I’ve met with over 500 startups in 2 years*. Here’s how to pitch HearstLab.

Our mission at HearstLab is to close the gender gap in venture capital funding. That said, we want to put founders meeting with HearstLab in the best position possible to succeed (get a check, close their round, scale their business, and beyond).

As the person overseeing the HearstLab pipeline and process for pre-seed and seed stage companies, I am almost always the first person at HearstLab who founders engage with.  I lead prospective startups through our process, including screening every deck (even cold inquiries!), taking intro calls, attending every diligence meeting, and ultimately, drafting the final investment memo.

I often say I have the best job in the world – meeting with incredible founders and engaging with their ideas is inspiring, interesting, and challenging. There’s no other role where I would get to speak to the smartest people pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on a daily basis. I’m grateful and curious, thank you in advance for taking the time to meet with me.

While no two meetings with founders are the same, I’ve picked up on top trends every founder should avoid (“red flags”) and those that make a startup stand out among its peers and get our team excited to invest (“green flags”).
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Red flags:

🟥  An unclear problem/solution fit

Problems are infinite and so are proposed solutions. We often see startups trying to tackle complex problems like worker burnout, data underutilization, and inefficient workflows.

Many founders propose a platform that is an improvement to a problem rather than a true solution – or as it’s often said, a vitamin instead of a painkiller. Others lack a clear connection between the problem and their proposed solution, or a plan to scale.

For example, it is rare to see a productivity software platform that can’t be 80% replicated with current low-code/no-code tools Hearst already pays for. Software that is a 20% solution won’t convince leadership to reallocate a budget or go through the pain of a new implementation.

🟥  Not being forthcoming on challenges & financials (including legal or cap table concerns)

Is a founder in a battle with a former co-founder over company IP? Is it publicly documented? Did a founder give away too much ownership of the company while new to fundraising? Are previous investors not following in this round?

Founders should be upfront about challenges—whether they're legal, financial, or team-related as early as possible. Transparency builds trust, which is crucial on both sides of the founder/investor equation.

🟥  Decks that are 80%+ pictures and headlines

Plenty of founders pitch quite successfully without decks. But in most cases, a founder’s pitch deck is our first impression of your company. And a bad deck is hard to get over.

When a founder doesn’t believe it’s important to invest in marketing materials when fundraising and pitching investors, it sends a signal that they may struggle  to successfully market to potential customers.
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Green flags:

🟩  A personable founder & a strong founding team‍

When HearstLab invests in a startup, we work VERY closely with their founder and team for the first year (and remain a partner for the lifetime of the company). HearstLab prides itself in acting as a true extension of the team–delivering consistent quality and value. We invest in companies led by founders who also value collaboration and whose startups we’re confident will grow with the support of the greater HearstLab team.

It’s a big plus to have founders and a team with practical experience in the industry of the problem their startup is solving for. For example, if a founder is selling enterprise healthcare SaaS, it would be an enormous plus to see that they were once a buyer/administrator at a large healthcare company or at the least, have previous sales experience.
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🟩  A unique angle & clear momentum

Great founders tell a story no one else has, providing a unique data point or industry insight that makes their startup irresistible.

Beyond the story, we can’t invest until we know how a company is performing. The context a founder provides around their traction to date is something we evaluate with more care than an absolute number.

One of the most common mistakes we see is that founders mistake a question about traction as one about specific metrics.

A question about a startup’s traction should instead be posed as a question about momentum. Is there MoM growth? What is accelerating revenue and why? It’s not revenue that’s accelerating, where is the momentum coming from? Remember, the best predictor of future success is previous success.
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🟩  A strong synergy with Hearst

Are you a business? Do you have clients? Then you probably have connectivity to Hearst! Beyond Hearst’s famous media brands (Cosmo, A+E, ESPN, etc.), there are over 360 different businesses including a wide range of B2B SaaS companies across enterprise technology, fintech, data analytics, healthcare, and transportation sectors.

If part of a founder’s pitch is an eagerness to partner with Hearst companies and the partnership idea is specific and clear (e.g. how a founder's product can serve Hearst’s technology client base), we’re 90% sold.
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And, last but not least…just as much as you are pitching me, we are pitching you. Investors are partners for the life of your business–and HearstLab takes that seriously.

A key part of my job is presenting HearstLab’s potential as a partner to founders. We will be just as motivated to articulate to a founder how HearstLab can be of value to growing a startup. For starters, we have a full-time team dedicated to providing support services across business development, engineering/software development, financial analysis, product development, privacy and security audits, legal services, marketing, UX/UI and more. Not to mention, access to a group of 160 women executives from across 350+ businesses under the Hearst umbrella who can help with anything from friendly pitch practice to commercial intros. Results to date speak for themselves, with 60+ investments collectively valued at nearly $2.5B!

We can’t wait to meet you.

Want to pitch HearstLab? Apply here.
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More about Eastin Rossell, HearstLab Venture Associate
Eastin has over 10 years of buy-side experience in market research, financial analysis and due diligence across asset classes. She has held several roles outside of venture capital, including quantitative analyst at a startup hedge fund, small-cap equity analyst, and business development associate within private equity. At HearstLab, Eastin focuses primarily on sourcing and evaluating startups, overseeing the pre-seed and seed pipeline. As a member of the portfolio support team, she also advises on fundraising and finance. She is a CAIA charterholder and has passed CFA Level I and II. Eastin has a B.S. in Economics and B.A. in English Language and Literature from Tulane University.