Investors aren’t always great at telling founders what they’re really thinking.
When I was in college, and long before I imagined being an entrepreneur, I took a class called “Dictionaries and Their Makers.” I thought it sounded interesting.
Turns out, I was wrong. To nobody’s surprise except, probably, my own, a class about how dictionaries get made was not an interesting class. However, I did learn a couple of interesting things that have stuck with me through the years, which, to be fair, is more than I can say for a lot of the other classes I took in college.
The first interesting thing I learned is completely irrelevant to the main point of this article — an article that, I promise, is eventually going to be about startup fundraising — but it’s something I wish more people knew, so I’m going to share it anyway. It’s about how people constantly misuse dictionary definitions.
Specifically, have you ever heard someone reference the dictionary to prove a point? For example, how many articles have you read that start with a phrase like: “According to Miriam-Webster, the word XYZ means blah, blah, blah”? Never trust an article that starts that way. In fact, never trust a person who tries to make any sort of argument based on a dictionary definition because, despite how people tend to cite them, dictionaries aren’t prescriptive; they’re descriptive. In other words, dictionary definitions don’t determine the meanings of words. Instead, we — the users of language — determine how words get used, and dictionaries simply record those usages.
The second interesting thing I learned in my dictionaries class — and the lesson that’s actually relevant to this article — is the existence of a concept called “sociolects.”
A sociolect, according to Merriam-Webster ( 😉), is “a variety of a language that is used by a particular social group.” For example, fans of your favorite sport have a sociolect; the enthusiasts of your favorite hobby have a sociolect; and your school or company has a sociolect. Simply put, a sociolect encompasses any sort of common words or phrases with a unique meaning in relationship to a community of people.
That concept is relevant to startup fundraising because there’s a particular community of people I’d like to discuss in this article: investors. Investors, as a community, have a proprietary set of terms and phrases unique to their industry — a.k.a. a sociolect.
Because entrepreneurs operate adjacent to the investor community and occasionally interact with it, many entrepreneurs regularly encounter the investor sociolect, particularly during fundraising pitches. Unfortunately, because entrepreneurs aren’t directly in the startup investing industry, they sometimes struggle to understand the actual meanings of some of the common terms and phrases investors use in their community.
Don’t worry… I’m here to help!
Below, I’ve listed three of the most common phrases in the investor sociolect that entrepreneurs regularly encounter during fundraising pitches but misunderstand. I’ve also included translations. I hope learning these meanings helps you as much as they helped me!
“Let’s definitely keep in touch.”
Translation:
“Listening to you yammer on about your stupid startup idea in this coffee shop was an hour of my day that I’ll never get back, but at least I get to expense this cup of coffee, so I suppose that’s a win. You probably shouldn’t bother emailing me again because, if you do, I’m either going to give some lame excuse about why I’m too busy to meet again, I’m going to ghost you, or, depending on the time of year, I might have some wannabe-VC-intern working for me as an associate, and I’ll pawn you off on that powerless schmuck so you can waste their much-less-valuable time instead of mine.”
“Would you mind circling back in a few months?”
Translation:
“You’re on the verge of figuring out just how terrible your idea is. I give this startup six months (at most) before you accept that you’re never raising capital and finally shut things down. All I need to do is prevent you from bothering me again before then.”
“Will you keep me updated on your progress?”
Translation:
“Your startup doesn’t stand a chance, but you seem talented. In fact, I’ve got at least a half dozen portfolio companies you’d be a great fit for once the company you’re currently working on crashes and burns. Please add my email address to the annoying monthly update message you’re already sending to everyone who’s ever taken a meeting with you. I won’t read your emails, but, when I stop getting them, I’ll know you’re preparing to shut things down, and I’ll ping you to see if you’re interested in a job.”
