset. It has to start earlier. You have to just get to know people and see where that relationship might take you when you need it. And so, yeah, trust is built over time as the exchange of value-added actions, right? Even take you and I, we've known each other for years now, right? Loosely. And we help each other.

Yeah.

And we don't have an expectation of a transaction happening or a thing. We just are developing a trust pattern over time. And that's how funding ultimately does work. And if we pretend that we don't have to do that piece of it, We're not going to access what we need when we need it.

So true. So true. Also because trust is very easy to break but takes a long time to build. So it is about putting in those, putting in those things into the bank account before. And if the rest of us, we, what trusting someone from the rest of us looks different to trusting someone from a group that people are more used to being with, that trust-building process can take longer. So it's about being patient as well.

Yeah.

And, and being mindful of our own biases because we may suddenly think, oh, they're not going to do because X, Y, you know, it's not like not all investors are anti-X, Y, Z group. Yeah, it's not the case. So Um, are some of them ruthless peacocks who want to make loads of money? Absolutely. But that's the game that they're in. And it's like, we need to be mindful in this game, we're gonna have a whole gamut of people that we're gonna have to deal with.

And don't go to those people. You don't need them, right?

Like, exactly, exactly.

Don't, don't waste your time. Focus on what is the right use of your own time.

Brilliant. So in this Few questions. I want to kind of wrap up around how does this book, Fundraising for the Rest of Us, how does that link with the work that you're doing at Scrubious? Build that bridge for us.

Yeah, so I love that question. Uh, I mean, the book is, uh, is the guide, right? It is the reference. It is meant to be that thing that you dog-ear and come back to. Scrubious, our platform, is where you put it into action. This is where you go, where you do meet the people you need to meet at the right time, and you start building trust patterns and relationships. That's the platform playing out the structure that the book teaches.

Amazing. And where can listeners and viewers go get the book? Where's the best place to go look for it and to connect with you?

Well, you can get the book anywhere. Uh, you can get it anywhere you buy books. Uh, if you walk into a physical bookstore and it's not there, they can order it for You, it is on Amazon and Bookshop, and you can buy it direct. You can go to my personal website, which is allisonbyers.com, and there's all the links to the book, or the company website, scrubius.com, has a banner at the top announcing that the book is out, and you can click there. But pretty, pretty easy to find the book. And I'm very active on LinkedIn. I'm very active on our own platform on Scrubius. You've got direct contact. to me there. Um, and yeah, I, I really hope that what I put out there— um, oh, and we send a free weekly newsletter every Friday where I write all about this stuff.

Um, which is great. Which is great. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I get excited because your newsletters are fantastic and you write very well. The book is well written. You explain things very well, and I love the way you curate things with care, Allison. You are a great communicator. You are a fantastic communicator. So it's a joy to get— I think it arrived in my mailbox earlier today, if I'm not mistaken. I could see it popping up. I'm like, oh, there she is.

I would love the one today. Yeah, every Friday morning. Today is a whole real-world example of how we shifted helping a founder who experienced all the stuff we talk about with venture for her company and did a fundraising salon in the suburbs with moms who were active investors or investor curious, who totally got it. Those are the ideal investor profiles, and raised money, uh, successfully that way.

Love, love, love, love. How can we put more fun into funding, Alison?

I love it. Um, yeah, it should be fun, right? This should be fun. It shouldn't be a drag to go innovate and build and better our society through what we're doing. And I honestly do believe it, it is focusing less on the transaction of the investment and more on finding people that align with you and building relationships together. And that ultimately does lead to what you need. It can sound squishy or soft. You know, people like to gravitate toward the harder the numbers and the checks. But again, they don't come without the human part of it.

Yeah.

And it's how you have fun. You meet people that you get along with, that you align with. You end up collaborating. I'm on your podcast twice, right? Like, we, we do all these things because we're focused on the humans that we are, and we are aligned with each other, and that's fun. Uh, fundraising is— it doesn't have to be hard and scary. It can be just Growing your network and helping people.

I love it. Thank you so, so much, Alison. What would be your last message, your parting message to our audience today? If there's one thing that you want them to go away with today, what is it?

Oh gosh, what I want them to go away with is that it can be really difficult to keep going with what you're doing if you feel like you don't matter. We all need to feel like we matter.

Yeah.

When you're in a system that tells you you don't matter, you have to have the confidence to move out of that system and meet the people who do, who believe that you do matter. If you've got to be able to do that, or you will get beaten down. Uh, and so I just want everyone want to know you do matter and, and move to places that believe in that.

I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your tips, your amazing new book, but really your philosophy about fundraising for the rest of us, Alison. It's always a joy, um, always a joy. Never two without three, so let's say here's to the next one that we'll do in another I hope we get to do this again in another few years because there has to be another one. It doesn't end here. And I wish you every success with the book and continued success with Scrubius and all of your, your work. And yeah, look forward to many more adventures with us together too.

Oh, likewise. Thank you so much, Anne.