8 min Read Time<\/p>\n
Founders who have built companies themselves – and later invested in others – see the pitch process through a different lens. Jakob Bach knows both sides: as a founder, he pitched; as an investor, he evaluates pitches. The things that never appear in any pitch deck – but decide whether you get a yes or a no. 92 percent of startups fail within their first three years. Fewer than 1 percent of pitches result in investment. And 70 percent of investors\u2019 decisions hinge not on numbers, but on the quality of the team.<\/strong><\/p>\n Every Investor<\/a> has an official checklist: market size, team, traction, unit economics. These items appear in every guidebook and accelerator presentation. What\u2019s missing? Investors make a large portion of their decisions based on signals that are hard to quantify.<\/p>\n How does the founder respond to an uncomfortable question? Does she know her weaknesses – and can she discuss them without slipping into defensive mode? How does he talk about his team when team members aren\u2019t in the room? These signals aren\u2019t \u201csoft skills.\u201d They\u2019re hard indicators of leadership resilience – the ability to steer a company through crisis. Because that\u2019s exactly what investors fund: not the idea itself, but the founder\u2019s capacity to execute it under pressure.<\/p>\n After dozens of pitches on both sides of the table, I can say: the best founders don\u2019t sell. They explain<\/a>. And they listen. They answer the question that was asked – not the one they wish had been asked. It sounds basic, but it\u2019s the difference between a pitch that sticks in memory and one forgotten ten minutes later.<\/p>\n The biggest dealbreaker for me as an investor isn\u2019t a bad month or a missed metric. It\u2019s the inability to openly address problems. Every startup has problems. If a founder presents everything as flawless, I know immediately something\u2019s off – either they don\u2019t recognize their challenges (bad), or they\u2019re deliberately concealing them (worse).<\/p>\n The strongest pitches I\u2019ve seen began with a problem – not the customer\u2019s, but the founder\u2019s own. \u201cWe spent three months building the wrong thing. Here\u2019s what we learned.\u201d That kind of honesty builds far more trust than any hockey-stick chart. Why? Because it signals learning agility – the single strongest predictor of long-term success.<\/p>\n A concrete example: I once met a founder who voluntarily disclosed his highest customer churn rate – not because he had to, but to show how he\u2019d used that insight to build a better onboarding process. That grabbed my attention more than any revenue forecast. Because it revealed a founder who solves problems – not hides them.<\/p>\n Pitch mistake #1: trying to wow investors with TAM figures. \u201cThe global market for X is $47 billion.\u201d So what? What does that say about your<\/em> startup? Nothing. Every investor has seen that slide a hundred times – and skips it. What matters isn\u2019t the total market size, but your concrete path to capturing a piece of it.<\/p>\n Bottom-up beats top-down. \u201cWe currently serve 120 paying customers at an ARPU of \u20ac890. Our sales cycle is 23 days. With our current team, we onboard 15 new customers per month. In 18 months, we\u2019ll hit \u20ac2 million ARR.\u201d That\u2019s a market-sizing argument that convinces – not because the numbers are huge, but because they\u2019re credible and traceable. An investor wants to understand how<\/em> you\u2019ll get from A to B – not how big C might theoretically be.<\/p>\n The flip side: some founders become so enamored with their bottom-up math that they forget to articulate the bigger vision. Balance is key: show me how you\u2019ll survive the next 18 months and<\/em> why this could become a \u20ac100-million business in five years. Both – not one or the other.<\/p>\n When I was raising capital myself, I thought it was all about the perfect presentation – the flawless metrics, the compelling story. Today I know it\u2019s about fit. Not every investor is right for every startup – and timing matters. A \u201cno\u201d often doesn\u2019t mean \u201cyour startup is weak,\u201d but rather \u201cit doesn\u2019t align with my current portfolio\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t yet grasp your market well enough.\u201d<\/p>\n My top advice to founders fundraising now: vet your investors as carefully as they vet you. Ask about their failed investments. Ask how they behave in crises. An investor who\u2019s a friend in good times but silent in tough ones is the wrong partner. Smart money means more than capital – it means support when things get hard.<\/p>\n Reality in the DACH market: according to EY\u2019s Startup-Barometer, \u20ac8.4 billion flowed into German, Austrian, and Swiss startups in 2025 – a recovery after the funding winter. But expectations have shifted. Investors no longer finance growth at any cost. They finance efficient<\/em> growth – companies that generate more revenue per euro invested than the average. For founders, that means your pitch must prove not just that the business is growing – but that it can grow profitably.<\/p>\n As Tom Wehmeier, Partner and Head of Research at Atomico, put it: \u201cInvestors no longer finance growth at all costs. They finance efficient<\/em> growth – companies that generate more revenue per euro invested than the average.\u201d Not all investors operate the same way. From my experience, there are three core archetypes – and your pitch must align with the right one.<\/p>\n The Thesis Investor<\/strong> holds a clear investment thesis: specific sectors, stages, or business models. If your startup doesn\u2019t fit, pitching – even brilliantly – is wasted time. The upside? If you do<\/em> fit, you gain a partner who deeply understands your market and delivers real strategic value. Pre-pitch research is critical here: study their portfolio companies, read their LinkedIn posts, internalize their thesis.<\/p>\n The Opportunist<\/strong> casts a wide net and reacts to compelling opportunities. He lacks a rigid thesis and instead seeks exceptional teams and strong momentum. Here, personal impression outweighs everything else. The downside? Less industry expertise – and less support during crises, because he doesn\u2019t know your domain deeply enough.