Nate says the CTO should never be in pitches, or at least not the initial call. You might do hundreds of pitches — that's hundreds of hours that could go to product development — so one dedicated person should run fundraising and the CTO should only come in for due diligence or the technical check.
More from this episode
Nate is firm on this: "I don't think the CTO should ever be in pitches, or at least like the initial call because, you know, you do hundreds of pitches potentially. That's hundreds of hours that could be put on product development as opposed to, pitching." Fundraising is a full-time job, so "you should have just one dedicated person in the team, for fundraising," and the CTO should only be brought in "as part of due diligence or as the technical check." He's seen founders bring the full team to every pitch and warns it "could kind of really put your business on a standstill" — especially when the raise takes six months and you still want to be showing product development and new customer channels.