There's a Swedish word I keep coming back to. Dumsnål.
Translated “StupidCheap or even better “pound-foolish”.
Trying to cut cost but in a way that it ends up costing you instead. Saving a hundred dollarsand losing ten thousand.
I get lots of request for different coaching assignment - but when I tell them my price - I get told "no thank you" a lot.
And I get that - my price is high. I know it is. It’s absolutely not because I don't want to help startups. I love watching them thrive. But demand is high and I have a limit too.
And when you're early stage with almost nothing in the bank, I understand the no completely.
That's not the part that gets to me.
What gets to me is watching a founder go after real money, sometimes a grant worth millions, and then turn cheap at the exact moment the stakes go up. Then get the no. Then lose the momentum they spent two years building, with a team behind them who was counting on it.
That one stays with me. (and frankly it pisses me off)
Founders Count the Invoice, Not the Missed Opportunity
Most founders are very good at calculating what something costs. The fee. The hourly rate. What's in the account right now.
That's the wrong comparison.
The question isn't "what does this cost?"
The question is "what does a weak pitch cost us?"
I've watched founders hesitate to invest in serious preparation right before:
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a funding round
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an EU grant application
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an accelerator decision
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a board meeting
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a strategic partnership
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a deal with their biggest potential customer
And the reasons sound sensible every single time:
"We don't have the budget." "It feels expensive." "We can probably handle this ourselves." "We just need to clean up the deck."
Here's the thing about the deck. The deck is almost never the problem.
The problem is that the story hasn't been pressure-tested. The logic hasn't been challenged by someone who isn't already in love with it. The hard questions haven't been rehearsed out loud. The objections haven't been handled. Nobody has practiced carrying an entire company on their back for twenty minutes in a room full of skeptics.
You rarely get a second chance at the first moment of belief.
The Expensive No
I once talked with a founder preparing for an opportunity worth millions - in grants. EU funding worth millions. My fee next to that number was a rounding error.
They thought it was too expensive. So they didn't take the help.
They also didn't get the funding.
I want to be careful here - I'm not saying they lost because they didn't work with me. These processes are competitive. Other companies may simply have been stronger. Criteria shift. Timing matters.
But I'll say this without hesitating: their pitch was not good enough for the size of what was in front of them. Actually it was really crappy. And I think they knew it before they walked in.
It took them another year before they got the money - what a waste of time.
That's the part founders need to take seriously.
Stop Asking What Help Costs. Ask What Weakness Costs.
Before a meeting that actually matters, sit down with your co-founder and answer these honestly:
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How big is this opportunity, in money?
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How many real chances do we get at it?
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What happens if there is no second meeting?
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Which assumption in our story have we never tested out loud?
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Which question are we quietly hoping nobody asks?
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Where are we relying on hope instead of preparation?
That last one is usually the one that hurts.
When the stakes are low, experiment. Improvise. Learn in public. That's how you get good.
When the stakes are high, preparation isn't a luxury purchase. It's risk management. Same category as insurance, legal review, a proper data room. Nobody calls a lawyer expensive at the term sheet stage.
Pitch coaching isn't about making founders sound polished. Polished is easy and mostly useless. It's about making sure a good company doesn't lose the room because the message was unclear, the logic didn't hold, or the founder froze on the one question everybody was always going to ask.
The Bottom Line
A weak pitch is expensive. Not because it bruises your ego. Because it can cost you the room, the round, the grant, the customer, the partner, and the year of momentum sitting behind all of it.
If what's in front of you is worth millions and you won't invest properly in how you communicate it, you aren't saving money. You're gambling with the outcome. And your team didn't sign up for that bet.
So before the next big one, ask yourself:
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Are we being financially disciplined, or are we being dumsnål?
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What would it actually cost us if this meeting leads nowhere?
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Which part of our pitch collapses under pressure?
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Are we treating this like a business-critical moment or like a slide-design task?
And if the honest answer is that you can't afford help right now, fine. Say it out loud, then go find the toughest, least polite person in your network and make them tear your pitch apart for free. Do the work somewhere.
Just don't walk into a million-dollar room with hundred-dollar preparation.
Cheap gets expensive fast when the stakes are high.