Suneel Gupta: 'People who change the world around them aren’t just brilliant, they’re backable'

Intoxicate investors with effort in your pitch meetings.

“In order to succeed, you need to get out and inspire people to see in you what you see in yourself,” writes US-based entrepreneur and lawyer Suneel Gupta, founding CEO of telehealth company Rise, in his book Backable (2021).

Co-written with journalist Carlye Adler and published by Octopus Publishing Group, this book uses case studies of “backable people” to argue that the key to success is not charisma, connections or a person’s CV. It is their ability to persuade others to take a chance on them.

Suneel Gupta, co-author of 'Backable'.

Gupta has worked with Mozilla and Groupon, partnered with the Obama White House to tackle obesity in the US, run for US Congress, and been a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

Excerpts from an interview:

What makes a person backable?

There are people who seem to have an “it-quality” that allows them to shine in key moments, including interviews, meetings, auditions, and pitches. Even when they are not the obvious choice, we want to take a chance on them. Backable people aren’t born, they are made.

I have found seven surprising things that backable people do. I have used these steps myself to raise funding for my startup and taught these to artists, marketing executives, factory workers, and people re-entering the workforce. By taking these steps, we can course correct our careers and our lives.

How does this tie in with your own experience?

My story is a cautionary tale of a career that had gone off the rails through cancelled projects, missed promotions, and near-bankrupt startups. All this changed thanks to a conference called FailCon, which stands for Failure Conference.

I agreed to be the keynote speaker because I was trying to raise money for my startup Rise, a telehealth service that matched you with a personal nutritionist over your mobile phone, and I thought investors would be in the audience. There were no investors there that day but a reporter scribbling notes.

Then, one morning, I overheard my wife, Leena, on the phone with her mother. “No, we’re not moving home, Mom,” she said. “Yes, I know San Francisco is very expensive.” When I walked into the room, Leena was holding that day’s New York Times open to a full-length story on failure with my face at the top.

Realizing I could no longer hide behind a fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude of success, I decided to give this new identity a try. I began emailing highly successful people using the article to break the ice. I’d write things like, “As you can see from the article below, I don’t know what I’m doing. Would you be willing to grab coffee and give me some advice?”

I had hundreds of honest conversations with fascinating people. It led to a life-altering discovery. People who change the world around them aren’t just brilliant, they’re backable.

What do investors usually look for—passion, skill or track record?

It’s all of the above, though track record is not necessarily gained through years of experience. You need to intoxicate them with effort. Earlier, I was reluctant, even embarrassed, to let investors know that I recruited early customers for Rise by standing outside Weight Watchers meetings. And yet that—and the story about being kicked out or stopping the wrong person—turned out to be a part of the pitch they loved most.

How can a person assess whether their pitch is half-baked or ready to be shared?

New ideas are so fragile that even a well-intentioned “huh” can put them to rest. Inside companies, most ideas don’t get killed inside conference rooms but inside hallways and break rooms where they are shared before they are developed.

When you have a new idea, keep the idea to yourself for a while—nurture it, incubate it, don’t tell a soul, not even close friends. You can’t get others to buy in on an idea that you are not completely sold on yourself. Take time to really test your idea, build your conviction in it, and believe in it enough that you can fully convince others.

Most ideas don’t get killed inside conference rooms but inside hallways and break rooms where they are shared before they are developed.

Backable people tend to play what I call the Game of Now rather than the Game of Someday. I learned this from my mom, who, against the odds, became the first female engineer at Ford. Every backable person I’ve met, at some point in their career, learns to play this game. There are three words that hold most of us back: “I’m not ready.”

Would you consider an idea backable if it cannot be monetized but can lead to important social justice outcomes?

Yes! The same backable traits help whether you are trying to rally people around a commercial enterprise, or a nonprofit, or a new method for addressing problems facing our society. Being backable increases your chances of people listening to what you have to say. We need more high-integrity people who know how to sell a good idea.

Can a person's gender, race, caste or sexual orientation come in the way of their idea being considered backable?

Yes, unfortunately, bias still gets in the way. Women receive less than 2% of venture capital funding. Black women founders receive less than .0006% of startup funding. I wish I could say that my book Backable has the answer for ending systemic bias. It doesn’t. However, it offers some tools for when the person across the table looks different than you.

How important is it to work on self-esteem and emotional intelligence in order to be seen as backable?

Intellectual interest is important, but rarely enough. You need to be emotionally invested in your idea. Bringing something new into the world requires tremendous stamina because you’re on the receiving end of doubts, conflicts, and deadlines. Conviction can be replenished only by your own passion. When considering a concept, don’t just figure out if it fits the market; figure out if it truly fits you.