Rejection sucks. You spend umpteen hours on your deck, you go through trial runs and field criticism and incorporate feedback, you redo it again and again, you spend hours driving around to meetings, you brush your hair for the first time in weeks and pretty yourself up for the pitch. When you get there and start, you look around the room and the body language is clear:
What is this guy talking about?
This’ll never work.
Where am I going to lunch?
This is a dumb idea.
I can’t believe my partner dragged me into this meeting.
When is this presentation over?
I need to pee.
Way too many competitors. Why even touch this market?
Yawn.
And the list goes on. All from subtle and not-so-subtle bodily cues. Or overt vocalizations.
You throw your heart into the pitch and you wonder how these guys could be so blind! Why don’t they get it?
At the end, they usher you out with a polite, “We’ll get back to you.”
Your heart drops. You walk out dejected. Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. Self doubt creeps in. Life sucks. You grab a beer and drown your sorrows vegetating in front of Tivo.
You wish everyone could just see why your idea is so great. But it’s just not so. I wrote about resonance way back and think it also applies to investors. They need to be able to feel the idea, to get their brains and hearts around it. And unfortunately, not everybody can resonate with every idea. It’s just the way the world is.
So steel yourself for rejection. It will come and you’ll see it a lot. Build your resistance to letting rejection take you down emotionally and energetically. Practice blowing it off so it doesn’t wipe you out. Because it only takes ONE investor to resonate with you and your idea, and they will give you the cash to make it to the big time, and then you can say, “I told you so” to all the nonbelievers.