Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). 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 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

MARCH 21, 2020

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 Investors invest in the jockey, more than the horse. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Statistics Startup Social Media 124

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

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. If there are conflicts within the team, or differing views of the strategy, or evidence of missing processes and tools, the investment process will likely be terminated.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 151

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. DO NOT drone on endlessly.

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Slides Startup Sales 238

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. Somehow many first-time founders equate “sales” with something that is beneath them. an investment in your company.

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

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 Investors invest in the jockey, more than the horse. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup Statistics 109

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 Investors invest in the jockey, more than the horse. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Entrepreneur 119

Entrepreneur Technical Review Statistics Startup 119

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 Investors invest in the jockey, more than the horse. Let me show you a demo rather than a business plan.”

Funding 62

Funding Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup 62

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer. Highlight your sustainable competitive advantages, and barriers to entry. Marketing, sales, and partners. Describe marketing strategy, sales plan, licensing, and partnership plans. Exit strategy.

Slides 99

Slides Competition Sample Sales 99

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 22, 2018

As for what will happen at the store, Fifth Wall’s Adam Demuyakor tells me “There will be deployment of scooters, charging of scooters, and some sales of apparel and accessories that are related. There will be demos, tutorials, and presentations on how to be safe.”

Santa Monica 221

Santa Monica Startup Technical Review Education 221

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer. Highlight your sustainable competitive advantages, and barriers to entry. Marketing, sales, and partners. Describe marketing strategy, sales plan, licensing, and partnership plans. Exit strategy.

Slides 93

Slides Competition Sample Sales 93

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. The first attention we started getting was after we launched the company publicly at Demo on September 25th of this year. The first VC I met with came from attending DEMO.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2015

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. If there are conflicts within the team, or differing views of the strategy, or evidence of missing processes and tools, the investment process will likely be terminated.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Entrepreneur 108

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer. Highlight your sustainable competitive advantages, and barriers to entry. Marketing, sales, and partners. Describe marketing strategy, sales plan, licensing, and partnership plans. Exit strategy.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

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

APRIL 4, 2011

But there are other reasons people churn – low product quality, inability to understand the value of the product, costs, competitive products, etc. Revenue metrics are one of the first things I ask for from the startups in which I invest. 10% of our revenue is coming from direct sales of our banner inventory. Revenue Metrics.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Customer 346

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2014

We feel pressure to hit milestones for a variety of reasons: Investor presentations, conference demos, customer sales meetings, competitive pressures, a need to drive revenue, business development commitments – whatever. 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

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

Fund raising (as is much of life) is a sale – pure and simple. As with any sales campaign you need to: Qualify your buyers early so you focus your scarce resources on people likely to buy your product. Partners make investment decisions. . Trust doesn’t come from one 45-minute Powerpoint pitch or 30-minute demo.

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

File this under both Startup Adivce and Sales & Marketing Advice. Oh, and Demo charges the startups $18,000. Given a choice of your marketing person or talking to you (the founder) there’s no competition. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Sales & Marketing Advice Social Media Start-up Advice Startup Advice.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

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.”.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2011

If you want to see how this works come check out our Nov 10th event in LA and you can see TextPlus demo their iOS5 integration and how they think about the importance of working hand-in-hand with Twitter for their free text messaging apps. New tickets about to go on sale for your favorite band – Tweet. Object Communications.

News 324

News Web Email Startup 324