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Running a first meeting with a seed investor

Five members of the Consumer VC work group on what a founder should spend a first meeting on.

Updated October 13, 2026

Spend the meeting on the customer, the product and the behavior behind your numbers, and leave room for a candid exchange about what is weak.

  • Start with how the customer is changing. Kirsten Green wants to hear the shift in the customer and why the product fits it now, then see a product, a test and an early sign that customers care. Alfred Lin ties why the company will matter in ten years to a customer problem the founder can describe in detail.
  • Explain the behavior behind your numbers. Niko Bonatsos asks who uses the product and how often they return; five million downloads say little if only 10% use the app. Josh Elman suggests one or two user stories and a measure of real use, like Twitter's count of people who visited at least seven times a month.
  • Show the product and the decisions behind it. Nabeel Hyatt learns more about a founder's judgment from what a user experiences and a choice the team made than from a market-size slide. Josh adds the story of a user who left, came back, and what the team changed because of it.
  • Use the meeting to judge the investor. Alfred tells founders to show weak data next to strong data, ask what needs work, and watch how the investor responds to decide whether they would be a steady partner when things go badly.

Group chat with Kirsten, Alfred, Nabeel, Niko, Josh — the Consumer VC work group

Question:

What should a founder focus on in a first meeting with an early-stage investor?

Kirsten Green
Kirsten GreenFounder and Managing Partner of Forerunner. Board member at Glossier
Show me how you see the customer changing, and why your product fits that change now. Michael Dubin changed my view of Dollar Shave Club when he described a man becoming more interested in self-care while the products on store shelves still spoke to an older idea of him. That consumer insight made a difficult category look different.wwd
Then show what you have done with the insight: a product, a test, and an early sign that customers care. At seed, I look for a founder who can turn an idea into action and see some early consumer response. Do your homework for the meeting, but speak in your own voice about why you're building it.wwd+1
Niko Bonatsos
Niko BonatsosFounder of Verdict Capital. Former Managing Director at General Catalyst
In my first meeting with Saturn’s founders, they described a problem they lived: scheduling time with friends was harder than scheduling work calls. Their proof of concept already showed striking engagement and retention. Their personal connection to high school users made the product and those early numbers much more convincing.Medium
Bring the same precision to your own meeting. Say who uses the product, how often they return, and what you have learned from watching them. Five million downloads tells me little if only 10% use the app; an expression of interest is different from a paying customer. I want to leave understanding the customer behavior behind your numbers and the specific problem you are determined to solve.Medium
Josh Elman
Josh ElmanPartner at Andreessen Horowitz. Founded the growth team at Twitter
I’d spend the first meeting explaining the user behavior you’re trying to create: who needs the product, what they do with it, and why they come back. If you have users, bring one or two specific stories and a number that captures meaningful use. At Twitter, we tracked people who visited at least seven times in a month because that behavior predicted they would return the next month. A headline traffic number would have told us far less.Medium
If you’re pre-launch, make the idea easy enough to explain that someone could tell a friend why both of them would use it. Then show that you understand the category and have a concrete plan to learn and improve as users react. Those are the two things I’ve said I look for in very early consumer opportunities.Medium
Nabeel Hyatt
Nabeel HyattEIR and former General Partner at Spark Capital. Board observer at Discord
So spend the first meeting on the product and the decisions behind it. Show me what a user actually experiences, then explain a choice you made, what you learned, and what you'd change next. That's the work you've spent the most time thinking about, and it gives me a much better read on your judgment than a market-size slide. In my first half-hour call, I'm trying to decide whether we should have a longer conversation.Spotify
Alfred Lin
Alfred LinPartner at Sequoia Capital. Former Chairman and COO of Zappos
Start with why the company will matter in ten years, then connect that claim to the customer problem you can describe in detail today. At seed, when the company may be one or two people and an idea, the useful evidence can be about the market and why it matters. Explain why you are the right founder to see the opening and what you will build differently for the customer.Medium
Lauren Myrick made that concrete in our first call about Found. She could explain the tax forms and specific hurdles self-employed people face, drawing on her accounting background and work at Square Payroll. We kept talking well past the scheduled time because she knew the customer problem in detail.Medium
Leave time for a candid exchange. Show the weak data alongside the strong data, ask what in the pitch or business needs work, and watch how the investor responds. You are deciding whether that person can be a sparring partner when things go well and a steady partner when they go badly.Medium
Josh Elman
Josh ElmanPartner at Andreessen Horowitz. Founded the growth team at Twitter
One useful way to show the judgment Nabeel is describing is to tell the story of a user who signed up, left, and later returned. Ask what brought them in, where the first experience failed, why they tried again, and what finally made the product useful. At Twitter, people initially thought they needed to broadcast something; returning users discovered value by following the right people. That finding changed our onboarding and messaging. A founder who can explain a learning like that gives an investor a concrete view of how the product will improve.Medium

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In This Conversation

  • Kirsten Green
    Kirsten Green

    Founder and Managing Partner of Forerunner. Board member at Glossier

  • Alfred Lin
    Alfred Lin

    Partner at Sequoia Capital. Former Chairman and COO of Zappos

  • Nabeel Hyatt
    Nabeel Hyatt

    EIR and former General Partner at Spark Capital. Board observer at Discord

  • Niko Bonatsos
    Niko Bonatsos

    Founder of Verdict Capital. Former Managing Director at General Catalyst

  • Josh Elman
    Josh Elman

    Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Founded the growth team at Twitter

See all

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Which questions trip founders up in a first investor meeting?

    Why the company will matter in 10 years, why a customer changes what they do, who comes back and why, and what this round pays for. Each needs a specific example or number.

  • How should an early-stage pitch deck be structured?

    Around one story. With a working demo, one order is the shift, the demo, the business model, evidence of behavior, how the business grows, what can't be copied, then team, risks and the raise.

  • What do investors look for before a startup has traction?

    Founders who live the problem and have real insight into it, an idea people would describe to a friend, and early users who return on their own, even if there are few of them.

  • How does a pre-seed round work?

    Usually one lead sets the terms and angels fill in around it. Size the round from the milestones it has to reach, keep one instrument and one cap, and keep the open window short.

  • What makes an accelerator application stand out?

    Why this team has an edge on this problem, a product the reviewer can try, numbers that hold up to a follow-up question, and a change the team shipped after watching users.

  • What goes in a monthly investor update?

    Runway and 3 to 6 consistent metrics, wins and setbacks, people changes, next month's milestones, the biggest open risk, and two or three asks an investor can act on.

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