In answer to your question, “How many times have you been turned down?”, I think we were turned down between 150 and 200 times in our last company, Vector Innovations. We were trying to raise money in the middle of the dot-com bust - and even an award from the IT Financing Forum did not help.

A lesson for other entrepreneurs is that we continuously refined our business case and presentation based on feedback from investors. In retrospect, I would not have funded the pitch we started with, but it was a much better company and story after significant investor feedback — and our experience in presenting the story.

Keith Thomas