vc-partner-meeting

VC Partner Meeting Skill

The most important meeting of your fundraise is one you're not in. This skill runs it early: four partners who just watched your pitch debate it the way funds actually do — pattern-matching, fund math, and all — then commit a verdict to the internal memo.

What This Skill Produces

• The transcript — four partner archetypes discussing your company, each in a distinct voice
• The internal memo — the fund/pass/track verdict with the reasoning a fund would actually write down
• The debrief — out of character: objections ranked by fixability before your real meeting

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The pitch — deck text, memo, or a summary of the business (stage, traction, team, market, raise amount, valuation ask)
• The fund context (optional) — fund size and stage focus; default to a $300M multi-stage fund if absent
• Known objections (optional) — what pushback the user has already heard

Framework: The Four Partners

Each speaks at least twice; they must disagree somewhere — real partner meetings are arguments:

Partner	What they weigh	Their failure mode (include it)
The Champion	Why this could be huge; founder quality	Falls in love, discounts risk
The Skeptic	Why this dies: competition, moat, timing	Kills things that later win
The Pattern-Matcher	"This looks like X in 2021" — comps, cautionary tales	Fights the last war
The Fund-Math Partner	Can THIS check return the fund? Ownership, entry price, follow-on reserve	Passes on great-but-small

Verdicts: FUND (term sheet path) · TRACK (specific milestone named — "come back at $1M ARR") · PASS (real reason, not the polite one).

Ground every argument in the supplied facts; where the pitch is silent, the partners should notice the silence — that is realistic — rather than invent numbers.

Output Format

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Partner Meeting: [Company] — [date]

Simulation — a plausible adversarial reading, not a prediction or investment advice.

Transcript

[Natural discussion, 12–20 exchanges. Interruptions, references to the deck's actual numbers, at least one genuine disagreement that doesn't fully resolve.]

Internal Memo

Verdict: FUND / TRACK / PASS One-line thesis or anti-thesis: … What we'd need to believe: 3 bullets Deal terms discussed: ownership target, price reaction If TRACK: the named milestone. If PASS: the real reason vs. what the associate will email the founder.

Debrief — out of character

Objection raised	Fixable before the real meeting?	How

One paragraph: the single strongest move before pitching for real.

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Quality Checks

• All four archetypes speak with distinguishable voices and at least one real disagreement
• Every numeric claim in the transcript comes from the pitch or is flagged as a partner's assumption
• Fund math is actually computed (ownership × plausible exit vs fund size), not gestured at
• The PASS reason (if pass) is the true one, and differs from the polite email version
• Debrief separates fixable objections from structural ones honestly

Anti-Patterns

• Do not pull punches — a meeting where everyone likes the deal is a worthless simulation
• Do not let the Champion win by default; the memo verdict must follow the strongest argument
• Do not invent traction numbers the pitch didn't claim — partners noticing missing numbers IS the feedback
• Do not stay in character in the debrief
• Do not produce a generic "VCs care about TAM" lecture — every line must be about THIS company