Your Pitch Deck Is Garbage if You Don't Have a "Why"

Sean Weisbrot: Saahil Mehta is a Dubai based founder and coach who runs Zante International. And he loves to help people, not only by coaching for their mindset and with their business, but he also takes them on retreats, often trekking in the mountains. It's fantastic to have a conversation with him about his experience and my experience with angel investing. So if you wanna learn more about what it's like. To understand the mind of an angel investor, then you're gonna love this episode. Let's get to it. What made you want to get involved with investing?

Saahil Mehta: It started off by wanting to help entrepreneurs. I, you know, I've, being an entrepreneur myself, I, I know how difficult it is to, to raise capital, to get you the word out there, to get people excited about the work that you do. So it kind of started not as an investment, but more as mentorship. As I was mentoring and some of these entrepreneurs were looking for funding, I said, Hey, I mean, I already know a decent amount about the company. It sounds interesting. Why don't I invest as well? So that's how I got into it. And if I can add to that as well, Sean is, I went to this amazing presentation and the speaker said one thing. He says, I got fired and I lost my only source of income. Today, he said he has more than 30 different streams of income that are mostly passive. And so that got me thinking is that I'm not the only entrepreneur out there. I'm not the only business that can be successful by investing in other asset classes, which includes private equity or venture funding, or you know, whatever you wanna call it. I'm building more streams of potential revenue as well.

Sean Weisbrot: Now I was interviewing someone the other day and he's also an angel investor, and we were talking about this idea of advice and cash and what the balance is between like tying advisory to cash that you're investing, et cetera. And he had said that he found that basically they didn't really want advice, they just wanted cash. And I found the same as well. Um. What, do you have a standard that you use? Do you insist on being involved in the business or at least advising from the outside, or is it just cash and you kind of want to let them do their thing on their own?

Saahil Mehta: My time is limited. My businesses need my time. Uh, as well as my social life, my family, et cetera. So I'm not really interested in investing a lot of time except during the beginning stage, which is really the due diligence and, and making a decision on whether the investment is attractive or not. However, that being said, for me, if the individual is not open to receiving. Whether it's advice or guidance from those who are more experienced than them. For me, that is a bit of a red flag because I can tell you one thing for certain is that I don't know everything I've, I've made so many mistakes in my life, and let me actually re reframe that. I've had many learning experiences in my life, and if I had certain mentors in my life who could have enabled me to avoid some of them, oh my goodness, I'd be so grateful. I do agree that some. Learnings you have to experience for yourself. However, there's many that I could have learned from others, and so if someone is not open to receiving for me, that's a bit of a red flag 'cause I know they're gonna make mistakes. And I certainly don't want them to make too many mistakes on my diet.

Sean Weisbrot: So that was something that we had actually come to an agreement on as well, uh, because he was like, well, if they don't want to take my advice, then why am I giving them money, even if the arrangement is that I'm not gonna be actively involved, but. If they're not willing to take advice at any point in time, or if I see a problem and I make a note to tell 'em about it and they ignore my advice, then like, yeah, that's probably not someone you'd would've wanted to invest in anyways. How many companies have you invested in? Close to 15 companies, if I'm not mistaken. Have you had any exits or any shutdown down? Like what's the kind of ratio one

