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The Twenty Minute VCSam Corcos: Why Founders Should Take as Many VC Meetings as Possible | E1093
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Sam Corcos: Fundraising, Transparency, And Intentional Living For Founders
- Sam Corcos, CEO and co-founder of Levels, discusses how extreme transparency, intentional time management, and a wide-net fundraising strategy shape how he builds companies and relationships.
- He advocates taking as many investor meetings as possible, treating fundraising as building long-term lines, not one-off dots, and being ruthlessly specific about what help you need from investors.
- Internally, he shares how Levels uses radical transparency on performance and one‑on‑ones, the Netflix-style keeper test, and a strong bias toward A-players, while admitting to missteps like over-growing the product org.
- Beyond company-building, he dives into risk tolerance, luck, parenting fears, partner selection, co-founder dynamics, and how being deeply intentional—yet allowing for spontaneity—guides his personal and professional life.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasTreat fundraising as building long-term relationships, not single-shot pitches.
Corcos emphasizes Mark Suster’s ‘lines, not dots’ idea: take many meetings, share metrics over time, and let investors observe your progress rather than waiting for a “perfect” moment to pitch one precious contact.
Be radically specific and proactive in how you use investors.
Most founders under-utilize investors; Sam tracks thousands of explicit “asks,” includes a clear ‘Asks’ section in updates, and crafts time-bounded, concrete requests (e.g. “two best designers you’ve worked with”) to drive a high conversion rate on help.
Use transparency and the keeper test to maintain a high-talent culture.
Levels shares internal one‑on‑ones and performance feedback by default and applies Netflix’s keeper test; when someone doesn’t pass, they discuss it openly, which Sam says increases trust and often rallies support around underperformers.
Optimize team structure: more great engineers, fewer unnecessary product roles.
Reflecting on mistakes, he notes Levels overbuilt its product org; like Brian Chesky, he’s concluded product management should be leaner while strong engineers are often the higher-return investment.
Send materials ahead and let uninterested investors self-select out.
Contrary to the “never send the deck early” advice, Sam prefers to share deep Notion docs before meetings; those who read and still want to meet are already aligned, saving him time and avoiding superficial, repetitive conversations.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesWhen you’re fundraising, you’re a prophet, not a missionary.
— Sam Corcos
One of the major mistakes that people make early on is they treat investor contacts like precious gems.
— Sam Corcos
If ultimately you cannot get behind the idea then you have lost confidence in the CEO… you should probably leave the company.
— Sam Corcos
If you don’t know what you need, you’ve already failed when an investor asks, ‘How can I help?’
— Sam Corcos
I try to be very intentional with my time. Most people are not very intentional with how they spend their time.
— Sam Corcos
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
