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FUNDRAISING

Ithought I knew what I was doing. I had read the business books. I knew the “12 Essential Slides” you needed in any fundraising pitch. I could talk at length about the problem we saw, the solution we offered, the market opportunity, and the competition. But here I was at a famous Sand Hill Road* venture capital firm pitching my heart out, and the guy across the desk was asleep.

Not metaphorically asleep. He’d literally fallen asleep in the middle of my presentation. Needless to say, he did not invest.

It was the summer of 2009. Todd and I were trying to raise seed funding for Okta, and it wasn’t going well. We had pitched ...