How to Beat Imposter Syndrome For Fundraising

This week's tip: How to beat imposter syndrome

Imposter syndromes seems to take hold of most founders when they look to raise venture capital.

Whilst you may be excited by the future of your company, you are almost waiting for investors to call BS on you and your company.

Your achievements always have a heaping helping of luck served with a side of great timing.

You are just waiting for investors to show you up as a fraud.

It's a horrible feeling to have, but if you let your imposter syndrome show, investors will never want to invest into you.

They will smell your lack of confidence from a mile off.

You need to tame the beast, you need to overcome it.

Now look…

I have had bucket loads of imposter syndrome in my life.

In fact, I still do.

But when it comes to fundraising and speaking to investors you have to overcome your imposter syndrome.

Here’s what I’ve learnt about imposter syndrome over my career:

1. You are more talented than you think

Imposter syndrome tends to impact founders because they are unable to express how and why they perform the way they do.

Because you can’t quite “put a finger on it”, you revert back to luck.

Following this logic, you conclude that you’re fraudulent and it’s only a matter of time until the luck runs out.

And in your view, what that happens?

You will be exposed!

This is an unconscious refusal to assign credit appropriately.

A mental rearrangement of the facts of your own execution.

As more wins and accomplishments pile up, you aren’t able to clear the cobwebs and look at their achievements for what they really are: high performance.

So, if you’re questioning your own legitimacy, write out your personal and career accomplishments and ask yourself this:

“If a stranger shared these accomplishments with me, would the logical conclusion be that they are all a stroke of luck and therefore a fraud?”

Probably not.

You’re likely more talented than you think.

2. You are the expert

Expert Blindness is when you’ve learnt something and have known it for so long (and so well), that you can’t imagine other people not knowing it.

This is an extremely important component of impostor syndrome.

You see...

Investors will never know as much as you. They are generalists by nature.

And whilst they may look scary and all-knowing, you know more than you think you do.

At the end of the day, investors are investing into you for your knowledge.

You got to where you are because of that knowledge.

3. The stuff you don't know? They don't know either

The amount of knowledge available to us is unlimited and growing.

In the world of start-ups its even more crazy. Every 6 months your industry will most likely drastically change, and you will have to change with it. It can feel impossible to keep up.

But here's the thing, that's okay.

You aren't meant to know everything.

Regardless of who you idolize, they are likely very smart and know a lot about their industry & business. But they don’t know everything.

This is especially true for investors who are just trying to learn something new when speaking to you.

I’ve discovered many times that when I sit down with a well-respected entrepreneur for the first time, we’re in the same boat.

We’re trying to solve similar challenges, figure out complex problems, and we end up trading failures and lessons learned.

So stop worrying about what you do and don’t know, and stop believing that you should know it all.

Now I realise that’s a tall order.

Instead, start thinking about how you actually approach not knowing something.

Focus on curiosity, diligence, and your ability to figure things out.

Those are the things that will ultimately determine your success.

4. Ponder your accomplishments

It all comes back to the question I posed at the beginning:

"If a stranger shared these accomplishments with me, would the logical conclusion be that they are all a stroke of luck and therefore a fraud?”

Take the time to review your accomplishments and celebrate how far you have come.

Successful entrepreneurs with impostor syndrome are likely to view their businesses as luck and won’t stop to think about where them as founders as well as their companies have come.

Look back. Be good to yourself. Smile when you see the upward trajectory of your business.

Make this a quarterly or bi-annual commitment to yourself.

Both personally and company-wide.

You’ll begin to see that you are truly worthy of praise and the label, “high performer”.

You. Are. A. Great. Founder.

Remember that.