Your smile

Earlier this year I had a long conversation with David Cohen, co-founder of Techstars.

When I edited it myself, I kept running into parts that felt too important to cut. I cut anyway. The best I could do was 43 minutes.

Watching it again, I realized some of those parts are things every founder should hear. So I am turning them into short videos.

The first one is out. Eleven minutes, mostly in David's own voice.

I am also preparing one for Paul Graham. All of his essays for founders, in one short video. More on that soon.

Did you know your smile can affect your valuation?

A few days ago I came across a Short about telling a real smile from a fake one in a photo. Look at the corners of the eyes, and so on. I had seen this before.

Then, out of curiosity, I searched for something I never expected to find: does this work for founders too?

Bingo.

A study published this year in Scientific Reports looked at exactly this. The authors ran five studies. Three stood out to me:

20,316 ventures on Crunchbase. Founders who smiled in their profile pictures were more likely to raise money, and raised more.

1,091 Shark Tank pitches. Smiling went with better odds of a deal.

And the one that made me stop: 51 venture capitalists rated pitch decks where only the founder photos changed, smiling or neutral. With the smile, they valued the startup $2.1 million higher and gave it a 16.6% higher chance of a successful exit.

Illustration, not photos from the study.

Part of the reason, according to the authors, is trust. A smile reads as a signal that you are honest and that you care.

And here is the twist that brought me back to that Short. In the Crunchbase data, it did not matter whether the smile reached the eyes. Real smile or polite smile, the effect held.

I turned the study into a one-minute Short: Can a smile raise your startup's valuation?

So before your next round, check your LinkedIn photo. And your Crunchbase one :)

Istanbul, October 13

With Pitchdrive, the Belgian investment firm we look at many startups with and have invested alongside, we are hosting an evening in Istanbul for investors and founders next week.

If you would like to join, just reply to this email.

San Francisco, early November

I will be in San Francisco at the beginning of November. I would love to get together with friends who live there, something small.

If you live in SF, or will be there then, reply and let me know.

And tell me: which photo are you using right now? Smiling or serious?

Hit reply. I read every one.