For first-time founders · Seed & pre-seed fundraising
Your deck is ready. Rehearse what happens when they interrupt on slide three.
You’ve run the slides forty times. You still don’t know what you’ll say when a GP stops you mid-traction.
The warm intro landed. Your deck has problem, solution, traction, team, ask. Tuesday’s partner meeting is forty-five minutes. What you can’t picture is stating your $2M seed ask and then sitting there while a general partner interrupts on slide three — “What’s your moat?” — probes your CAC, and watches whether you hedge or freeze. Kommi puts you in that room first — with a skeptical investor who pushes back the way partners actually do — so Tuesday isn’t your first live Q&A.
The deck isn’t the hard part.
Every fundraising guide has the same advice: know your metrics, practice your opening, leave time for Q&A. You have the numbers. What you don’t have is muscle memory for when a partner interrupts your traction slide, challenges your moat, and you have to answer in real time without saying “great question, let me get back to you on that.”
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What’s at stake
A pass on a warm intro burns a relationship and three months of runway. Hedging on moat or CAC reads as low conviction — and conviction is half the term sheet.
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Why solo practice fails
Mirror runs and deck click-throughs don’t simulate interruption. You rehearse a monologue. Partners run a cross-examination.
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What question lists can’t do
Pitch blogs give you twenty common VC questions. They can’t simulate the GP going quiet for six seconds while you wonder if your CAC answer just killed the meeting.
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What a pitch coach costs
One hour with a fundraising coach runs $200–500. You need five reps across the weekend — Saturday night, Sunday morning, Monday before the meeting — not one polished run-through.
Sample roleplay · 3 minutes
“Hold on — what’s your moat here?”
You’re Sam. You’ve walked through problem and early traction. Now the GP interrupts before you reach the ask.
You (Sam)
“We’re at $42k MRR, growing 18% month-over-month. Our ICP is mid-market ops teams drowning in manual reconciliation — we’ve closed twelve paying accounts in six months, all inbound from founder networks and one vertical Slack community.”
The GP
“Hold on — what’s your moat here? Ramp and Brex both have reconciliation features on the roadmap. And your CAC looks high for this stage if most of it is founder-led sales. Why won’t a well-funded incumbent copy this in eighteen months?”
Your move
- → Answer moat first, CAC second — don’t ramble across both
- → Name one defensible wedge: workflow lock-in, data network, or vertical depth
- → Bridge back to traction: “That’s why we’re raising now — to widen the gap before they ship”
Each choice changes how the GP follows up. The room gets uncomfortable. You practice holding conviction without sounding defensive — or catching yourself when you’re about to say “we’re still figuring out distribution.”
Then the coach reads you back to yourself.
Not a filler-word count. Not a slide-timing scorecard. One observation about what you did, one adjustment for next time, one sentence you can carry into Tuesday’s partner meeting.
Sample coach debrief
“You opened with strong traction numbers — clear and specific. When the GP asked about moat, you started with ‘yeah, that’s a fair concern’ and then listed three features without naming why customers switch back. That sounded like you didn’t believe your own wedge.
Try next time: Lead with one sentence: ‘Our moat is workflow depth in mid-market ops — customers average four integrations in week one, and switching cost is six months of config.’ Then address CAC with one number, not a story.
Carry into Tuesday: ‘Incumbents will add features. We’re betting on vertical depth and speed to value — that’s why twelve accounts closed in six months on founder-led sales, and that’s what this round accelerates.’”
Questions before you pitch investors
- Is this for deck design or live Q&A?
- Live Q&A. This page is tuned for the partner meeting — when a GP interrupts, challenges your moat, and probes unit economics. You can practice your opening inside Kommi too, but the value is rehearsing pushback before it happens in the room.
- I already use EchoPitch / Yoodli / a pitch coach. Why Kommi?
- Delivery tools measure pace and filler words. Pitch coaches give you one great run-through. Kommi simulates the skeptical GP who interrupts mid-slide — so you hear yourself hedge before Tuesday, not after the pass email.
- Can I practice specific questions like “why you?” or “why now?”
- Yes. The roleplay adapts to the questions founders dread most — moat, CAC, competition, team gaps, and the ask. You practice answering in 30–60 seconds without rambling into a second unprompted pitch.
- Is $11.99/mo worth it during a fundraise?
- One hour with a fundraising coach costs more than a year of Kommi. A single blown warm intro can cost months of runway. You also get unlimited sessions across every hard conversation we ship — co-founder conflict, board updates, customer churn calls.
$11.99 a month.
A coach with a calendar runs two hundred dollars an hour. Kommi runs roughly forty cents a day — and is awake when you can't sleep, which is when most of these conversations are actually being rehearsed anyway.
We don't have a free tier, a team plan, or a premium upsell. One price, no pricing page riddle. If we add tiers later, we'll do it because users asked — not because a growth deck did.
About forty cents a day.
- Two free sessions before billing starts
- Then $11.99 a month — about forty cents a day
- Unlimited sessions — any conversation you can describe
- A coaching read after every session, and your progress over time
- Cancel in two taps; 7-day refund if you change your mind
One conversation you’d have talked yourself out of is worth years of this. Or just sleep better on Wednesday. Either way.
Run your first rehearsal — free →US only at launch. We'll get to the rest of the world.
The conversation is on Thursday. Begin tonight.
Three minutes. Two free. 7-day money back after that.