Saahil Mehta: exited at four, you know, four x what I put in another one exited around similar amount. Three x what I put in. Many are still functioning today. I've had a few that went belly up as well. Uh, they didn't actually go bankrupt per se, but. When they realized that the model doesn't work, then it was just about let's shut it down quickly and not waste anyone's time. So I've, I've had the whole, whole range. Um, you know, I'm not, I'm not one of these funds that makes tons and tons of investments, so I can't go banking on the, you know, out of 10, hopefully one is a bit of a home run and two are gonna be pretty decent. And then seven, uh, may end up being failures. I, I depend on. Because it's my own money. It's not just someone else's money. Although I'd probably be more diligent if it was other people's money. When it's my own money, I would like that probability to be a little bit higher if possible. And the way that I generally go about it is, I mean, let's be honest, Sean, every pitch deck, pitch deck that comes my way, it looks attractive. I've never seen a pitch deck where they say, yeah, our company's okay. You might make some money. Please invest. No, we're the best. This is gonna change the world. Uh, we have this experienced team and board members and blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, everything looks amazing. It's like, oh my God, I don't have enough money. I wanna invest in everything. But the reality is, and we all know this, is that a good chunk of them are not gonna make it. And so one of the ways that I, and this is maybe a little unconventional, but I spend a lot of time with the people who are running the show. So whether it's, you know, it's the founders and I want to get to know them at a deeper level. 'cause I found through my experience that even a company that didn't necessarily work out as well as it could have or even didn't work out at all, if the founders had a strong purpose, had strong core values. That increased the probability of turning it around or making it a success. Whereas if the founders only cared about what is my exit? I want to get rich, and it wasn't so much about the customers or the problem they were solving or their core values didn't align with mine, no matter how attractive the deal looked like, I would just politely decline.

Sean Weisbrot: So how much time would you spend with them in order to kind of make that determination about their character?

Saahil Mehta: Enough time where they're not wearing a mask anymore. You know, it is like a, it's like a first date. I mean, I can be impressive to any girl on the first date, assuming she finds me interesting. But at some point that mask has to come off 'cause it's tiring. It's tiring to keep it on all the time. And so, and usually that means taking them a little bit outside their comfort zone. You know, if I'm, if I'm gonna meet them in a restaurant. Or I'm gonna meet 'em in a cafe. I mean, it's just, I mean, I'm sure they've done that plenty of times, or in their office, they've done that plenty of times. But what if I took 'em to, let's go on a trek together where we're gonna trek for hours and hours carrying very little. And, you know, take 'em outside of the com comfort zone. Unless if they're an avid trekker that that, then it might not work. But in general, you get my point. Just take 'em outside their comfort zone, take 'em to an escape room, take 'em to, I don't know, a meditation, something that they're not really used to, and just see how they are as a human being.

Sean Weisbrot: It's interesting you say that because when I was in Vietnam and I was reconnecting with my ex-girlfriend, who's now my fiance, I. I said to her, look, before, 'cause we, we had been together previously, so we had some of a history, but seven years had passed from when we broke up, until we got back together. So we both had changed in some way, obviously, hopefully. So I wanted to, but when I was with her together, we never got to a point where marriage was something we had considered yet. It was too early in the relationship. So I said, okay, well let's sit down and let's have a series of conversations. And she's like, why do we need to have these conversations? I go, because you tell me that you're still in love with me and you want us to have a future together. And like, alright, I'm willing to get that a shot. But like there's things that we need to talk about that I didn't talk about with my first ex-wife and that's why she's my ex-wife. And I don't want that to happen a second time. So I'm going to test you in a number of different ways. You may be aware of some, you may not be aware of others, but I'm just letting you know I'm doing it because I need to know for myself, are you the right partner for me? Right. You told me that you think I'm the right partner for you. Let me, let me figure it out for myself if, if I'm on the same page. She's like, all right. So we had some of those, you know, conversations and she passed those conversations and we did things like a little weekend trip here and then an extended, you know, week long trip to Malaysia. And I met her family and went to sister's wedding, did different things. And I was like, okay, I got to see her in different ways than I would normally see her when it's just her and I. And through those experiences I was like. I agree. I think you're, you're the right partner for me. You know, let's take this seriously. So, um, but like, she's, she's traveled abroad, but like only for a few days and it was guided, so it, you know, she'd never had to think about anything. In this case, it's like, okay, you're planning everything right? Like you're gonna fly yourself over. Because, uh, she came, when she came to Malaysia, actually later than I did. She wasn't meant to come, but she did. Um, which is fine. So she, she had to go through customs and all that stuff by herself. She had to experience things by herself. She's never done. Um, and so I got to see how does she handle the stress? How does she handle the packing, how she handle this and that past flying colors. So it was very easy for me after that. But, but it took time. It took a few months. Obviously, I don't think you're spending a few months with a founder before you make a determination if you wanna invest in them, but. And I agree with taking outside of their comfort zone because if they're in their comfort zone, then you won't be able to test them. But when you take them outside of their comfort zone, you, you see personality wise, oh, I don't like to meditate. Meditation. Why would I wanna do that? Right? You can see their fundamental beliefs. You can see I. What kind of a person are they? Are they amen to trying something different? Are they, you know, capable of accepting change or accepting something difference? Do they fight back on it or do they question it? Do they suggest their own thing? Ah, you know, I don't really know if I wanna do that. Like, what if we go have sushi instead? Right. They try to like push you back into something that they like. Um, so it's a, I think it's a, a profound way to, to very quickly analyze someone, even if they might not realize it's what you're doing.

