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Competition. And the reality is that if you have no competition it will likely be perceived as a negative, not positive. And the reality is that if you have no competition it will likely be perceived as a negative, not positive. where do you need to make investments to make up ground and therefore need capital?).
Professional investors laugh when they hear an entrepreneur state, “We have no competition.” That statement has killed more investment deals than almost any other. If you are raising funds, list “do nothing” as a viable competitor in your slide deck. Well, come to think of it, this is especially true in such an instance.
I am a big believer in VC pitches that the bio slide should come up front. The short answer is that by knowing the key members of the management team the VC firm can quickly identify strengths on your time and know whether you have some competitive advantage in your chose field relative to other people with whom you will compete.
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. Remember that most people are visual thinkers and Powerpoint slides simply help frame the conversations. Competition. How you solve that problem conceptually at the highest level.
An entrepreneur pitches using a deck with no slide for competition. We have no competition.”. That statement has killed more investment deals than almost any other. If you are raising funds, list “do nothing” as a viable competitor in your slide deck. We investors see this all the time.
A perfect round number is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Most advisors will tell you to write the business plan first (20-30 pages), then distill the key points into a set of Microsoft PowerPoint slides for standup presentations to potential investors. Competition and sustainable advantage.
A perfect round number is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Here are the ten slides you need: Problem and market need. Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer. What is the timeframe of return on investment?
The reason for this is that the executives who founded the company have so much tacit knowledge of how to position their product relative to the competition that they can easily win campaigns when they’re involved. So I often work with teams to get them to codify the key things they do well that the competition does not.
This raises a big red flag with potential investors, who conclude that no competitors means no market, or you haven’t looked, and the new startup is likely not investable. Competition for your new hydrogen fuel auto engine is not limited to other hydrogen auto engine offerings, or even other autos. Investors check connections.
Either of these qualms can ultimately sidetrack your startup as not worthy of investment, so it pays to do your homework on what you say and how to communicate effectively. This is also the place to first mention patents and any other differentiators that put you ahead of competition. Investors invest in people more than the idea.
You’re adding unnecessary “purchase friction” If your deck is something I should open 3–4 times as I’m contemplating an investment, why add any consumption friction to the reader? There are a million ways to make graphics lighter or resize your file without a huge impact on the quality of the slides?—?after What should be in your deck?
Spark Capital is relatively new to VC (founded in 2005) yet has become one of the hottest new VCs having invested in Twitter, Tumblr, AdMeld, Boxee, KickApps and many more companies. Competition: Gilt Groupe , Ideeli , RueLaLa (sub of GSI Commerce) , OneKingsLane , department stores like Saks and Neiman Marcus. Competitor: Slide.
CapLinked , the online platform for private investment funded by members of the “ PayPal Mafia “—announced that it is launching a worldwide pitch competition for entrepreneurs to present their business ideas to a panel of all-star judges from Idealab, Rincon, Rapidfire, and Actarus. says CapLinked CEO Eric M.
This raises a big red flag with potential investors, who conclude that no competitors means no market, or you haven’t looked, and the new startup is likely not investable. Competition for your new hydrogen fuel auto engine is not limited to other hydrogen auto engine offerings, or even other autos. Investors check connections.
I’m no dummy on businesses that are in the financial services sector, but my 3 partners have been investing in the space for 20 years so I’m clearly on a different level. In our current portfolio 3 or his 4 investments are in the Fin Svcs space. 30% of our last fund went into deals in this sector. Is that OK with you?&#.
Having a defensible competitive advantage or “barrier to entry” is another critical step to funding, and another common stumbling block during all phases of the funding process. Investors expect a one or two-page executive summary sheet for the initial screening, backed up by a ten-slide Powerpoint investor presentation.
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. gave him my favorite, "keep it to six slides." Delegate and automate.
A perfect round number is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Here are the ten slides you need: Problem and market need. Competition and sustainable advantage. List and position your competition, or alternatives available to the customer. What is the timeframe of return on investment?
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. We called it PUCCKA.
