Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I’m comfortable with introductions and then getting into the demo.&#. I believe in this so much that, despite my post advising you to be prepared for the *norm* in VC, I wrote a post about a company that came in for a presentation and never even got the slides out or presented a demo. Just jump into the demo after intros.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2020

As an aspiring entrepreneur, one of the most important things you need is a memorable “ elevator pitch ,” to communicate your startup value proposition and leave a great first impression on friends, investors, employees, and future customers. Describe technology and features, not competitiveness.

Sample 127

Sample Summary Startup Slides 127

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Packaging, pricing & discounts – In the early days of my first company we always had “list prices&# we quoted to customers and of course we were always willing to negotiate based on who the client was, how important the business was to us, who the competition was and how well the deal was negotiated.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Some readers have commented that in today’s world you shouldn’t even need a PowerPoint presentation – in this era you should always just demo your product. I also recently wrote a post about a company that came in for a presentation and never even got the slides out or presented a demo. Who are your key customers?

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Slides Startup Sales 238

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

We just had the demo day for our third batch of companies. I do think the way we work with companies is a little different from other programs, in that we view it much more like the wasyI personally think about investing and venture capital. It''s not a three month program, demo day, and folks move out or move on.

Incubator 187

Incubator Southern California Startup Ideas 187

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Email readers, continue here…] Bootstrapping: This term describes your ability to start a business with little investment and grow it using internally-generated funds. Strategic partner” investors: If you can find a strategic partner willing to invest in your enterprise, consider it a blessing.

Venture Capital 266

Venture Capital Class Invest Equity 266

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

You can always tell during this discussion whether the entrepreneur has logged into their products, talked to their customers, read all the news stories and gotten all of the back channel info on the competition. You can tell if they have a deep-seated competitive spirit. Can’t go a mile deep on competition?

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire Sales 286

Tech.Co

APRIL 24, 2018

Being one small company amongst the sea of thousands of startups vying for customers, capital, and talent, the way to get noticed above the crowd, connect with that next big partner, and raise some capital is to throw your hat in the ring to compete at Startup of the Year. A Strong Alumni Network.

Startup 70

Startup Competition Google Capital 70

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

The first page of the business plan better be an executive summary which gives the investor a taste of the financials, as well as opportunity, competition, and key executives. “I If you haven’t yet finalized the business model, cost projections, and customer segments, you aren’t ready for investors.

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup Statistics 109

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Many MBA programs still cater too much to the needs of large, corporate management jobs or prepare students to enter big consulting companies or investments banks. My list of excuses includes: product, pricing, competition and lack of sales support. This includes presentations, ROI calculators, competitive analyses and so forth.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

The first page of the business plan better be an executive summary which gives the investor a taste of the financials, as well as opportunity, competition, and key executives. “I If you haven’t yet finalized the business model, cost projections, and customer segments, you aren’t ready for investors.

Entrepreneur 119

Entrepreneur Technical Review Statistics Startup 119

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 22, 2018

Apparently with a physical storefront where it can convince customers of the wonders of on-demand mobility. There will be demos, tutorials, and presentations on how to be safe.” “Lime would have an opportunity to control the narrative, engage with the local community, and invest in Santa Monica.

Santa Monica 221

Santa Monica Startup Technical Review Education 221

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 5, 2018

The first page of the business plan better be an executive summary which gives the investor a taste of the financials, as well as opportunity, competition, and key executives. “I If you haven’t yet finalized the business model, cost projections, and customer segments, you aren’t ready for investors.

Funding 62

Funding Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup 62

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There are too many deals to look at, too many seed funds or angels asking you to look at deals and weekly “demo days” with manicured and monocultural presentations crafted by experienced story tellers to help even the mundane idea sound like it will. I still plan to keep more normal pace of investment which is 1-2 deals per year.

Software Review 150

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Invest 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2015

Others schedule exhaustive training sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone paints a consistent picture. The Founder needs to remember that meetings up to this point have been primarily off-site, with staged demos, and managed personally by the CEO or a small team.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur 108

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer). Competition and sustainable advantage. Opportunity sizing.

Slides 99

Slides Competition Sample Sales 99

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

It included one firm who I asked not to call Salesforce.com as a reference (they were our largest pilot customer) and in their kindness they called Marc Benioff (the CEO) and asked his opinion. The first attention we started getting was after we launched the company publicly at Demo on September 25th of this year. Page 3: Competition.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer). Competition and sustainable advantage. Opportunity sizing.

Slides 93

Slides Competition Sample Sales 93

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 21, 2011

I dropped in to check out the contest a few times during the competition and the environment was uplifting and exciting. Sparqlight – parts prebuilt before competition. Quick Web App Builder (QWAB) – parts prebuilt before competition. The coolest part about these products was that most of the were live working demos.

