Are They Coachable?

You are a fresh new startup. You just got in front of angel investors at a local pitch event and an investor has taken notice and asked you a bunch of questions.

At the end of the night after taking their card, you think you will be getting a meeting, but days pass by after your email and texts. It turns out they were suddenly not interested.

What went wrong?

So many potential problems… or reasons why there was a disconnect.

Meanwhile, behind your back, the investor asked others in your tech community about you and somebody mentioned you were not coachable. It was just an off-handed comment. It really meant nothing, and it was all opinion.

For many of us “coachable” sounds like a simple problem to solve.

Can we listen well to others?

Can we change what we are doing?

Do we have the ability to evolve or pivot?

Just happens that for whatever reason over the past 2 weeks I have heard from several investors and partners referring to multiple startup founders that they were “not coachable”.