Saahil Mehta: Absolutely. And you want to know the fire in their belly. I. You wanna know what keeps them up at night? Um, you know, something that popped into my head, uh, was when I was being interviewed for a job right after university at an investment bank, and one of the questions that was asked was, how many people in the city of London are wearing a red tie now? As, as you probably know, there's no specific answer to that, but they wanted to understand how I would. Answer that question. And it was such a sideways question. I mean, something that I thought I, I know stuff about the company, I know about the job that I'm applying for. I've done all the reading and the research. Um, and I heard from other people as well what kind of questions they were being asked in the interview, but this one threw me off completely. But at the same time, it allowed them to see me without wearing the mask of trying to impress I was just being me and just sharing how I would go about solving that problem. I. So sometimes it's about make sure you've got a set of questions, powerful questions in your toolkit, uh, in, in your hat. I mean, that you can pull out and, and ask these founders, uh, which are completely random to them at least, but it enables you to better

Sean Weisbrot: understand them. So what kind of questions do you think inve, uh, investors should be asking that founders should be expecting or. Looking for to know, oh, this is an interesting investor. They're, they're different from the other ones.

Saahil Mehta: For me, spirituality is very important. It doesn't mean that the founder needs to be spiritual, but it's just, I wanna see how connected someone is with their consciousness. So I might even ask a simple question like, let's strip away all the labels that are on you. 'cause I mean. Sean, that's a label, right? That's a label that your parents gave you. Um, and then all these other labels that have come during your lifetime. I said, if we strip all those away, who are you? And so that's a question that really has to make them think a little bit and. Are they rushing into the answer because they want to try to show that they're, they know things and well, are they gonna be honest and say, maybe I've not thought about it. Can I get a few minutes to think about it? So just how they approach the answer is telling you a lot about them as well, because it's not a simple question to answer, but yet it allows you to discover certain things about 'em. And then you can even ask, you know, one of the other questions that I'm always curious about is what are your core values? And again, it's easy for people to say our trust and authenticity and honesty and integrity and blah, blah, blah. You know, I've heard that a lot of times. But then I ask them, what does that mean? Because my definition of trust is probably gonna be different from your definition of trust. And once I've understood their core values, as I'm asking more questions and going through our time together, I'm seeing is it consistent with what they said? If I see something that's going off track, then I even bring it up. I say, oh, you said this was your core value, but I'm hearing something different here. Am I understanding this correctly?

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are. I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of work, and every week we bring you a new guest and a new story, and what we do requires so much love so that we can bring you something amazing. And every week we're trying really hard to get better guests. That have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Thank you very much and we'll take you back. A problem that I've had with some partners and investors I've worked with in the past is that they don't always do the things they say they're gonna do. It depends on where they are from culturally, right? If they're, they're, uh, Chinese, in particular, Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Singapore, there's this need to preserve face and that may require you to say something or do something. That makes you look good. Even if it's not reality, you might say, yes, I'll have this done for you tomorrow. Well, tomorrow comes, finishes. End of day it hasn't been done. Then there's a reason it hasn't been done. There's some excuse. And then the next day, and then the next day, and then finally like a five days later, a weekday two, two weeks later, it's done. Right. It was like, well, if it was gonna take you two weeks to do, why didn't you do it? Well, 'cause I didn't want you to be mad at me. That it was gonna take two weeks, so I just told you what I thought you wanted to hear, and then did it on the timeframe that actually made sense to me. Well, as an American, that infuriates me because you lied to me, right? You made a promise and you broke it. That's

