Investors Are Human Beings, and Your Nervous Systems Decide the Match
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Written by Wala Kasmi, CEO
Wala Kasmi is a multi-awarded entrepreneur recognized for reimagining learning for the future of work. She is the CEO of ClassX, a global platform tapping into underutilized classrooms worldwide to build a new learning system aligned with the AI economy.
In my last publication, The Energetic Game of Investment – Why Identity and Depth Matter More Than Metrics, I wrote that identity and depth are what make investors and founders match. That sounds good. But what does alignment really mean, and how do you reach it? To answer that, we need to go back to basics.
First principles thinking: Back to the basics
Over the years, I have developed a way of thinking that has helped me navigate complex systems. When I face a complicated question, I strip it down to its most basic pattern.
For example, should we call someone who crossed the sea from Africa to Europe an illegal immigrant? My mind does not start with policy. It starts with fundamentals. Human beings existed before borders. Movement is older than regulation. At a foundational level, a human moving across land is not unnatural.
You can disagree politically. That is not the point. The point is this. I reduce complexity to origin. Another example is simple. Who has priority to move first, a car or a pedestrian? The answer is the pedestrian. Humans existed before machines.
Basic principles create clarity. When I apply the same lens to venture capital, I arrive at something equally simple. Investors are not institutions or myths. They are humans operating inside systems. And humans regulate before they evaluate.
Founders are the creators
Founders matter. After women who bring human life into the world, founders are the ones who bring ideas into physical reality. They translate vision into products, systems, and infrastructure. Markets exist because someone builds.
This game is founder-led. Capital follows creation. Investors do not invent. Founders do. Investors amplify what founders initiate.
Building a company means operating under uncertainty. It means making decisions without full information, carrying financial and reputational risk, and navigating pressure consistently. It requires moving between long-term vision and daily execution. The work has consequences.
Investors matter too. They extend leverage so ideas can scale. Without them, many companies would never move beyond early traction.
When aligned, founders and investors build together. One brings execution. The other brings fuel. But this relationship is not purely analytical. It is human.
Before a term sheet, before valuation, before due diligence, something else happens. There is perception. There is a reading of stability. There is an assessment of coherence.
Having sat in political rooms where decisions carried international consequences, I have seen how much judgment happens before formal deliberation begins. The topic may change. The stakes may differ. But beneath the language, something consistent happens. People assess whether the future feels stable in the presence of the person speaking.
Your nervous system communicates before your deck does. Theirs responds before they speak. That is where the match begins.
The power of familiarity
Capital does not move randomly, it moves through patterns. In environments defined by uncertainty, such as early-stage investing, decision-makers rely on recognition to navigate incomplete information. Familiarity reduces friction. It makes evaluation faster and conviction easier. When something resembles prior success, it feels more interpretable and therefore more investable.
Over time, startup ecosystems develop archetypes. If many highly visible successes share similar founder profiles, those profiles become associated with probability. Certain educational paths, communication styles, demographic backgrounds, or professional histories begin to function as informal signals. This does not mean those traits guarantee success. It means they have been repeatedly linked to successful outcomes, and repetition shapes perception.
When a founder resembles a historically validated pattern, evaluation tends to feel smoother. When a founder does not resemble that pattern, the assessment often requires more context, explanation, and evidence. The friction is rarely explicit, but it is real. It appears as hesitation, extended diligence, or slower conviction.
Familiarity is not limited to demographics. It is also cognitive and behavioral. Some investors feel aligned with disciplined operators who communicate predictability and structured execution. Others feel aligned with contrarian thinkers who challenge consensus and pursue asymmetric bets.
Consider someone like Tim Draper, known for backing unconventional founders and ideas that others initially dismissed. At first glance, this may seem like a rejection of familiarity. In reality, it is a different form of it. Draper built his reputation on contrarian thinking and asymmetric conviction. Unconventional founders feel coherent within his internal model of innovation. He recognizes patterns that align with his worldview and risk appetite.
Familiarity is not one universal template, it is a collection of individual templates shaped by experience and exposure. Each investor carries an internal model of what an aligned founder looks like. That model is influenced by past outcomes, professional networks, incentives, and personal beliefs about how companies succeed. When a founder’s operating style fits that model, momentum builds naturally. When it does not, friction appears, even if the business fundamentals are strong.
Fundraising, therefore, is not about convincing everyone. It is about recognizing where alignment already exists and understanding why alignment feels easier in some rooms than in others.
But what actually makes one interaction feel effortless and another feel strained? Why does familiarity reduce friction in the first place? To understand alignment, we must move below behavior and into biology.
The human nervous system
To understand why familiarity reduces friction, we must understand the system that interprets familiarity in the first place.
