In this article
The investor Q&A prep sheet template
A prep sheet is a practice artifact, not a pitch deck: it organizes the question and answer (Q&A) part of a fundraising meeting so you rehearse thinking, not a script. The investor pitch questions guide shows what investors ask and what to ask them. Sequoia Capital's own business-plan page is a useful backbone for the rows. It lists ten prompts (March 2019): company purpose, problem, solution, why now, market potential, competition, business model, team, financials and vision. One practitioner guide groups every question under three things: you, the market, or the business's defensibility (accessed October 2026); treat that as practitioner advice, not a standard.
| Column | What you write | Example (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|
| Question | The question in the investor's likely words | "How are you acquiring customers?" |
| Category | Company, market, metrics, team or the raise | Market |
| One-sentence answer | The simplest complete response | "Outbound sales to finance teams, one channel so far." |
| Proof | The number, document or customer behind it | Pipeline report, last quarter |
| Likely follow-up | What the answer invites next | "How expensive, and does it scale?" |
| Gap | What you cannot yet answer | "Payback by channel" |
Fill the sheet in this order: write the one-sentence answer first, add proof second, then list the follow-up. A practitioner guide suggests keeping first answers under about 90 seconds (accessed October 2026), and another teaches an answer, explain, example pattern, where the answer is "the simplest complete response to their question" (accessed October 2026). Both are single-author heuristics.
Rehearsing with a sheet is a habit shared with technical interviews, where you also work each answer from first principles and then back it with proof. The partner meeting vs intro call guide shows how the depth of questions changes between meetings.
Company and purpose
What does your company do?
Say one declarative sentence naming the customer, the problem and what you built. Sequoia's page says to define your company in a single declarative sentence (March 2019). Test it by asking someone outside your industry to repeat it back. Then stop and let the investor steer; the details belong in follow-ups, not the opening.
Why prepare it: every later answer builds on this sentence, so a vague one weakens all of them. Source: Sequoia Capital, Writing a Business Plan.
Why now?
Name one specific change that makes the company possible or necessary today: a cost that fell, a rule that changed, a behavior that spread. Sequoia notes that the best companies almost always have a clear "why now" (March 2019). Give the change, the date or trend you can point to, and what it unlocked. "The market is growing" is not an answer. The why now and why you guide goes deeper.
Why prepare it: it is one of Sequoia's ten prompts. Source: Sequoia Capital, Writing a Business Plan.
Who are your competitors, and how do you win?
List direct competitors and indirect ones, including the spreadsheet or the habit you replace. Sequoia asks for both and for proof that you have a plan to win (March 2019). Pick one dimension where you are better, say why it is hard to copy, and name one competitor's strength honestly. Dismissing competition reads as not having looked.
Why prepare it: the follow-up is always "why can't they copy you?". Source: Sequoia Capital, Writing a Business Plan.
Knowing it is half the job. Saying it is the other half.
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Start Free Trial →The market and customers
How big is the market?
Build it bottom-up. Total addressable market (TAM) is the yearly revenue you would earn if every target customer bought from you. One guide gives the formula TAM = total number of customers × your annual price (accessed October 2026), and recommends a bottom-up build, customers × annual contract value (ACV). With an illustrative 20,000 target customers at an illustrative annual price of 6,000 dollars, the market is 120 million dollars a year.1 Then say which slice you can reach first.
Why prepare it: the source ties bottom-up sizing to a credible go-to-market plan. Source: startupfundraising.com.
How are you acquiring customers?
Name the channels you actually use, then the cost. Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend divided by the number of new customers it won. A practitioner list pairs this question with the follow-ups how expensive and how scalable (accessed October 2026). Answer with the channel, the CAC, and what you would change by adding budget.
Why prepare it: acquisition cost feeds the unit economics below. Source: Venture Atlanta.
How well do you retain customers?
