I have backed and advised 12 companies, across LegalTech, FinTech and HealthTech. I have also been on the other side of the table many times, as a founder trying to convince people to believe in something that did not exist yet.
Both experiences taught me the same lesson. At the early stage, the deck is almost never the thing that matters. The people are.
This is not a new idea. Most investors will tell you they "bet on the team". But in practice, a lot of decisions are still driven by a polished narrative, a big market slide and a confident hockey stick. I want to explain why I try hard to resist that, and what I look at instead.
Why slides mislead at the early stage
A pitch deck is a compression. It takes a messy, uncertain reality and turns it into twelve clean pages. That is useful for communication. It is dangerous for judgment.
Slides reward presentation skills. Some founders are brilliant at storytelling. Others are brilliant at building and terrible at pitching. A deck-driven process systematically favours the first group, even when the second group would build the better company.
Slides describe a plan that will change. At the seed stage, the product, the target customer and sometimes the whole business model will shift. In early-stage companies, the version that works rarely looks exactly like the first idea. If I invest in the plan, I am investing in something that probably will not survive contact with the market.
Slides hide the hard parts. Execution problems, team tensions, the uncomfortable conversations with early customers: none of that appears on a slide. Yet that is where companies live or die.
I often come back to a simple belief: "Ideas, no matter how brilliant, are mere potentialities. It's the execution that brings them to life." A deck is a document about ideas. What I need to understand is whether this person can execute.
What I actually look for in founders
Over time, I have settled on a handful of signals. None of them is perfect, but together they tell me far more than a market size slide.
Proof of execution, at any scale
I want to see that the founder has already moved something from idea to reality, even if it is small. A prototype built over a few weekends. Ten customers convinced by hand. A previous project that failed but shipped. Execution is a habit, and habits show up early.
Closeness to the problem
The best founders I have met understand their customer almost uncomfortably well. They can describe a typical day of their user in detail. They know which workaround people use today and why it is painful. That closeness usually comes from having lived the problem, or from having spent a lot of time with people who do.
This is something I learned building in home-care nursing with Maison des Infirmiers: the useful insights came from the field, not from a spreadsheet. I wrote about that in What technology can (and cannot) do for home-care nursing.
Clarity under uncertainty
I ask a lot of questions to which there is no good answer yet. I am not testing whether the founder knows the answer. I am testing whether they can say "I do not know, here is how I will find out" without panicking or bluffing. Founders who bluff in a meeting will bluff with their team and their customers.
Coachability without fragility
A good founder listens, takes feedback seriously, and still holds their own conviction. Too stubborn, and they will ignore the market. Too eager to please, and they will change direction every time an investor raises an eyebrow. I look for people who can say "you are right on this, and I disagree on that, here is why."
Resilience and motivation
Every company goes through a period where nothing works. What carries a founder through is rarely the financial upside. It is a deeper reason to care. I try to understand that reason, because it predicts who will still be there in year three.
Entrepreneurs come from everywhere
One of my strongest convictions is that great founders do not all come from the same schools, cities or networks. I am an engineer from CentraleSupélec, and I know that background opened doors. But I also started my entrepreneurial journey at 21, and I know that at that age, what you can show is energy and execution, not a track record.
That is why I like supporting entrepreneurs who start from scratch. Entrepreneurs come from everywhere: different countries, different languages, different paths. Through ThalerTech Group, I work across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and in that work we often see that strong operators do not always come with a polished deck.
Pattern matching on pedigree is lazy. It also makes you miss the best opportunities, because the founders everyone already recognises are the ones everyone is already competing for.
How I run a conversation with a founder
When I meet a founder, the deck is the starting point, not the evaluation. A typical conversation looks less like a pitch and more like working together on a problem.
- I ask them to walk me through a recent decision. Why they chose this customer segment, this price, this first hire. The reasoning matters more than the choice.
- I ask what went wrong last month. Every startup has something. How they talk about it tells me about honesty and learning speed.
- I ask who they have talked to. Real customer conversations, with specifics, are a strong signal.
- I spend time outside the pitch. A call about a random operational issue reveals more than a rehearsed presentation.
I also try to be useful from the first meeting. Advising and investing are, for me, the same relationship. If we cannot work well together on a small problem today, we will not work well together on a big one later.
For a longer reflection on my own path as a builder, and what I would do differently, see Why I keep building companies.
What this approach costs, and why I accept it
Investing in founders rather than slides is slower. It requires more conversations and more judgment, and it is harder to justify with a neat spreadsheet. It also means I will sometimes pass on deals that look great on paper.
I accept that. At the earliest stage, everything is uncertain except the people. Markets shift, products pivot, technology changes faster than any plan. The founder is the one constant. If I get that right, I have a real chance. If I get that wrong, no slide will save the investment.
Key takeaways
- At the early stage, decks describe plans that will change. Founders are the constant.
- Look for proof of execution, closeness to the problem, honesty under uncertainty and resilience.
- Do not pattern match on pedigree: entrepreneurs come from everywhere.
- Treat early conversations as working sessions, not performances.
- Founder-first investing is slower, and worth it.