The Storytelling Secret Every Founder is Missing
A founder sent Olivia O'Sullivan a cold LinkedIn message.
No warm intro. No mutual connection. No referral.
She took the meeting.
That is the point. The founders who build in public have already borrowed the trust before the room opens.
In this episode of the Grown On Podcast, Caitlin Bigelow sits down with Olivia O'Sullivan, General Partner at Forum Ventures, to break down how she took Forum's inbound deal flow from 0% to over 6,000 pitches per year and why LinkedIn was the only lever she pulled.
She started as a creative writing major. There was no straight line to venture capital. What got her there was the same thing that now gets founders funded: the ability to make a stranger believe in a future that does not exist yet.
Inbound deal flow before LinkedIn: 0%.
Inbound pitches per year now: 6,000+.
Content team size: 1.
Ad spend: $0.
If you are still cold emailing investors and waiting on warm intros that never come, this episode is a direct challenge to that strategy.
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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
The 3-Second Rule: why VCs read your LinkedIn before they ever open your pitch deck
The 2-Week Challenge: the exact posting habit Olivia used to build Forum's inbound machine from scratch
How to convince top talent to leave Google for your startup using story alone
Why flopped posts with low engagement can still directly drive inbound deal flow and revenue
Warm intros vs. social proof: how to borrow trust before the first meeting ever starts
How to write a cold email a VC will actually read and respond to
Why most thought leadership fails and what to create instead
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BEST LINE FROM THE EPISODE
"Bad Storytelling Kills Startups"
Olivia O'Sullivan, General Partner at Forum Ventures
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open: why bad storytelling kills startups before investors see the deck
01:13 Meet Olivia O'Sullivan, General Partner at Forum Ventures
02:42 How human psychology and storytelling shape investment decisions
05:36 How to convince top talent to leave Google using story alone
06:52 Why the old SEO and blog playbook is dying
07:53 The 2-week LinkedIn challenge that built Forum's inbound machine
13:43 Breaking down Olivia's live LinkedIn performance data
16:35 How to map your audience's insecurities and ambitions
21:58 Why low-like posts can still drive serious revenue
27:37 The LinkedIn playbook for early-stage founders
30:14 Social selling: turning DMs into discovery calls
32:53 Is the warm intro still required for VC funding?
35:33 How to write a cold email VCs will actually read
39:07 Olivia's closing challenge to every founder
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CONNECT WITH OLIVIA O'SULLIVAN
LinkedIn: / oosuli
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ABOUT GROWN ON PODCAST
Hosted by Caitlin Bigelow, Grown On strips away the corporate polish to reveal how the sharpest leaders build brands and businesses in public.
Subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Blazel helps founders and executives grow their audience and drive pipeline on LinkedIn, pairing content strategy with AI collaboration so your voice stays authentic.
Learn more: https://blazel.com/
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