Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl to founders: Not asking questions to investors post funding pitch is ‘big missed opportunity’

Startup founders pitching investors for fundraising in meetings should be willing and prepared to ask questions to the investors at the end of the discussion, suggested value e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal’s co-founder and startup investor Kunal Bahl. 

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, Bahl said founders, if given the opportunity by investors to ask questions at the end of the pitch and depending on the time available, should post direct questions to the investor. 

“Often founders will say that they don’t have any questions or ask an underwhelming or unrelated question. This is a big missed opportunity!,” said Bahl. 

“As a founder, you don’t have to agree with all the feedback. But it’s important to leverage the opportunity to get detailed feedback from someone who has spent a lot of time with early-stage companies and now also knows a bit about your business,” he said underscoring the need to ask right questions.  

“Your questions also indicate a thing or two about how you think and your intellectual humility to the investor. It also engages and makes the investor think more deeply about your business.”

Bahl, who has made 238 investments as an investor, as per data from Tracxn, also shared key questions he would ask as a founder to investors: 

“Where do you feel I could go wrong in this business? What should I watch out for? Are there any fundamental assumptions I am making about the market that could be incorrect? Are there estimates about the business’ unit economics that you feel are out of order? Can you share any relevant learnings having seen or invested in similar businesses? What should be my priorities in the next 12 months? What skill-sets do you think I will need to onboard as a founder beyond the founding team’s capabilities?” 

Apart from Snapdeal, Bahl is also the co-founder of seed-stage venture capital firm Titan Capital. Bahl was the early investor in Ola, Urban Company, Shadowfax, Bira, Razorpay, Khatabook, Beardo, Mamaearth, etc. 

According to the data from Crunchbase, Snapdeal has so far raised $1.8 billion in funding over 14 rounds and had last raised in 2019. Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, SoftBank, BlackRock were some of the investors in Snapdeal.