2013.02.05
500 Global Team
Tracy Lawrence is the CEO of Chewse, a B2B marketplace for corporate meals. Chewse has catered 20,000 meals to hungry offices that include Wells Fargo, PWC, and Cornerstone. Being from Los Angeles, she went to USC and is a proud Trojan, vegetarian, and lover of all desserts. Watch her pitch live with the rest of Batch 5 later this week.
Preview Day is a private event here at 500 Startups that involves a bonanza of 30-second pitches from portfolio companies (including my startup, Chewse, please follow us on AngelList). I’ve learned a lot from the preparation process – mainly the importance of being a lot more human and open to fuck-ups.
Learning to be vulnerable for Preview Day
For the past 2 weeks, my 500 Startups batchmates and I launched into preparation for Demo Day – what I think of as “graduation from startup school.” 500 Startups does an incredible job of rounding up the tribe of mentors, LPs, and investors to drop into the space and offer us constructive feedback on our pitches.
Okay, that’s the nice way to put it.
It actually feels like a relentless barrage of heat-seeking missiles aimed at all your weaknesses. It feels like kryptonite condensed into cough syrup that is then less-than-lovingly shoved down your throat.
I embellish slightly, but only to illustrate how much the process wears on you personally as a founder. I heard a mentor tell a founder that he shouldn’t be the person to pitch his own company. I was personally told at one time that I wasn’t telling my best story. Can you imagine how all these criticisms about your pitch end up feeling like reflections of you?
So here’s the secret: As a founder, you must learn to open up instead of closing off.
At many points of the process of pitching and fundraising, you feel like a rag doll volleying between bits of advice. But ultimately, you have to embrace feedback, come to terms with your emotions, and be real. It makes you human. People like to work with humans, investors like to invest in humans, and being relatable is an important piece of building charisma.
Being brave means being human
I was blown away the first time I watched Brené Brown’s TED talk on The Power of Vulnerability — and I’m still learning things each time I watch it.
BIG takeway: Being vulnerable and being courageous are not mutually exclusive. In fact, being vulnerable is incredibly brave.
As entrepreneurs, we are vulnerable to risk, inexperience, and failure. I especially relish the story of the original Zappos founder walking into shoe stores and being laughed at for suggesting that he could sell off the majority of their inventory just by posting it online. Or how the Yelp crew took to the streets to sign people up by hand with a good old-fashioned clipboard. And how it took them 8 years to IPO.
Brown points out that the word “courage” is based on the Latin root cor — which means “heart.” Being courageous is not being the fearless leader who can charge into a room, hide all emotion, and lead stoically. In fact, it’s the person who can embrace the fear of being vulnerable and tell the story of who she is with her whole heart — that’s the brave one.
How an Argentine taught me to dance (of course!!!)
One moment in particular sort of zapped the human back into me. The other founders and I are backstage doing a dress rehearsal for Preview Day at the 500 offices. The views overlooking the South Bay were stunning, the event music bumping, and I’m sitting in the back…looking ready for an earthquake to hit. In all honesty, I looked pretty stern getting my game face on.
Enter Ricardo, the founder of Femeninas. He’s from Argentina, has a classic Latin accent, and he’ll tell you just what he knows about Spanish-speaking women (you have to see his pitch to understand). He doesn’t just look calm – his whole face is lit up. He’s certainly nervous, but you can tell he’s damn well going to have fun with it.
He notices my stonewall expression and tries to make me laugh. I’m trying to be the zenith of calm here, the Buddha of the Bay, and he’s trying to break my focus. But his smile was pretty damn infectious. And smiling is definitely worth it.
That’s when I realized I was making a desperate attempt to be stoic and emotionless – that’s not even human, it’s not even me! I woke up, popped up, hopped around. I just gave in.
The end result? I didn’t just walk on stage for Preview Day, I danced onstage…with 100 investors watching.
Getting heated is hot
It’s okay to get a little nervous, it’s great to show passion, it’s ideal to embrace being human.
I share this story not *just* to be self-deprecating, but hopefully to give you the safety line of humanity to hold onto when things get rough. It’s a safety rope, people, not the third rail.
So the next time I pitch my startup or coach another, expect me to be a little heated, a little passionate, and thoroughly human.
Many thanks in the Preview Day pitch process to my two North Stars: Jeff, my co-founder, and Khailee, 500’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence. These two worked countless hours with me to quell my fears, challenge my assumptions, and offer a solid hug when the time came to go on-stage.
2. AS OF 30 JUNE 2023 AND INCLUDES PRIVATE, PUBLIC AND EXITED COMPANIES. FOR EXITED POSITIONS, VALUATION DATE IS DATE OF EXIT. THESE FIGURES ARE ESTIMATES, AGGREGATED ACROSS ALL PORTFOLIO COMPANIES HELD ACROSS ALL FUNDS ADVISED BY 500 STARTUPS MANAGEMENT COMPANY, LLC AND ITS AFFILIATES, AND ARE BASED ON INTERNAL DATA THAT HAS NOT BEEN EXTERNALLY VERIFIED AND RELIES ON PORTFOLIO INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY EXTERNAL SOURCES WHICH HAS NOT BEEN VERIFIED, MAY NOT BE ACCURATE OR UPDATED. THESE VALUATIONS ARE ESTIMATED IN ACCORDANCE WITH 500 GLOBAL’S VALUATION POLICY. SEE 500.CO/COMPANIES FOR A FULL LIST OF PORTFOLIO COMPANIES. PAST PERFORMANCE DOES NOT GUARANTEE FUTURE RETURNS. PORTFOLIO COMPANIES DISPLAYED ON THIS PAGE ARE NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL INVESTMENTS IN VEHICLES MANAGED BY 500 STARTUPS MANAGEMENT COMPANY, L.L.C. (TOGETHER WITH ITS AFFILIATES, “500 GLOBAL”) AND THERE CAN BE NO ASSURANCE THAT THE INVESTMENTS WILL BE PROFITABLE OR THAT OTHER INVESTMENTS MADE IN THE FUTURE WILL HAVE SIMILAR CHARACTERISTICS OR RESULTS. THIS LIST INCLUDES CURRENT AND FORMER 500 GLOBAL PORTFOLIO COMPANIES WHICH HAVE BEEN ACQUIRED AS WELL AS COMPANIES WHICH HAVE UNDERGONE AN INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING. THIS LIST IS UPDATED PERIODICALLY AND AS SUCH MAY NOT REFLECT RECENT 500 GLOBAL INVESTMENTS. PAST RESULTS OF 500 GLOBAL INVESTMENTS, POOLED INVESTMENT VEHICLES, OR INVESTMENT STRATEGIES ARE NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. NO CONTENT ON THIS PAGE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS AN OFFER TO SELL OR SOLICITATION OF INTEREST TO PURCHASE ANY SECURITIES, CONSTRUCTED AS FUND MARKETING MATERIALS BY PROSPECTIVE INVESTORS CONSIDERING AN INVESTMENT INTO ANY 500 GLOBAL FUND, OR USED AS THE BASIS FOR ANY INVESTMENT DECISIONS. ALL LOGOS, NAMES, AND TRADEMARKS OF THIRD PARTIES REFERENCED HEREIN ARE THE TRADEMARKS AND LOGOS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. ANY INCLUSION OF SUCH TRADEMARKS OR LOGOS DOES NOT IMPLY OR CONSTITUTE ANY APPROVAL, ENDORSEMENT OR SPONSORSHIP OF 500 GLOBAL BY SUCH OWNERS.
3. AS OF 30 JUNE 2023. INCLUDES LOCATION OF EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS AND CONSULTANTS.