One founder gets 60 seconds to pitch two venture capitalists – and you watch them pick the idea apart, live.

Welcome to Episode 078 of The Feedback Loop – the show where startup founders road-test their pitch in front of real investors, and the rest of us learn what actually moves the needle in a funding conversation.

Today’s founder & startup

Khalil Shanti is the co-founder of Atria, an AI research and compliance copilot for architects and real-estate developers.

Instead of juggling dozens of zoning PDFs, fire-safety manuals, and ADA checklists, Atria wants you to drop in an address and a building program, then return the exact mix of city-specific setbacks, egress rules, and code references you need to stay legal – before you break ground.

See a real pitch and real investor feedback, where investors press Khalil on market size, data moats, and GTM strategy -- including why your back-story matters, the edge investors can bet on, and what it means to get venture-scale.

--

Today's guest investor was Mike MacCombie, General Partner at Generous Ventures. Mike has spent the past 8 years in venture capital – as an investor, operating + platform partner, community builder, and superconnector, supporting founders at the earliest stage. Find him on X at @MikeMacCombie.

As always, hosted by Sherveen Mashayekhi, Founder & CEO of Free Agency. Follow him on X at @Sherveen.

To attend The Feedback Loop in-person or apply to pitch as a founder, head to afterfeedback.com.

Because the thing that can hold even the best founders back from reaching their ambition? Their pitch. Whether a startup founder is raising money, recruiting a team, or selling their product, it's the pitch at the start of any given conversation that starts them on a journey to success.

We dive into…

• Two datasets, one product – Why combining zoning GIS + building code could make Atria a category winner, or a never-ending data crawl.

• Project-based pricing – Why architects hated SaaS seats and how passing a tech fee to the client might unlock faster adoption.

• Domain founders vs. “AI wrappers” – Khalil’s co-founder teaches architecture, his family runs construction projects – is that the moat investors want?

• Market size reality check – How to frame a believable TAM without hand-waving at “$50B in lost billable hours.”

Khalil Shanti, co-founder of Atria: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khalil-shanti

Thank you to all of the brave founders who participated in this episode. The Feedback Loop is dedicated to creating an engine of support for startup founders attempting to change the way the earth spins. We're on your side.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.