A business plan is the outward facing definition of the business you hope to drive with your hardware solution, with a hardware overview in the intro to highlight customer value and competitiveness. Call out your top competitors, highlighting your sustainable competitive advantage, including patents, trade secrets. and trademarks.
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. Competitor positioning and sustainable competitive advantage.
Describe technology and features, not competitiveness. Customers still buy from people, and investors invest in you and your team, more than the solution. You shouldn’t expect to get an investment commitment in the elevator, or close a customer deal in the first minute. Highlight the solution more than the team.
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. There are typically two types of microscopes.
We caught up with Steve Seigel , the executive producer and one of the stars of the new startup pitch program Hatched (www.hatchedtv.com), to learn more about those areas, as well as how he ended up going from investment banking, to running a healthcare startup here in LA, to hosting a television pitch show.
But many entrepreneurs don’t realize that Angels are also extremely discerning in the projects that they will invest in, rejecting approximately 97% of the proposals submitted to them, according to the California Investment Network. Prepare an investment-grade business plan. Define some intellectual property. Marty Zwilling.
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.
I’ve had many startup founders tell me that their startup literally has no competition,” said Frank Gruber, Cofounder of Tech.Co, Startup of the Year , and Established. “In What startup teams don’t realize is that having competition is good. Try to keep the presentation tight, 10 slides is ideal,” Gruber said.
Your second sentence should acknowledge competition, but highlight your added value. Smart investors invest in people, even more than a great product. Obviously, you won’t close many investment deals in a minute in the elevator. Investors worry about competitors more than customer features.
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. There are typically two types of microscopes.
As a consequence, small businesses should be able to get competitive insurance plans and better pricing. After the 2014 tax year, smaller businesses purchasing insurance through a state exchange will receive a credit for as much as 50% of their contributions, also on a sliding scale.
Having a defensible competitive advantage or “barrier to entry” is another critical step to funding, and another common stumbling block during all phases of the funding process. Investors expect a one or two-page executive summary sheet for the initial screening, backed up by a ten-slide Powerpoint investor presentation.
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.
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.
Let me be quick to say that a plan doesn’t have be a book, and probably should start as a “pitch deck” of maybe a dozen slides which cover all the right bases. Opportunity segmentation and competitive environment. No mention usually means no plan and not competitive. Project revenues, costs and investment needs.
On the other hand, everyone is doing it, so that means more competition, and the market and technology are changing faster than ever before. Advisors and investors need to see your whole story in as few as ten slides. Investment before that time must come from you, or friends and family.
Christopher Hansen, AeA President & CEO, singled out "negligence on the part of our political leaders" to invest in research, improve the U.S. Competitiveness. The bad news, he told the publication, is "The tech industry and the country risk an impending slide in U.S. See his interview with Fox Business News. (04/02/08).
Certainly a slide or two needs to carry over describing the product and features at a high level. This implies high odds of a scalable business, simply needing an investment to lead to success. Intellectual property and sustainable competitive advantage. Specific investment size request, and equity offered.
People are even talking about “decacorns" -- investable companies with net worth now exceeding $10 billion -- like Dropbox and Pinterest. Seed-round investment. This term refers to an initial venture-capital investment, often wrongly sought to seed early product development. Prime examples include Uber, Airbnb and Snapchat.
The complexity and speed by which new technology is being introduced puts the United States in a position of leadership, but our competitiveslide is a serious issue. We’re feeding off past success rather than investing in our future. The AeA report cautions that if changes are not made in the U.S.’s www.koodooz.com
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.
The biz dev finished out the power point slides and tech kept adding more and more to the features. We knew that no matter how great our slides were or how amazing the website was, something different had to be done to get the judges and the audiences full attention. We were all in such a high for winning the competition!!!
There’s plenty of capital out there, but there’s also a lot of competition for startup funding. If you go this route, be careful to make the stakes clear: i.e., that they could lose their whole investment. Angels (invest their own money) and super angels. Use before and after slides to hit home with investors.
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. That ended up being something. Within four months of starting Look.io, we were in acquisition talks.
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.
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