Win The Room
What if the opportunity is there, but your story isn't getting it across?
Narrativ by AK × Daring Ventures
You walk out of the meeting and can't quite figure out what happened.
They asked a lot of questions.
There were a few long pauses.
Someone got hung up on a detail you thought was secondary.
You explained it three different ways.
And somehow, they still didn't seem excited.
You know there's something here. You know why customers care. You know why the market is moving. You know where the company could go.
So why aren't they seeing it?
This happens to founders constantly.
The investor who understands the product but doesn't see the size of the opportunity.
The customer who likes what you've built but doesn't feel enough urgency to change.
The candidate who is interested, but doesn't understand why this company is worth betting their career on.
You can walk away from all three wondering whether the opportunity was ever really there.
Sometimes the bigger problem is that they never got the chance to see what you saw.
And that's a hard problem to solve when you're the person who knows the company best.
You've lived inside the business. You know the backstory, the customer conversations, the product decisions, the market insight, the reason this matters. When you explain it, all of that context comes with you.
The other person doesn't have it.
They only hear what you manage to get across.
That's what we're going to work on.
On October 11th, Anna Kaplan of Narrativ by AK and Daring Ventures are bringing together 12–15 founders to pressure-test how their companies come across to people who don't live inside them.
You'll give your pitch to another founder. They'll explain your company back to the room.
No helping. No jumping in to clarify.
You'll hear what stuck. What didn't. What they thought mattered. What they completely missed. And, most importantly, whether the company you thought you were explaining is the company they actually heard.
Then you'll get to fix it.
We'll work through how to make the same company resonate with the three audiences founders spend their time trying to win over:
Investors
Why should they believe in the business you're building today, and understand where it could go?
Customers
Why should they care about this problem enough to change what they're doing?
Talent
Why should someone bet their time and career on this company?
The goal is to stop leaving important conversations thinking, “I don't know what they didn't get.”
You'll know.
You'll leave with
A clearer explanation of your company that holds up when you're not there to fill in the gaps
A revised 30-second investor pitch for the next 60–90 days
A way to adapt the story for customers and talent without reinventing your company every time
Specific changes to your pitch and deck based on what people actually understood
A better sense of where your story is creating confusion, losing momentum, or underselling the opportunity
We're limiting the room to 12–15 founders so you can put your actual company on the table, hear how other people interpret it, and work through the gaps.
Bring the pitch that keeps getting you the same confused questions.
Bring the story you know is there, but haven't quite figured out how to make other people see.
Participation
Apply with a brief overview of your company, your anticipated round, any existing materials, and the main question you want to work through.
This is a paid session with a reduced participation fee sponsored by Daring Ventures for selected founders. Fee and payment details will be shared upon acceptance. Applying does not commit you to payment.