Figuring out who to bring in your first meeting is very important. You need to make sure that you have brought the members of your leadership team that will help you achieve your objective.

It's important that the people responsible for figuring out the 'what' and the 'how' are there. The person answering the 'what' is usually the visionary who developed the concept for the business. The person addressing the 'how' is often the CEO.  If not, the CEO should come as well.

It's frequently the case in an early stage company that one person is answering the 'what' and 'how'. However, if there is only one person leading the charge it's worthwhile to bring along the second most senior person (e.g., head of development), as VCs want to learn about your team's compatibility.

However, bringing too many people can also be problematic.  VC teams usuaully initially allocate one or two people to a deal in order to spread their available man-hours across a lot of deals.  As a result, you will usually only be meeting with 1 or 2 VCs. If you bring 4 or more people to the meeting create an awkward dynamic; it might seem like you are trying to intimidate the VC through numbers (which you won't) and it dillutes the intimacy of the interaction, limiting your ability to develop the relationship with the VC.

As the business becomes more mature you will likely feel compelled to bring more people as there is more to talk about.  However if you bring too many people from your bench, you're probably trying to do too much in the first meeting.

In sum, you should bring two or three people to the meeting, unless you really need more than that to explain the 'what' and the 'how'.

Comments

[Jonathan Treiber]

Very helpful post Mark. Thanks for the insights.

[Caroline]

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www.SocialRank.com

[Kristian Hansen]

Mark,

Agreed about the numbers to bring to a meeting. If you're only meeting with one VC its probably best to not bring more than two founders. Three would be a maximum number, otherwise the rapport is hard to develop.

Especially when you consider that the meeting will likely last for less than an 45 minutes.

It should not take more than two people to explain your concept.

Kristian
Biltmore Ventures