Lauren Reeves is an engineer-turned-investor at MGV, where she backs pre-seed and seed-stage B2B software startups. Before moving into venture, she worked as a backend engineer at BlackRock and later as a full-stack developer at Postmates and Alto Pharmacy.
We asked Lauren what advice she has for technical founders navigating the early stages of building and fundraising. Here are her top three takeaways:
1. Know Your Audience When Communicating
When you’ve built something complex or novel, it’s tempting to lead with the technical details. But Lauren encourages adjusting your story depending on who you’re talking to, whether it’s an investor, a customer, or a potential hire.
Many investors aren’t deeply technical. If your pitch is too dense or packed with jargon, you risk losing their attention. They may move on, not because the idea isn’t good, but because it wasn’t easy to understand. Instead, focus on the big picture and digestibility. You can always go deeper when the time is right.
2. Show Your Founder-Market Fit
Building software is more accessible than ever before, which makes the founding team even more important at the earliest stages. Investors aren't just backing an idea, they’re also backing the people behind it.
Being a strong founder isn’t just about being technical or smart. It’s also about the ability to sell, build a team, and lead effectively.
Founders should be prepared to explain what gives them a unique edge. That advantage might come from:
Prior experience: Have you built something similar before, or spent meaningful time working on this exact problem?
Unique network: Do you have access to customers, partners, or talent that others don’t?
Differentiated IP: Are you building on proprietary technology or insight that’s hard to copy?
At the earliest stages, when traction and metrics are limited, the “why you” becomes one of the most important parts of the pitch.
3. Deeply Understand Your Customers
Technical founders often say their product could be used by anyone, but that kind of broad positioning can be a red flag. Going from zero to one million in ARR is achievable, but scaling beyond that takes strategy and discipline. If you can’t clearly define who your first users are or how you’ll reach them, the go-to-market plan falls apart.
Founders should be intentional about who their first 100 customers are. That means understanding what they care about, what problems they face, and why your product is the best solution for them. The early go-to-market motion should be tightly focused and built around these users before expanding further.
Founder-led sales are also critical in the beginning. Both technical and non-technical co-founders should be in customer conversations early and often. If only one founder understands the product deeply, the team risks missing valuable insights and momentum. The more both founders engage with users, the better the product and sales motion will be.
For technical founders, success often comes down to more than just what you build, it’s how clearly you communicate, how well you know your customer, and why you’re uniquely positioned to solve the problem.
If you’re a technical founder - Lauren is always open to connecting, you can reach her at lauren@mgv.vc
We recently launched The Lynx List - the paid section of this newsletter that features profiles of 1-2 NYC startups currently fundraising. Learn more here.
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