Slightly off-topic: I feel like persuasion, and negotiation rhetoric more specifically, is understated as an entrepreneurship must-have skill. I've brought that

Slightly off-topic: I feel like persuasion, and negotiation rhetoric more specifically, is understated as an entrepreneurship must-have skill. I've brought that up at incubators many times to a blank stare in the room. But all your hard work, everything you built at a startup will, at some point, hang on your ability to persuade investors to raise or exit. I'd also differentiate that from sales persuasion, or salary negotiation, among others, which is also a great skill but not the life-or-death, make-it-or-break-it moment when you need to out-argument a large room where each misstep may mean +/- X million bucks. The big leap of faith most investor or acquirers take into your business cannot be dealt with just plain excitement and the usual shenanigans, and ideally should, at least, be practiced beforehand and be well prepared. I've seen and suffered so much: enticing gifts as openers, missing decision-makers at key moments, delays, lawyers thrown in out of nowhere, the "higher authority" tactic, Socratic stances... Some people definitely flourish at the negotiation table. I don't.