The nervous system is the body’s primary information-processing network. It connects the brain and spinal cord to every organ, muscle, and sensory receptor. It regulates attention, emotional tone, breathing, posture, voice modulation, heart rate, and reaction time. It is constantly scanning the environment and organizing perception long before conscious reasoning completes its analysis.
Below is a simplified representation of that system.
At the center is the brain and spinal cord, known as the central nervous system. Extending outward are peripheral nerves that connect the brain to the rest of the body. Within this network operates the autonomic nervous system, which regulates involuntary processes such as breathing, heart rate, and emotional activation.
This system operates continuously. It is not concerned with ambition or valuation. It is concerned with coherence and regulation.
When an environment feels structured and predictable, the nervous system processes it efficiently. When signals feel inconsistent, rushed, or unstable, the system increases vigilance. This shift does not require dramatic fear. It can be subtle. A slight tightening of attention. A small increase in mental load. A pause before conviction.
In high-uncertainty environments, the nervous system becomes more influential because conscious data is incomplete. Early-stage investing lacks full information. Revenue is early. Markets are evolving. Teams are forming. Outcomes are probabilistic.
Under these conditions, internal signals matter more than we assume. Tone influences interpretation. Pacing affects perception. Clarity shapes confidence. Composure under questioning communicates durability.
If a founder answers defensively, overexplains, interrupts, rushes, or contradicts themselves, the investor experiences increased complexity. Increased complexity requires more cognitive energy. More energy means slower trust.
If a founder remains measured, coherent, and steady even when challenged, the investor experiences predictability. Predictability reduces cognitive load. Reduced cognitive load allows clearer thinking. This is not about manipulation. It is about regulation.
The same dynamic applies in reverse. Founders are also interpreting investors. An investor who is erratic, dismissive, impulsive, or inconsistent signals instability. An investor who is grounded, direct, and composed signals reliability.
A funding relationship is not only a financial contract. It is a long-term collaboration between two human systems under pressure. Both sides are evaluating durability.
Zoom out further, and the pattern becomes clearer. The nervous system evolved to interpret uncertainty. It developed mechanisms for rapidly classifying environments as manageable or complex. In modern investing, those mechanisms still operate. They no longer respond to physical survival threats. They respond to ambiguity, inconsistency, and unpredictability.
This is why familiarity feels easier. Familiarity reduces the amount of interpretation required. Reduced interpretation lowers mental strain. Lower strain increases decisiveness.
Capital does not move only through spreadsheets. It moves through perception, and perception is filtered through the nervous system. Alignment is not agreement. It is regulated coherence under uncertainty.
Understanding this does not replace strategy. It deepens it. It shifts fundraising from being purely analytical to being relational and biological. The match does not begin with metrics. It begins with regulation.
Identity is the master program
Identity is the master program behind behavior, regulation, and decision-making. You can refine strategy. You can polish communication. You can optimize your pitch. But if your identity is not aligned with the level of capital you seek, friction will persist.
Over time, I realized that articles are not enough to unpack this topic properly. The architecture beneath fundability is deeper than a publication can hold.
I am committed to explaining how identity shapes regulation and how regulation shapes connection. Founders do not regulate in identical ways. On average, men and women are conditioned to manage stress, risk, and visibility differently.
What if this is part of the reason behind the only 2.8 percent of global venture capital going to women? Different nervous system regulation patterns influencing how confidence and stability are perceived?
This is not about competence. It is about signals. Because capital does not fund only products. It funds identity under uncertainty.
Mira Murati is a female founder. She raised a two billion dollar seed round at a twelve billion dollar valuation without a product in the market.
What makes that possible?
What is being funded when there is no traction?
What is being evaluated before revenue exists?
Is it her former position as CTO of OpenAI?
Capital responds to how regulation, reputation, and narrative align under uncertainty. That is why this writing evolved into something larger.
The Identity Blueprint of a Fundable Entrepreneur
The Identity Blueprint of a Fundable Entrepreneur goes deeper than articles can. It is not a pitching manual. It is multidimensional: psychological, spiritual, physical, and intellectual. It explores identity mastery and what it means to embody the identity of a fundable founder for people with depth.
Fundability is not a tactic. It is an identity stabilized under uncertainty. You can preorder the e-book here.
Read more from Wala Kasmi
Wala Kasmi, CEO
Wala Kasmi is a multi-awarded entrepreneur recognized for reimagining learning for the future of work. She is the CEO of ClassX, a global platform tapping into underutilized classrooms worldwide to build a new learning system aligned with the AI economy. Her work challenges learning models inherited from the industrial revolution, systems built to replicate old economies, linear careers, and standardized outcomes, and replaces them with human centered, experiential, and network driven learning rails designed for a world of constant change.
With over 15 years navigating startup ecosystems across multiple regions, she brings a systemic perspective to learning, entrepreneurship, and investment.
