Before you run these exercises
Chapter 6 makes an argument that unsettles most founders: by the time you're pitching, the trust question may already be mostly answered — and not by your deck. The chapter breaks down what trust actually consists of, why investors need three distinct kinds of it, and what the spectrum of community trust looks like in practice.
There's a framework in this chapter — a scale from 5 to 11 — that is worth reading before you try the exercises below. Where you sit on it right now is more important than any slide you'll put together this week.
The chapter breaks investor trust into three distinct types — and they're not interchangeable. Knowing which one you're missing tells you exactly where to focus before your next meeting. Read Chapter 6 to understand what each type is, then use this exercise to diagnose your gap.
Most founders who are struggling to raise are missing one specific type more than the others. Knowing which one it is tells you exactly where to focus before your next meeting — and what to stop wasting time on.
The chapter describes a specific test: go to the most financially capable people you know and ask them — hypothetically — how much they'd invest in a startup idea from a trusted referral. Then ask how much they'd invest in you specifically, even before you have the idea fully formed.
The gap between those two numbers is a direct measure of your personal trust capital. The closer they are — or if the "you" number is actually higher — that's blank check trust. Most founders have never actually had this conversation. AI can help you prepare for it and interpret what you hear.
The chapter identifies a specific failure mode it calls "downshifting" — founders trading their genuine motivation for cookie-cutter slide templates and buzzwords like "disruption" and "democratization" that investors have heard hundreds of times. The problem isn't the information in the deck. It's that sanitized pitchspeak actively destroys trust because it makes you sound like everyone else, and trust is built on sounding like yourself.
The chapter's question is precise: what do you want the investor to feel? Not think — feel. Claude can help you identify where you've downshifted and recover the human story underneath.
The chapter borrows an observation from someone who has raised billions in investor capital that reframes when fundraising actually begins. It's in Chapter 6. Trust compounds over time and can't be manufactured in a three-month sprint. But that doesn't mean there's nothing to do right now. The chapter lists specific trust-building behaviors — being visibly reliable, helping without expecting returns, developing a reputation for transparency, becoming known for something — and each of them can be started today.
The gap between where you are on the trust scale and where you need to be to close a round is a plan, not a verdict. Use Claude to build it.
Chapter 6 is asking you to reckon with something most pitch advice skips: the pitch is not where trust is built. It's where trust is confirmed or denied. If the trust isn't already there — in how people talk about you when you're not in the room — no slide template will fix it.
Before you move on: know which trust type is your biggest gap, have a plan for closing it, and look honestly at where you sit on the 5-to-11 scale. If the honest answer is 5 or 6, the most valuable thing you can do before your next pitch meeting is not refine your deck. It's figure out how to move one level up — and that means doing something real, not something polished.