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Someone once told me that a venture capital career is three 鈥渟evens:鈥� seven years to learn, seven years to invest, and seven years to see your best investments through.

If true, I鈥檓 cresting to my second seven years. I think that鈥檚 long enough that I can safely share a few pointers from the many pitches I鈥檝e heard.

Explain what you do, clearly

All too often, I leave a pitch meeting having no idea what the business just pitched to me does.

This can happen when an entrepreneur is so intimately familiar with their space and business that they use terminology and references to people, organizations and concepts that are wholly unfamiliar to me.

Remember that you know your business better than anyone, and always use the 鈥渆xplain to a child, and have them explain back to you鈥� test to ensure that there is a digestible version of your story coming through in your pitch.

Even more frustrating is an over-reliance on buzzwords and marketing speak. Avoid these unless absolutely necessary to explain a concept.

It鈥檚 reasonable to explain that your software runs on the cloud while your competitors only offer on-prem solutions. It鈥檚聽 not reasonable to assert that your business strategy is 鈥渂ig data in the cloud.鈥� Those are empty words, and empty words make for an empty pitch.

The story should be 15 minutes, max

Running through your main pitch should take less than 10 minutes and definitely under 15 to cover all of the main points.

There are plenty of pitch frameworks but it鈥檚 basically: problem, solution, market size, team, competitors, current state of business, future milestones and fundraising ask.

You should never be over-presenting and under-conversing. It鈥檚 much better to run through your main points quickly, sense a lack of interest, and cut a meeting early than to bore someone for 40 minutes. Even worse is when you talk so much that you prevent an investor who is interested and engaged from asking clarifying questions.

In an ideal meeting, you鈥檒l spend about five minutes getting briefly acquainted with whomever you鈥檙e speaking to, then another 25-40 minutes pitching.

That pitching should be conversational, though every investor has a different style. Some will mostly listen, then ask questions at the end. Others will jump in frequently. Don鈥檛 take a lack of interruptions as a bad sign, but do make sure to occasionally pause for just long enough that someone can ask a question.

It鈥檚 also good practice to save questions for your investors until the end, and honestly only ask if you felt like the pitch went at least fairly well. Also, if you have 30 minutes or less, I would recommend not asking those questions at all. That time can be better spent creating excitement and answering questions. If that goes well, there will almost certainly be another, longer meeting when you can ask those questions.

And be tactful. Don鈥檛 take the common wisdom to vet investors as license to ask VCs tough questions out of the gate. Get them excited first, and once there鈥檚 some rapport and mutual interest, dig deeper.

Remember that investors want to invest in you

Assume that your meeting with an investor was borne out of genuine interest in your business. Investors don鈥檛 just meet companies because they鈥檙e bored.

It takes a lot of meetings to find a company you鈥檙e excited to back, but every meeting is an opportunity. It鈥檚 like dating. Both parties are optimistic about the meeting leading somewhere; otherwise, they won鈥檛 be wasting their time.

You can make an investor鈥檚 day, or week, or maybe even year with a great pitch that gets them excited. Never forget that.

is a partner at , an early-stage, sector-agnostic venture capital firm that has made hundreds of investments over the last eight years, backing many startups that have gone on to be Silicon Valley standouts and household names, including , , , , and others.