“Destruction and creation go hand in hand,”

Most of us tend to steer clear of the Cheddars in our life. We run away from people who can be the most critical of our ideas. But these are the people who get us best prepared, because backers are a lot like Cheddar. Their job is to find your blind spots. By playing exhibition matches with their Cheddars, backable people discover the hidden

hit the objections sooner rather than later. “You have the most attention from investors in the first few minutes,” he says. “Most investors arrive with questions, and if you proactively show you understand their principal concerns, you earn their attention for the rest of the pitch.”

that’s the thing about storyboards—they serve as an “empathy bridge” between your backer and your customer—just

If the fear of betting on the wrong idea is twice as powerful as the pleasure of betting on the right idea, then we can’t neutralize the fear of losing with the pleasure of winning. We can only neutralize the fear of losing with…the fear of losing.

number two).4 Lee showed me what’s possible when we go beyond softball questions like “What do you think?” As much as we may enjoy hearing “I like it,” this kind of feedback won’t get us very far. The most backable people know this. That’s why every

“Time spent touching objects” leads to “feelings of ownership and value.”

The third C is your cheerleader. This isn’t the person who’s going to give you critical feedback, but rather the person who’s going to make you feel confident before you get in the room.

“If you can make your thoughts clear to yourself, then another part of your brain can take a closer look.”