In a recent article in Harvard Magazine, Amy Cuddy, who teaches at Harvard Business School is quoted as saying that the success of venture-capital pitches to investors apparently turns, in fact, on nonverbal factors like “how comfortable and charismatic you are. The predictors of who actually gets the money are all about how you present yourself, and nothing to do with content.”
Citing research by Boston College doctoral student Lakshmi Balachandra, who studied 185 venture-capital pitches and found that variables like “calmness,” passion,” “eye contact,” and “lack of awkwardness” were strong predictors of success, Cuddy argues that nonverbal states, like confidence, are infectious in part because, “people tend to mirror each other. There are dedicated ‘mirror neurons’ in the brain.”
While these findings are certainly interesting (and intuitive), I believe it is an oversimplification that content doesn’t matter at all. After all, businesses seeking money from a venture capitalist would not even get an appointment unless they had a good idea and a strong, fleshed-out business plan.
It would be more accurate to say that, given relative parity between investment opportunities, VCs tend to invest with those individuals who display the mentioned personal traits.