Dileep Thazmon pitched an investor who'd just raised 400M, got rejected at the start of COVID, and learned to plan the next move after a no. His advice: identify the minimum you need to reach the next stage, then find ways to do more with less. You get hit nine times, he says. It's the 10th that counts.
I remember there was a fund that had just raised around, like, a big round, like, maybe 400 million to start investing. So I'm like, I know they have money. They had invested in other companies that came out of Stanford with a lot of success. And I was like, okay, like, I want to, like, go to them, talk to them, see if they can invest. And we went through the full diligence cycle. They called me and I was like, this is, like, happening. And they were like, we can't do this. Like, we just don't feel like we can get there. And I remember what I asked, which I hated myself, but I was like, okay, what if we lowered the price? And like, I hated myself for saying that one. You know, like, are we ever going to get this funded? Because that was also when Covid started. So, like, I had no idea. People were like, this is gonna be five years. Like, nothing's gonna happen. So timing wise, probably not the best timing to what is the next plan? Right? Like, because, like, the, like, if you run a startup, if you start anything, you're always gonna have obstacles, right? So the second part was like, what is the next plan? Like, what do you need as a minimum to get to the next stage? And then three, how can we do more with less? So, like, yeah, I had two bourbons, and I'm like, what are the other options? The whole game is you're going to get hit, like nine times. It's the 10th time that counts.