State the retention you measure and how you measure it: for example the share of a signup month still paying after a given number of months, shown as cohorts rather than one blended figure. Venture Atlanta lists customer retention (accessed October 2026) as its own question category. If the history is short, say so and show the earliest cohorts. The due-diligence questions and data room guide covers what evidence investors ask to see.
Why prepare it: retention decides whether acquisition spend pays back. Source: Venture Atlanta.
Metrics and unit economics
What is your burn rate?
Burn rate is the net cash your company loses per month: cash out minus cash in. Venture Atlanta lists what is your burn rate? (accessed October 2026) as a sample question. Give the last full month's net figure, the trend, and the largest line items. Use actual bank numbers, not a budget, and say what drove any jump.
Why prepare it: it is the input to runway. Source: Venture Atlanta.
What is your runway?
Runway is the number of months until cash runs out at the current burn: cash on hand divided by monthly net burn. With an illustrative 600,000 dollars in the bank and 50,000 dollars of monthly burn, runway is 12 months.1 Add what the number assumes: flat hiring, no revenue change. Then connect it to the raise, covered below.
Why prepare it: runway is arithmetic, so a hesitant answer shows. No primary source defines it; this is the standard textbook ratio.
What is your LTV to CAC ratio?
LTV is the total gross profit one customer brings before they leave; the ratio is LTV divided by CAC. A vendor guide says a 3:1 ratio or higher is generally considered strong (accessed October 2026); treat it as a rule of thumb, not a rule. With an illustrative 100 dollars of monthly revenue, 80% gross margin and 30 months retained, LTV is 2,400 dollars; at an illustrative CAC of 800 dollars the ratio is 3.0.1
Why prepare it: it combines acquisition and retention in one number. Source: Crestmont Capital.
Investors and team
Why are you the right team for this?
Tie each founder to a specific part of the problem: the customers you served, the system you built, the result you shipped. Paul Graham says you need three things: formidable founders, a promising market, and (usually) some evidence of success so far (Y Combinator Startup Library, accessed October 2026). So answer with evidence, not adjectives, and name the gap you will hire for.
Why prepare it: it is the "you" category of the three-way grouping above. Source: Paul Graham, How to convince investors.
Who else is investing?
Answer truthfully with where the round stands: who has committed, who is in discussion, and the timeline. Graham writes that the most common question will be "who else is investing?" (accessed October 2026). Do not bluff a commitment you lack. If nobody has committed, say who you are meeting and what you expect to learn.
Why prepare it: it will come up, so a rehearsed honest answer beats an improvised one. Source: Paul Graham, How to convince investors.
Why did other investors pass?
Say what you heard, without defensiveness, and what you did about it. Graham advises that if you talk candidly about what scared investors about you, you will seem more confident. He also notes investors do not always volunteer detail, so you may have to ask. Prepare one real objection and your response.
Why prepare it: it tests whether you learn from feedback. Source: Paul Graham, How to convince investors.
The raise and the terms
How much are you raising, and why that amount?
State one specific amount and tie it to a milestone. One guide says to state a specific amount and not give a range (accessed October 2026). Prepare three facts: the amount, your pre-money valuation if you have set one, and the detailed use of funds. Pre-money is the company's valuation before the new investment is added.
Why prepare it: vague amounts make the round look unplanned. Source: Crestmont Capital.
What valuation cap are you offering on the SAFE?
A SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) is a short contract an investor signs to fund your startup now in exchange for the right to shares later (Y Combinator, accessed October 2026), converting when you raise a priced round. The valuation cap is the highest valuation at which the SAFE converts. Working back from a 1 million dollar raise and 15% sold, the cap is about 6.7 million dollars and pre-money about 5.7 million.1
Why prepare it: Y Combinator's own example uses exactly this derivation. For a related interview question, see how to answer "what is your valuation?" and the valuation and dilution questions guide. Source: Y Combinator, The SAFE.
How much of the company will I own?
