Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 24, 2012

Every new startup I know dreams of being funded early by one of the 318,000 active Angel investors in the USA alone. Most of these investors are members of Angel groups that have a rigorous filtering and screening process, to select the top 3% and most fundable proposals. Remember the old adage that “investors fund people, not ideas.”

Angel 104

Angel Screening Summary Startup 104

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

And it’s almost universally true that the new band of angels & seed investors are product gurus. 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. Mobile app?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Every new startup I know dreams of being funded by an angel investor. Over the past 10 years, I have had the opportunity to see how the process works, several times from the startup side, and more recently from the angel perspective (as a member of an angel group selection committee). Get your Internet domain name and website.

Invest 99

Invest Angel Technical Review Summary 99

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

Every new startup I know dreams of being funded by an angel investor. Over the past 10 years, I have had the opportunity to see how the process works, several times from the startup side, and more recently from the angel perspective (as a member of an angel group selection committee). Get your Internet domain name and website.

Angel 89

Angel Funding Technical Review Startup 89

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

The startup is backed by the Tech Coast Angels and Dolby Ventures. One, is an upright, traditional looking microscopes, where you look at glass slides. Eugene Cho: We had a seed round for less than $3M, and we did a note round with the Tech Coast Angels for $2M after we won their Quick Pitch competition, over about 150 other companies.

Tech Coast Angels 124

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

As a member of the local Angel group selection committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short - maybe short on content, but not short on pages! A perfect round number is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Marketing, sales, and partners.

Slides 93

Slides Competition Sample Sales 93

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

The startup is backed by the Tech Coast Angels and Dolby Ventures. One, is an upright, traditional looking microscopes, where you look at glass slides. Eugene Cho: We had a seed round for less than $3M, and we did a note round with the Tech Coast Angels for $2M after we won their Quick Pitch competition, over about 150 other companies.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 100

Xconomy

OCTOBER 10, 2016

By popular acclaim, San Diego-based Echo Laboratories founder Eugene Cho claimed top honors, and a $15,000 check, for his two-minute presentation last week in the 10th annual “Quick Pitch” competition, hosted by San Diego’s Tech Coast Angels. Crowd Gathers for San Diego Tech Coast Angels “Quick Pitch” Competition.

Tech Coast Angels 40

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review San Diego Software Review 40

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Based on my experience as an angel investor and a mentor to dozens of entrepreneurs, having no business plan is the quickest way to define yourself as just a dreamer, or at best a hobbyist. Opportunity segmentation and competitive environment. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2016

There are a lot of other competition shows and reality show, which are much more predatory and cut-throat, and it's nice for our entrepreneurs to not only get a real investment, but get great feedback. How did you get involved with angel investing, initially? With partners like HSN, we reach 95 million homes.

Startup 100

Startup Entrepreneur Invest Competition 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

We’ve had an explosion of alternate sources of financing from crowd-sourcing, angels, accelerators, incubators, corporates, corporate incubators. 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.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2018

On the other hand, everyone is doing it, so that means more competition, and the market and technology are changing faster than ever before. Yet, as an angel investor myself, I can attest that many potential entrepreneurs try to take shortcuts, or ignore the realities of business. Prepare a pitch deck to document and share your plan.

Funding 73

Funding Social Media Slides Platform 73

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. We all have one-click purchase power (Apple, Google, Amazon, eBay).

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2015

Here are the most common elevator pitch missteps I see often as an angel investor and advisor to startups, with some quick advice on how to address each: Insist on leading with the story of the company. Your second sentence should acknowledge competition, but highlight your added value. You don’t have time for any story at this point.

Startup 104

Startup Summary Patents Examples 104

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2018

As an occasional angel investor, I always ask for a business pitch to get me in the mood. Certainly a slide or two needs to carry over describing the product and features at a high level. Intellectual property and sustainable competitive advantage. Solo entrepreneurs have a hard time finding an investor.

Product 58

Product Slides Entrepreneur Invest 58

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 16, 2015

There’s plenty of capital out there, but there’s also a lot of competition for startup funding. Angels (invest their own money) and super angels. If you’re raising funds from angels you’ll likely need to get investments from several different players. Use before and after slides to hit home with investors.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Equity Funding 40

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2016

Super-angel investors (micro-VCs). These terms refer to a class of professional investors who invest their own money, like angels, but have the larger resources and scope of venture capitalists with other people’s money. Ron Conway , of SV Angels, and Reid Hoffman , LinkedIn's founder, are names often mentioned in this category.

Startup 57

Startup Software Review Equity Invest 57

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

If so, Los Angeles-based Overnight (www.joinovernight.com) is for you. Another impetus for this was I saw some of the slides that Mary Meeker had done in the Kleiner Perkins annual PDF that they send around, and I realized that the market was being underserved by Airbnb and other key players in the market. READ MORE>>.

Startup 100

Startup Los Angeles Mobile Pricing 100

CEO Flow

JUNE 8, 2009

The brute force methods that used to work so well, such as “work harder,&# “hire more,&# “spend more&# aren’t true strategic or competitive advantages. Note that companies are not pull OR push…there would be a sliding scale (such as 70/30 push/pull). Anyone can work hard, hire people and raise more money.

Metrics 66

Metrics Startup Slides Activity 66

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

Creating Incremental Strategic Value - Ask the Angels , June 17, 2010 We can easily overlook the level of demand pull when we are assessing strategic value. 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. Yes, even bootstrappers.

Startup 175

Startup Venture Capital Slides Blogging 175

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 28, 2012

A month ago, I participated in my first ever Startup Weekend event in Los Angeles, California in the co-working spaces at Coloft. I faced the same challenge not being able to form a team because most people joined the competition with friends that they had already planned on working with.

Startup 100

Startup Ideas San Diego Mentor 100

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2019

In my experience as an angel investor, the perfect pitch length is ten slides, outlining the business problem, your solution, opportunity sizing, competition, and financial projections for the next five years. This section is especially important if you intend to attract outside investors or strategic partners.

Ideas 126

Ideas Slides Sample Examples 126

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

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. -New Launched in 2007 in Los Angeles by Adam Bernhard and Konstantin Glasmacher. Competitor: Slide.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

think his slides are great (and by far much easier on the eye then mine.). Competing To Win Deals - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 7, 2010 The venture capital business is highly competitive. It’s good fun to create something as scaled down as 20 slides at 20 seconds each. November 23, 2010 By Julia D.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175