Moreover, the author is exactly right. With ten minutes all they can do is evaluate the lead person and the team. Sadly the takeaway is closer to "we didn't like you (enough)" and the "feedback" is a best guess as to why.
The assessment is thin slicing straight out of Blink by Gladwell and that approach has been shown to be very influenced by a whole host of pre-existing biases by the judges. Even very smart people are subject to those biases and experts are especially prone.
It seems like there are a lot of people in these circles who view themselves as far more rational and less prone to prejudice in matters of business.
The truth seems to be more like slightly more rational, but not _that_ much more rational. From my experience, the more a company proclaims strict meritocracy, the less true it is.
I'd like to offer an analogy: fast food chain franchise vs boutique restaurants. It seems to me that your startup is a boutique restaurant and so is not a good fit for a McDonalds-style franchise contract. However, at the end of the day, running a boutique restaurant is a lot more satisfying, at least in my opinion, and most of the time, more financially rewarding too. On the other hand, you do need authenticity to be a successful boutique restaurant owner, not the attitude "we are disrupting XXX", "we are changing YYY, one ZZZ at a time".
What to make of Chipotle? They basically took the SF burrito joint from a boutique/local food dive to a viable biz franchise. Hugely successful at scale...
The assessment is thin slicing straight out of Blink by Gladwell and that approach has been shown to be very influenced by a whole host of pre-existing biases by the judges. Even very smart people are subject to those biases and experts are especially prone.