3 Ways to Tell if Someone Is About to Waste Your Time
‘My neighbor is an editor at Food & Wine. You should show him your cupcake recipes!’
I checked my hair for flyaways for the 11th time and walked into the meeting. The opportunity seemed perfect — I was in the seed fundraising stage with my startup, and this investor was active in our space and showed excitement about our mission. Locking in a lead investor wouldn’t just secure us funding; it would also legitimize our business to other venture capital funds looking to invest.
I stood at the front of the room and gave my pitch, and before we parted ways that day, the fund principal said they’d email me shortly about “next steps.”
I could barely contain my excitement.
The first email arrived right on schedule — a simple request for sales and web traffic data — and I quickly complied. Then one email became another, and another, the complexity escalating with each request, until eventually I was building them a full-scale financial model. Aware of what was at stake, I happily jumped through each new hoop. Any day now, we’d be doing the deal, I told myself.
Unfortunately, that message never came. After two months filled with a steady stream of new requests, the emails abruptly ended. So did the replies…
