Behind the curtain: Product & technology

What goes on behind the closed doors of a partner meeting? Why didn’t that investor back your round? Investor and Limited Partner thinking is often cloaked in secrecy—after all, nobody wants to be the one to say no to the next great Unicorn. So this year we’re taking you behind the scenes to show you how investors think. From product and tech, to culture, to finance and more, we take you behind the scenes for five-minute glimpses into how investment decisions are made.

What do you make?
A startup is searching for a sustainable, repeatable business model. That means discovering an unmet need within a market, then creating the product that satisfies that need. While not all startups are technology companies, most are, because the primary goal of a startup is rapid scale—something that digital systems do far better than physical ones.

The first question investors need answered, then, is what does the company sell, and how is it built? What proves that the product will meet market needs predictably and reliably while delighting customers? What are the inputs to the product, the technologies on which it depends? Is the technology realistic, is the roadmap realistic, and are the systems scalable?