Product Proof Your Startup: An Evening With Shweta Agrawal Discussing What Investors Look For
Most founders spend too much time preparing their pitch.
The strongest founders spend that time preparing their product and obtaining validation and traction.
Before investors evaluate your deck, they evaluate something much more important:
Does this company have evidence that it can succeed?
Join Boston New Technology, Startup Grind Boston, StartOut, as we explore how founders can build products—and companies—that are ready for investment.
The evening begins with a keynote from Shweta Agrawal, who will introduce a practical framework for moving from founder assumptions to validated products through customer interviews, experimentation, product refinement, and disciplined go-to-market strategy.
We'll then hear from investors, founders, and product leaders who will discuss:
• What convinces investors that a product is ready?
• How much validation is enough?
• What customer evidence matters most?
• When does go-to-market become investment-ready?
• What mistakes do founders repeatedly make?
• How can founders reduce product risk before fundraising?
This is not another "What do investors look for?" panel.
It's a conversation about building companies that naturally earn investor confidence through evidence, execution, and customer understanding.
Whether you're preparing your first startup or scaling your next venture, you'll leave with practical ideas for building a stronger company—not simply a stronger pitch.
About Shweta Agrawal:
Shweta Agrawal is a prominent tech executive, AI product leader, and community builder recognized as one of Boston's "Top 40 Under 40" honorees. She serves as the Co-Director and Chief Product Officer at Boston New Technology (BNT), one of the region’s most established ecosystem platforms. Since stepping into leadership at BNT, she has driven the group's mission to support early-stage startup founders, operators, and investors through curated monthly showcases, strategic networking events, and more.
With a multi-decade background that transitions from engineering into customer-centric product management, Shweta has built a track record of driving cross-functional alignments and managing large-scale, complex product life cycles. Her professional philosophy prioritizes ethical AI adoption and value-driven product development that views the overall user experience as a product in its own right. Whether advising fast-scaling startups on product market fit or building out complex tech infrastructure, her leadership emphasizes data-driven execution, measurable outcome-based OKRs, and strategic GTM scaling.
Beyond her core corporate roles, Shweta is a dedicated advocate for inclusive innovation and humanizing technology. She frequently acts as a startup mentor, explicitly focusing her advocacy on empowering female tech leaders and underrepresented founder groups within the artificial intelligence sector. Additionally, she is an active global speaker, regularly sharing product strategy frameworks on international stages such as the Women in Tech Global Conference, the AI Summit, and the CPO Summit.
Additional Speakers TBA!