In this episode of THE IMPACT PITCH, Lee Schneider interviews a VC, Kelly O’Connell, managing partner of the 360 Venture Collective, and a founder, Fernanda Carapinha, founder and CEO of WE Intelligence and creator of Founderverse®

Why do 90% of startups fail? Not because founders can't succeed-but because they lack the intelligence, systems, and infrastructure to scale effectively.

Fernanda Carapinha believes that the 90% startup failure rate is not evidence that most entrepreneurs can't succeed. Rather, it's evidence that most founders are building without the intelligence, systems, and infrastructure needed to scale effectively.

Drawing from a unique background spanning psychology, behavioral intelligence, AI, and more than fifteen years as a senior executive in Hollywood, she is building technology designed to improve decision-making, execution, and outcomes for founders and the capital allocators who support them.

Through WE Intelligence and its flagship platform, Founderverse®, Fernanda is working to address one of the largest inefficiencies in the innovation economy: helping founders identify and mitigate execution gaps before they become critical, while helping capital allocators cut through overwhelming deal-flow noise to gain deeper insight into founder readiness, execution capability, and growth potential.

Today we'll explore why she believes the future advantage is no longer access to knowledge—it's the ability to transform knowledge into action.

Then, Lee interviews Kelly O'Connell, managing partner of 360 Venture Collective, about what venture capital actually looks for in founders. Kelly explains why they don't chase unicorns-instead, they back founders deeply committed to solving meaningful problems, and why impact and business performance aren't two separate conversations.

You'll learn:

Why assessing the founder matters more than evaluating the idea
How to transform knowledge into action through better systems
Why founders pitch features when investors want to hear about outcomes
How to integrate impact and sustainability into your business model
What makes a founder investable in a rapidly changing ecosystem
Perfect for founders, investors, and anyone building solutions that matter.

• (00:00) - Introduction

What does it take to pitch an impact startup? Host Lee Schneider sits down with La Keisha Landrum Pierre, General Partner and Co-Founder of Emmeline Ventures. She is a venture capital investor who reviews over a thousand pitches a year. In their conversation, they break down exactly what separates the founders who raise capital from those who don’t.

La Keisha explains why clarity, structure, and the classic “tell them what you’ll tell them” approach still hold up, and why a compelling headline matters.

The conversation gets specific about why charisma is never enough by itself to drive a successful pitch, and why founders will be rewarded if they do the work to research the VCs they are pitching.

Key takeaways of the episode include:

Storytelling is the #1 skill — VCs need to walk away inspired. If they’re not inspired, you haven’t made an impression.

Structure your pitch in threes — Tell them what you’ll tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. Repetition is how ideas stick.

Lead with a headline — Like journalism, you need a clear headline before diving into details.

Charisma helps but isn’t enough — Natural charisma puts you ahead, but without refinement and practice it won’t close the deal. And if you don’t have it, practice to close the gap.

Know your investor type — Impact investors want your personal story deeply woven in. Traditional VCs care more about your expertise, network, and why you’re the right operator.

Do the research — Tailor every pitch to the specific investor. La Keisha is consistently surprised by how many founders clearly haven’t looked up the firm they’re pitching.

You only get one chance — First impressions in VC are rarely recoverable. Preparation isn’t optional.

Creators & Guests

• (00:00) - Intro to La Keisha Landrum Pierre

This episode is a look into the early-stage funding journey of Michelle Turner and her virtual healthcare startup, Here Now Health. The company serves kids in foster care through Medicaid-covered mental health services. The episode features two interviews. The first is with founder Michelle Turner about how she pitched and closed her pre-seed round. The second interview is with her investor Pocket Sun, co-founder and Managing Partner of SoGal Ventures, who shares the investor perspective on what attracted her to the deal and the realities of securing venture capital.

• (00:00) - Episode Intro

> "Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. I also knew that we could do something about it." — Michelle Turner on identifying the foster care healthcare gap

> "They wanted to learn about me. They wanted to learn how I was going to make decisions, how I thought through problems." — Michelle Turner on investor priorities

> "We need each bet to have the potential to return the full fund, so that math has to work." — Pocket Sun on venture math and 100x returns

> "It's important to see it almost like a trial period already to see whether the VC is too demanding or you actually like the suggestions they're making." — Pocket Sun on founder-investor fit