Panels Are A Waste Of Time, But They Don?t Have To Be

Two years ago, when I first co-founded Earbits, I started frequenting various startup events like so many other first-time founders. Some of them were mixers, others were pitch competitions, and many were topic-focused panels and discussions meant to provide sage advice to budding entrepreneurs. I had reasonable experience on the ground floor of various startups but raising capital was a mystery to me. Naturally, I went to more than a few panel discussions about fundraising in preparation for doing that at my new company. Every panel I ever went to about fundraising was filled with prominent Angel investors and VC's telling us about how to put together a good deck, how to get their attention through a warm intro, what kinds of things make a company invest-able, and other very common fundraising advice. After having read all of the same advice on Both Sides of the Table and Venture Hacks, I found that most fundraising panels were a complete waste of time.

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