Santa Monica 90

Santa Monica Startup PHP HTML 90

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. If you don’t believe in your bones that you’re amazing then it’s no wonder you don’t want to sell them on making the investment.”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 8, 2014

This is the killer feature for the giant YouTuber base invested in sub-$2,000 cameras, of which most lack HD-SDI required from previous TriCaster models. The Demo unit we were shown included a battery-powered external HDMI monitor and USB wireless mouse & keyboard, allowing for a full TriCaster setup with only one power plug!

Screening 103

Screening Entertainment Content Platform 103

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

You can cash out whenever they want or just save as an investment. Here is a demo of our trading platform: Do you have plans to launch an offline-say SMS-based bitcoin? Any competition? We have lots of competition. The CoinMKT then becomes their trading account so that they can begin trading cryptocurrencies.

Southern California 76

Southern California Startup Platform Santa Monica 76

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 2, 2012

Many VC firms and investment banks receive as many as ten plans per day, so it’s hard to get them salivating. Remember, investors invest in people before ideas. Don’t say things about your competitors or customers that you wouldn’t be able to defend if they were in the room with you. Prototypes and demos attached.

Summary 97

Summary Technical Review .Net Ideas 97

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

Here is how and why it works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Define the characteristics of the overall industry, market forces, market dynamics, and customer landscape. Explain how you will make money and who pays you (real customer). Competition and sustainable advantage. Opportunity sizing.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

And they might give a premium if the team has been around a longer period of time, has built some hard-to-build proprietary technology or has some customer traction. Get yourself in a big demo day competition. I know I’m supposed believe in acquihires to bury my investments that aren’t working. Woo the press.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

socalTECH

MARCH 2, 2020

How did you get investors interested in investing in such a large project like a new operating system? Usually, investors like to invest in people who are taking an existing platform and extending it into a market. Are Android and iOS then your competition? David Smith: We actually have customers now. It's all working.

Platform 168

Platform Startup Examples Web 168

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

million led by GRP Partners, with participation from Baroda Ventures, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI), Daher Capital, Double M Capital, Karlin Ventures, Clark Landry, Andy Rankin, and Launchpad LA. Less Neglect helps companies reduce churn, upsell users, and increase customer acquisition rates.

GRP Partners 96

GRP Partners Startup Tech Coast Angels Bertelsmann 96

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Many VC firms and investment banks receive as many as ten plans per day, so it’s hard to get them salivating. Remember, investors invest in people before ideas. Don’t say things about your competitors or customers that you wouldn’t be able to defend if they were in the room with you. Prototypes and demos attached.

Summary 97

Summary Technical Review .Net Ideas 97

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

4 times / 100 means if a customer uses your app frequently (say 10-20 times / day) then they are crashing nearly every day. Customer Acquisition. At the highest level you’ll obviously want to track how many customers your adding every month (and for some businesses that have hit scale this is measured on a daily basis).

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Customer 346

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2014

There’s a healthy balance between allowing a design team to dream up functional requirements, talk with customers, analyze competitors and for technical projects – research the latest cool-kid tools to play with. There is nothing that will focus the mind more than not wanting to be on stage with a demo that bombs.

Software 344

Software Startup Design Course 344

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

This Panel is filled with investing super stars who will be going over must have content for all the startups and entrepreneurs out there. Investment trends in startups that are about or related to social media. They make it easy to collect investment funds, track ownership, and provide targeted updates to investors.

Social Media 71

Social Media Technical Review Mixergy Tech Coast Angels 71

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2011

In the video I describe how to best play this meeting and why, without a champion going into the meeting, you’re unlikely to get an investment. Give everybody pages of the deck they’re to cover or parts of the demo for which they are to talk. Can’t you just demo & talk? Demo could go here].

Venture Capital 340

Venture Capital Slides Doc Startup 340

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

Partners make investment decisions. Trust doesn’t come from one 45-minute Powerpoint pitch or 30-minute demo. ” In VC terms that means the key questions you need to answer are, is this investor: Geographically focused and have they invested in my geography before? Already invested in one of my key competitors?

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

How To Pitch A Product - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , August 4, 2010 I've said a bunch of times on this blog that the perfect pitch is a very short intro to provide context followed immediately by a demo. Every investment so far in this YC batch (and there have been a lot) has been done on a convertible note.”. We declined.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

Oh, and Demo charges the startups $18,000. Use the fact that you were on an anointed list to build credibility when you eventually approach journalists (and VC’s, customers, employees). Given a choice of your marketing person or talking to you (the founder) there’s no competition. I think Robert’s right.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

People tend to overvalue past investments when making forward-looking investment decisions. Just because a product has a patent, deep complexity and an obvious competitive advantage does not mean that it can fly by itself into the market. had two occasions recently to review products which had clear market leadership.

Startup 175

Startup Venture Capital Slides Blogging 175

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2011

Think about it – if you have all of your customers already signed into Twitter then you have a much better chance that they’ll use your app to publish into their Twitter stream and drive more traffic back to your app. It should be no surprise why I invested alongside IA Ventures in the big data company DataSift.

News 324

News Web Email Startup 324