Build From The Dock: What Makes a Founder Backable Before the Numbers?
About the Event
At the earliest stage there's barely any revenue, the retention curve is a few dots, and the market sizing slide is mostly hope. Yet investors still write checks. When the numbers can't make the case yet, investors are deciding whether to back you, the founder.
This week, Monisha Perkash and Lochan Alagh sit down to talk about what investors actually look for in a founder before the traction exists:
"What makes a founder backable before the numbers?"
Both of them have been on each side of that table. Monisha raised venture funding as a two-time founder and now invests as a Founding Partner at Mojo Ventures. Lochan co-founded an early-stage fund and spent years running an accelerator, meeting founders at the very beginning of their journey. They'll get into how investors read conviction versus stubbornness, what makes an early story believable, and why some founders earn a yes with little more than a deck and a conversation.
If you're raising a pre-seed or seed round in the next year, this one is for you.
Featured Speakers
Monisha Perkash
Founding Partner, Mojo Ventures · Lecturer in Management, Stanford GSB · Former Director of Product Management, Meta
Monisha is a founder-turned-investor who has spent more than 20 years launching and scaling products, from early-stage startups to Meta. She co-founded and led two companies. TuitionCoach was acquired by SimpleTuition/LendingTree, and Lumo Bodytech, a digital health company that distributed more than 300,000 wellness products globally, raised venture financing from investors including Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors and Jerry Yang's AME Cloud Ventures before being acquired by Seismic. At Meta, she led the 300+ person team that built and launched Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and ran Meta's Music & Creator team.
Today she's a Founding Partner at Mojo Ventures and teaches at Stanford GSB, where she co-created the Ecopreneurship course and lectures for Startup Garage. She is also a Board Director and Venture Partner at Inception Studio, supporting its SheStarts program for female founders, advises Flourish Science and Subtle Computing, and mentors founders through StartX.
Lochan Alagh
Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Venture Dock · Co-Founder & Managing Partner, VC Nest
Lochan has spent most of her career meeting founders at the stage this session is about, before there's much traction to judge. She co-founded VC Nest, an early-stage fund backing startups with high growth potential in areas including technology, health tech, fintech, and consumer products, and she co-founded Venture Dock to give those founders a community with investors and operators built in.
Before that, she spent more than four years as Executive Director of FalconX Accelerator, working with founders from their first pitch onward. Her earlier roles include MDSV Capital and business strategy and operations at Cloud Harmonics, an Ingram Micro company.
She also serves as Chief Governance Officer on the board of the IIT Bay Area Alumni Association and holds an M.Tech from IIT Roorkee.
Agenda
10:00 – 11:00 AM Coffee, breakfast and networking
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM Conversation with Monisha Perkash and Lochan Alagh
12:00 – 12:30 PM Open Q&A
12:30 – 1:00 PM Founder discussion and open networking
About Build From The Dock
Every Wednesday, Build From The Dock gives founders a room where they can talk directly with experienced operators and investors, and with each other. The format is built around conversation rather than presentations, so the Q&A and the networking afterward tend to be where the most useful exchanges happen.
Sessions aren't recorded, so come in person.
What Venture Dock Offers Founders
Weekly sessions are one piece of it. Members also get:
Introductions to investors when the timing is right for their raise
Roundtables, fireside chats, and 1:1 Founder Labs sessions with operators and investors who've done it before
A peer group of founders for the honest conversations that are hard to have with your investors
Access to founder and ecosystem delegations visiting Silicon Valley from other markets
Help from the community on hiring, fundraising, and go-to-market, drawn from people who've recently done it
What is Venture Dock
Venture Dock is a founder-first community and fund based in Palo Alto, with a location in Milpitas. We connect startups with the investors, operators, and partners who can help them get to the next stage.
If you've been coming to events and want deeper access, you can apply to join here: https://venturedock.fillout.com/t/gHcUcf7Tz8us