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Jevon Le Roux
Keeyu · EP 21
Jevon's most valuable lesson: "don't take rejection too hard." You have to "get really comfortable with being rejected," comfortable "being told it can't be done," and comfortable with naysayers — while keeping "absolute conviction in what you're doing."…
See Jevon Le Roux's full take
Jevon points out the odds are brutal — making an investment "knowing that like 90% of the time or 95% of the time you're gonna fail" — and calls startup founders "absolutely crazy" for taking them on. What gets you through, he says, is your North Star: a sense of purpose and vision that's "so intoxicating." He'd just been talking with a founder fresh out of an accelerator who was out raising and "not getting a lot of yeses," and his answer was simply to keep going.
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Robert Huynh
Nook / Reforge · EP 7
Robert's angle is on facing investors after failure, not rejection. His advice: be really clear and transparent.
See Robert Huynh's full take
Robert points out that for a VC, "most startups do not make it. In fact, it's almost built into the model" — the goal is the one that hits a unicorn, and a company that just returns its money isn't a win for them either. So the way to manage investors through hard news is "just being really clear and transparent with their communication" and keeping them in the loop so "you don't surprise anyone" with monthly and quarterly updates. He adds a warning: "No one cares that you failed except yourself" and the people who didn't have a ton of money but invested anyway — so "You want sophisticated investors."
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Nate Spiteri
Shopfront · EP 3
Nate dealt with "99, 95% no's" by treating it like a sales pipeline and being relentless without letting the no's affect the next step. His mindset: "okay, no, let's move on to the next one" and find that needle in the haystack.
See Nate Spiteri's full take
Nate describes being constantly bombarded with no's — on calls, on LinkedIn outreach, everywhere — because it took a long time to get the first yes. His approach was to stay relentless: "I was like very relentless in our process of outreach. Like, I wasn't I almost wasn't letting the nos affect like the next step. It was just like, okay, no, let's move on to the next one." He also reframes the negativity as fuel: you go through "that shitshow of a process" with all the constructive-but-negative feedback "and then kind of come out the other side resilient and ready for the next one."