I think that a problem that exacerbates other problems in the fundraising community for black people is that sometimes entrepreneurs and investors speak two different languages.

Allow me to explain. 1/

For some of us, our idea of entrepreneurship is focused on building a business with an old school mentality: build a business that generates money and try to spend less than it costs to do so. Seems pretty intuitive. 2/

But investors have become accustomed to a specific kind of storytelling in pitches. This storytelling often sets the stage for conversations around typical VC topics: product market fit, customer acq., sales cycle, business model, etc. & the technical jargon that comes w/ that 3/

If you haven’t been exposed to that before, or haven’t had those questions asked before, you might have never thought about your business in that light. But investors may not even take the time to explain it to you. The storytelling part is key and so is the jargon. 4/

Now, I know this may not be true for a lot of black founders, but I know it could be true for some. My freshman year of college we had a startup that failed because we knew nothing about any of this and had NO ONE to help w/ storytelling/jargon/fundraising 5/

And I’d hate to see other people struggling with not knowing what they don’t know. Idk if people outside of tech/top business schools really realize just how niche so much of this is. It’s important for those of us who can to try to share as much of this info as possible 6/

Because let’s be clear, people who’ve grown up or gone to school with certain networks have gotten access to folks who help w/ their pitch decks and their stories and explain the jargon giving them a leg up even when the business they are working on is not superior. 7/