Saahil Mehta: speaking to you

Sean Weisbrot: as

Saahil Mehta: a potential investor. Let's look at another stakeholder. What if they did that with a client? I wouldn't wanna work with them. It's like you said, it infuriates you. It's a red flag. Even if the company ends up being a success, there's no shortage of investment opportunities that are out there. And that's what one of my mentors always told me, said, Sal, don't be impatient. If you see a red flag, whether it's real or it's not, or it's just fictitious in your own head, it doesn't matter. You want peace with the investments that you make. And if you feel there's a red flag, politely decline, there's plenty of other opportunities that will keep coming nonstop. You don't have enough money for all the investments that are out there. There's so many.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm taking a break from investing. I, I just, I can't do it anymore. I mean, obviously I've learned a lot about what to look for in a founder now, and doing these interviews is great because I get to help. Founders understand better what an angel investor is looking for while also learning how to be a better investor myself. But yeah, I've, I've been burnt too many times.

Saahil Mehta: I'm gonna share one more because this is kind of in line. Uh, and, and this also talks a lot about how the person is, I've met founders where they've said a certain amount of our profits will go towards. Social impact. Right? Again, and it's, we're not talking about a small amount. Someone will say when we exit or when we have a partial exit or you know, any sort of distribution that's happening. And I'm not kidding, in some of these cases, they said even up to a third or or more of the money that was coming their way, they would be dis, you know, sending to a social cause. And they even shared what that social cause was from day one. And that's very powerful because one. They're not just doing this for themself. And one thing that I found out on the mountains, every time I go up and I take people up with me on these retreats is when someone has a reason beyond themself, they're able to find that reserve fuel that allows them to go further. And so when you do something not just for yourself, but for making an impact in society, one for your customers. Two for a good cause. It's like you have a much more of a drive to make a difference and these are the kind of people that I wanna work with now. Please be rest assured, not all of them will succeed, but I feel by understanding the person I. I'm increasing the probability that little bit more.

Sean Weisbrot: I get scared when someone tells me they're gonna do something like that because my, the first thing that comes to my mind is you're just trying to get to like, some mushy side of me that just wants to like, give you money because I believe in this and I believe in you or going to do this, but inside my head I'm going, you're BSing me. And like, it's fine if you don't have any. Cause I don't care. What I care about is, are you going to make me money and serve your customers? What you do with your money is your own thing, you know, you need to do. But to speak to that, uh, one of the issues I found with a lot of early stage founders is they're building something but they don't know why. They don't have a reason. They're, they're not even sure that what they're building is good for them. And I, I can share this for myself. The business that I had, that I was very successful in. I didn't have a, cause I just wanted to make as much money as fast as possible, and I did. And then that business died because the crypto winter took all the clients away and then I said, I want to take some of what I've earned and I want to 100 exit. I'm gonna start a tech company knowing nothing about tech and it, it didn't work. You know, and I, I thought I have a purpose. My purpose is I wanna show that blockchain can be a profitable enterprise. You don't need your own chain. You don't need to have an ICO. You don't need to distribute tokens to people because they've performed some action in your system. You don't need any of that. You can have a profitable business in the blockchain industry that's not in exchange. That was my original focus. It was to prove that blockchain doesn't have to be the cesspool of nonsense and people just scamming each other. And then COVID came around and I said, well, no one was funding that idea, but I have an enterprise communication tool already built from scratch. So let me focus on Enterprise, because the last few years we were building that product on Slack, like while we were communicating with Slack. And Slack sucked. Badly. And everyone I spoke to that used Slack hated it, but there was no other option. So my mission was I wanna make communication for companies easier because the only option sucks. So I had these missions that drove me, but at the time I thought I needed to go the VC path. I needed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars and have a multi-billion dollar company. And through the years of building that, I realized I actually don't care. I don't wanna be a billionaire. I don't wanna have people knowing who I am. I don't want to be a publicly listed CEO. I don't want to have a company of thousands of employees. I don't wanna have VCs breathing down my neck and trying to kick me out of my company. I don't want any of that stress. So I was building the wrong thing for what was gonna make me happy. It was I got carried away with an idea. I was passionate about that. I bit off more than I could chew and didn't have my own goals set. So I, I was having panic attacks and, and anxiety attacks because every day I was doing something that wasn't aligned with my goal for my life.

