Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I Know Everybody Told You to Send Your Fund-Raising Decks as a Link. Here’s Why You Should Just Send the Deck I know you have your document sending tool to send your fund-raising deck to VCs and track who read your deck, which pages they read and how much time they spend on each page. after all you aren’t presenting this at TED.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

The deck itself was produced by a committee of functional team lead who were asked to do 5–7 slides each for an update. Each section head reads his / her 5–7 slides. If you put up 5 slides on “what should we order for lunch today” the board will spend 30 minutes debating that. There are too many pages. It passes the weight test.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

An impressive number of new VCs have been created – most of them with new seed funds. For what ever reason we’re wired to have amnesia during the run up and prescient memories of how we ‘knew it all along’ as soon as the slide begins. Create company measures for success that go beyond financial metrics.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Company grew by more than “400% each year” for past few years [assume growth metric = revenues]. Competition: Chegg (has raised $144 in debt and equity)—estimated by Steven Carpenter ( TechCrunch ) to be 10x more unique visitors than BookRenter (during peak book renting seasons) with nearly $140mm in revenues for 2010.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 7, 2015

When pitching to investors, entrepreneurs always seem to start with a customer pitch, then add a slide or two about the business. In reality, they need a separate pitch about the business, carrying over only a slide or two about the solution. These don’t get funded, nor bought by customers.

Product 103

Product Slides Custom Customer 103

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 16, 2015

Why raise funds? This seems like an obvious question but you need to be clear why you’re looking to raise in order to come up with an effective game plan and determine your best funding option. And when it comes to timing, wait until you’ve come up with a working prototype and developed your product before you seek external funding.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Equity Funding 40