<\/p>\n The Operator-Investor<\/strong> has founded companies himself and invests from lived experience. I count myself among this group. The advantage? He grasps operational challenges firsthand. The risk? He may project his own experiences onto your situation instead of listening. The best pitch for an operator-investor shows: \u201cI know what you\u2019ve been through – and I\u2019m doing it differently, because our context is different.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The single best way to understand the investor perspective? Invest yourself – even small angel investments of \u20ac5,000 or \u20ac10,000 fundamentally shift your perception. Suddenly, you\u2019re sitting on the other side of the table – and realize: the questions you once dismissed as tedious are, in fact, the most important ones.<\/p>\n What my first angel investment taught me: I backed a startup whose founder emotionally convinced me during the pitch. The numbers were solid, the team likable, the vision inspiring. Six months in, it emerged that the founder had deliberately omitted a critical issue – not lied, but left it out. The investment wasn\u2019t lost, but trust was damaged. Since then, I ask every founder in every pitch: \u201cWhat\u2019s the biggest risk we haven\u2019t discussed yet?\u201d<\/em> Their answer reveals more than any slide.<\/p>\n For founders in the Reboot Germany context<\/a>, there\u2019s an added layer: the DACH market follows its own rules. German investors are more conservative than U.S. VCs, weigh profitability more heavily than growth, and expect greater operational substance in pitches. A pitch that wins in San Francisco will fail in Munich if it can\u2019t clearly answer: \u201cWhen will you be profitable?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Authenticity beats perfection:<\/strong> Investors spot facades instantly. Openness about failure builds more trust than polished decks. Show your learning curve – not just your results.<\/p>\n The invisible checklist matters most:<\/strong> Beyond hard KPIs, investors assess how you handle pressure, your self-awareness, and how you speak about your team. Your reaction to the third<\/em> tough question says more than your revenue growth.<\/p>\n Investor fit isn\u2019t one-way:<\/strong> Founders should vet investors as rigorously as investors vet founders – especially for crisis moments. Check references, speak to portfolio founders, and ask directly about failed investments.<\/p>\n Explain – not sell:<\/strong> The strongest pitches come from founders who listen – not just present. A dialogue beats any pitch deck.<\/p>\n Bottom-up – not top-down:<\/strong> Show your concrete path to \u20ac2 million ARR – not the \u20ac47 billion TAM number. Clarity trumps spectacle.<\/p>\n Choose the right timing:<\/strong> Not every moment is right for fundraising. If metrics aren\u2019t yet strong, wait three months and return with better numbers – rather than entering negotiations from a weak position. Time is a resource founders consistently underestimate.<\/p>\n The Funding Winter of 2023\/2024 permanently reshaped the investor landscape. The era where a compelling narrative and a charismatic founder sufficed is over. Today, three things matter above all: demonstrable product-market fit, sustainable unit economics, and a business model that could survive without venture capital<\/a>. That sounds paradoxical – especially while raising VC. But that\u2019s precisely the point: investors want to back companies that don\u2019t need<\/em> the money to survive – only to accelerate.<\/p>\n This holds especially true in the DACH market. German investors learned from the Funding Winter that valuation discipline matters more than deal volume. Average pre-money valuations have dropped 30-40 percent from their 2021\/2022 peak. That\u2019s bad news for founders relying on inflated valuations to sustain their story – but great news for those building real businesses.<\/p>\n The good news? For well-founded, profitably growing startups, the market is stronger than ever. There\u2019s less competition for investor attention, since \u201chype startups\u201d have vanished. And the investors still active are hunting seriously for the best companies – not chasing FOMO-driven deals. Anyone raising capital in this environment gets not just money, but an investor who chose deliberately.<\/p>\n Header Image Source: Pexels \/ RDNE Stock project<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Founders who have built companies themselves – and later invested in others – see the pitch process through a different lens. Jakob Bach knows both sides: as a founder, he pitched; as an investor, he evaluates pitches. The things that never appear in any pitch deck – but decide whether you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":88159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"investors","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Investors: What VCs truly look for in founders","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Digitalisierung, KI & Business: Boost growth with AI insights. Learn investor expectations & pitch better today!","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-adv":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"featured_post_sortierung":0,"featured_post":0,"pre_headline":"","bildquelle":"","teasertext":"","language":"de","_evm_translation_lang":"","_wp_old_slug":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fintech-financial-services","entry"],"evm_reading_time_minutes":12,"wpml_language":"en","wpml_translation_of":88160,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
\n
The Invisible Checklist<\/h2>\n
Source: Harvard Business School<\/span><\/div>\nThe Most Common Mistake: Pretending to Be Perfect<\/h2>\n
The TAM Trap: Why Top-Down Market Sizes Impress No One<\/h2>\n
What I Wish I\u2019d Known Earlier – as a Founder<\/h2>\n
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\nSource: State of European Tech 2024, Atomico<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe Three Investor Archetypes – and How to Spot Them<\/h2>\n
Training Investor Literacy: The Underrated Lever<\/h2>\n
The Unspoken Pitch Checklist<\/h2>\n
What Changed in 2026<\/h2>\n
Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s the most common mistake in investor pitches?<\/summary>\n
How important is the pitch deck, really?<\/summary>\n
What do investors look for beyond the numbers?<\/summary>\n
How do founders find the right<\/em> investor?<\/summary>\n
Can founders train their investor literacy?<\/summary>\n
How did the Funding Winter change the DACH market?<\/summary>\n
Further Reading<\/h2>\n
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