Saahil Mehta: I'm loving what you just said on, on a number for a number of reasons. One, it just shows, you know, we are two different types of investors looking at things differently. So everyone has their own perspective and what I wanna, what I take away from that is listen to other people and choose what works for you. Don't try to mimic someone or copy their methodology. Do what you feel is right for you, but keep listening because there will be nuggets that you can pick up from other people. So I, I love that we have different views on how we look at an investment. I also love what you just said right now is when I am investing. It's not just what is the company's outcome, but what is the outcome this individual is looking for in his or her life? You know, I was coaching someone just last week, and my client was a little upset that one of his units was not performing well. And then I asked him, I said, let's turn it around. Let's assume it did perform well. What would that have meant for you? And he quickly realized. It was a blessing in disguise because if it did go successful, he would've had more, uh, debt. He would've had more time away from his family, more travel, more health issues, and he says, I don't want all that. And so he, because he was clear on what he wants in life, he was then able to accept that this one unit that didn't do well, let's just call it a failure for argument's sake. Was, was a blessing in disguise because the success would've taken him on a path that he did not want to go down. And so it's so important to understand where does the founder wish to go, not just with the company, but in their life, as you've pointed out. 'cause if there's a misalignment, the chances are that the, again, the ch, the probability of that investment becoming a success had just gone down. That is for me a red flag. No, I don't wanna invest in that. Let's, let's look at another option. So thank

Sean Weisbrot: you for

Saahil Mehta: sharing those, that

Sean Weisbrot: that really helped. I'd like to see how other people think and how they act, what drives them. And so I'm incredibly curious about other people, and you were saying before about getting founders outta their comfort zone. I like to do the podcast as well because it's a really great way to get people very quickly to go into a, a mode of vulnerability that they may normally have their wall up and not be willing to do. So you were talking about learning more about the business and so when I have someone on a podcast, I can find out all of the problems inside of their business because. It's therapeutic for them to go, yeah, it's fine. Like, yeah, there's, there's these problems. I've talked to another number of founders, like, yeah, we're, you know, we've raised millions of dollars. We're looking to raise more. We're working on this, we're working on that. And then you find out like the COO is not doing their job. And they, they might have to fire them. One of the investor caused them to pay for a credit facility, but then now they have to sue them because they, the, the, the, uh, the investor backed out after they paid for the credit facility. And, you know, they're, they have very little cash left, and so they're trying to get a loan to stay afloat, but they're just about to start doing this new thing. It is like, yeah, those are, you know, you, you wouldn't hear those things if, if you just go, Hey, how's it going? Yeah, everything's fine. Right. And so when you, when you share, they become willing to share like, well, if you're gonna tell me your scars, I'll tell you mine. And then, you know, very, very quickly, do I wanna work with this person or not? And oftentimes when you do that, you find that most founders are unfundable. I love

Saahil Mehta: how you open the door for them to share and be more, more open as a result of you kind of showing your scars. Brilliant. That's, I I love that. I'm a, I'm, I'm gonna use that as one more layer. Uh, when I'm speaking to