Ownership sold equals the investment divided by the post-money cap. On a cap of about 6.7 million dollars, 500,000 dollars sells about 7.5% and 800,000 dollars about 12%, as Y Combinator shows (accessed October 2026).1 A raise of 1,000,000 dollars on that cap sells 15%. Two caps can be mixed: 500,000 dollars at 5.5 million plus 500,000 dollars at 8.3 million sells about 15%.
Text description of the diagram
- On a cap of about 6.7 million dollars, 500,000 dollars sells about 7.5% and 800,000 dollars about 12%.
- A raise of 1,000,000 dollars on that cap sells 15%.
The figure is before the priced round: the Y Combinator primer says the cap is not also "post" a new or increased option pool, so later dilution comes on top. Its example: 500,000 dollars on a 5.5 million dollar cap locks in about 9%.1
Why prepare it: a common slip is to treat the cap as the company's valuation; it is only the highest conversion valuation. Source: Y Combinator, post-money safe primer.
What will this money achieve?
Link the raise to one measurable milestone and a time. A practitioner guide gives the pattern: a seed round that gives us an 18-month runway to grow monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from 20,000 to 100,000 dollars (accessed October 2026); that is a template line, not data. Check the arithmetic: 1.5 million dollars over 18 months is about 83,333 dollars of average monthly burn.1
Why prepare it: the investor can test the milestone against your burn. Source: Crestmont Capital.
Where will the company be in five years?
Describe what you will have built if things go well, in concrete terms: customers served, product breadth, position in the market. Sequoia's prompt reads "if all goes well, what will you have built in five years?" (March 2019). Keep it consistent with your market size and raise; a vision that contradicts your own numbers costs credibility.
Why prepare it: it is the last of Sequoia's ten prompts. Source: Sequoia Capital, Writing a Business Plan.
Follow-up questions
What questions do investors ask founders?
They cluster into a few categories: company and team, market, customer acquisition and retention, and the financials and use of funds, per one practitioner list (accessed October 2026). These are practitioner groupings, not independent studies, so build your sheet from the rows above and add questions from your own meetings.
How do you prepare for investor questions?
Fill the template, say each answer aloud against a timer, and have someone play the investor and interrupt with the follow-up column. Rehearse the weakest rows most. A practitioner guide notes that if an investor is not asking tough questions, you should be a little worried (accessed October 2026).
What if you do not know the answer to an investor's question?
Do not bluff and do not give up: Graham says the best response is to explain how you would figure out the answer (accessed October 2026). That holds for market or strategy questions; for your own metrics, know the figure, because a founder should have a clear answer to those.
Should you memorize answers to investor questions?
No. The sheet trains your thinking and your proof, not recall. Practitioner sources describe the questions as tests of how you reason, and a memorized script breaks at the first unexpected follow-up. Know the one-sentence answer and the numbers behind it, then speak naturally.
- Use the template: question, category, one-sentence answer, proof, likely follow-up and gap.
- Organize rows with Sequoia's ten prompts and the you, market, defensibility grouping.
- Compute your own numbers: runway, LTV to CAC, market size and SAFE ownership.
- A SAFE's cap is the highest conversion valuation, and ownership sold is the investment divided by the cap.
- If you do not know, explain how you would find out; for your own metrics, know them.
Sources
- Writing a Business Plan (Sequoia Capital) — Sequoia Capital, 15 Mar 2019
- The SAFE: the open standard for startup fundraising — Y Combinator, 26 Oct 2026
- Primer for post-money safe v1.1 — Y Combinator, 26 Oct 2026
- How to convince investors (Paul Graham) — Y Combinator Startup Library, 26 Oct 2026
- Most Common Questions Investors Ask During a Pitch — Venture Atlanta, 26 Oct 2026
- How to Respond to Investor Questions — Crestmont Capital, 26 Oct 2026
- Interpreting investor questions — startupfundraising.com, 26 Oct 2026
- Typical questions investors will ask — startupfundraising.com, 26 Oct 2026
- Founders: Use This Framework When Talking to Investors — Forum VC, 26 Oct 2026