Sean Weisbrot: founders, a lot of people struggle to communicate. Because they were raised in families where communication wasn't valued because one of the family members maybe grew up with a family that was not communicative, and so they then raised their kids to not be communicative. And now they're adults and they don't know what communication is. They don't know what expression is. They don't know how to share their feelings. And I was very fortunate to be raised in a family where it's, it was like the thing you do and. My parents raised me to feel like, so what, what they specifically did every night when I was a kid, they'd, you know, take me, uh, tuck me in bed, whatever you, and they would say, look, whatever you're thinking, whatever you're feeling, I'm just gonna sit here and listen and I'm not gonna judge you. Just let it all out. Just talk to me, you know. And, uh, and that made me grow up to be an adult who has no fear of sharing how I feel and being, you know, and, and fearing being rejected by someone else for not caring or not wanting to hear it. Because it seems like people want to know that it's safe to share their feelings. And I think there's a big problem in the world, especially with men, uh, of my generation, sharing their feelings and having them weaponized. Uh, so hopefully me as one individual can go a small way in making men feel a little bit more comfortable with sharing how they're feeling. 'cause there's no reason why not.

Saahil Mehta: You know, as you were speaking, it reminded me of an investment that I made in this one particular company that actually belongs to a friend. And, you know, when it's a friend's company, um, it sometimes can add another layer of complication. Uh, one because of the friendship. However, I said, look, friends is friends, but I'm still gonna do the same level of due diligence as I would do on anyone. The only advantage here is I know you as a, as a person, but what I realized, and look as a, as a, as a professional speaker, I'm on stage. I'm getting in front of people all the time. After I have literally. Two minutes, if not less, maybe even seconds, to impress the people on in the audience to think, yes, this guy makes sense. Let me continue to listen to him. Or he's just talking rubbish. Let me go on my phone and I'm gonna send some emails. So knowing him and knowing his story, when he came to me with a pitch deck, I literally tore it apart and I said, this is garbage. I said, you're not gonna get any money with this. I said, why are you not going into your, your story? Like the why? You know, it was more about the what and the how and the this and that. I said, boring. Boring. Why are you doing this? What drove you to start this company and is wanting you to continue to expand? And it was amazing because. I'm so glad he met me as a potential investor First. He completely changed his pitch deck and, and that made me realize that sometimes coming back to your point on communication, sometimes the ideas are really good, but for whatever reason, they're just not able to communicate properly either through slide decks or pitch decks or verbally. And it requires a little bit more effort on my side to see does this actually have potential. You know, it could be a cultural thing as well. There's some cultures that just, I mean I've, I know so many people that grew up in an environment of, I say, you do, and they didn't have much of a voice, and so it's not surprising that when they come to you, they're speaking very little and have very little information to share unless if you keep prodding them and asking them lots of questions.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. Is there anything that we haven't mentioned that you feel you would be remiss to not say?

Saahil Mehta: I mean, the one thing is whenever I make an investment, I make sure there's no attachment to the investment. I think that's really important. I just made an investment some months ago, um, not some months ago. It's the initial investment was earlier and then I, there was a top up and it was a hundred thousand dollars. That just poof, gone. Now I'm not attached to it. Yes, it hurts. It hurt that it's because, you know, you worked hard to get that kind of money, but it's gone. When I made this investment, there's a risk associated with it, and I have to be clear in my mind that whatever I put in, if it goes to zero, I should be okay with that. I won't like it. It shouldn't affect my life in a way that I now have to struggle to make ends meet. And I find that a lot of people get caught up in, oh, you know, I know this one who's investing and that one who's investing, let me get on the bandwagon 'cause I'm missing out on this opportunity. It's the whole FOMO thing. Oh, so many people are doing it. Why am I not doing it? And you hear about a couple of exits and I'm like, listen, when they tell you about their exits, they're gonna tell you all the good stuff. They don't talk about the bad stuff where they lost money. So obviously you think it's amazing 'cause everyone's just saying, I made this and I made 10 x and five x and four x and 20 x and whatever it is. But have you heard about their failures? Let me share mine 'cause I've lost money as well. Net Net has been positive and I'm happy overall, but I've lost money in deals. And you have to be okay with that. So there cannot be an attachment to the outcome. You have to be okay with it becoming zero, and that should not change your lifestyle.