Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I would argue that this mostly consists of consumer Internet companies (although not exclusively) and it is predominantly early-stage people who are product gurus and have a mildly technical bend to them. I’m a product geek more than a spreadsheet ninja. The product feedback will be invaluable. Consumer?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

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. ” Case studies get done with ebullient CEO’s espousing the benefits of said software even though their organization was barely using the product.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

One, is an upright, traditional looking microscopes, where you look at glass slides. My background is I was a sales rep in this industry for fourteen years, with Nikon. We got first place in that competition, and they followed up with a $2M investment in the form of a convertible note. Maybe that's even 99 percent.

Tech Coast Angels 124

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 124

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. Very few people ask.

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Slides Startup Sales 238

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

One, is an upright, traditional looking microscopes, where you look at glass slides. My background is I was a sales rep in this industry for fourteen years, with Nikon. We got first place in that competition, and they followed up with a $2M investment in the form of a convertible note. Maybe that's even 99 percent.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 100

Tech.Co

MAY 22, 2018

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.

Tips 70

Tips Help Slides Technical Review 70

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 10, 2011

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. Solution product & technology. Make sure to communicate the relevance of your product / services to market needs. Competition and sustainable advantage.

Slides 93

Slides Competition Sample Sales 93

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The path I went down after a few years was to hire more process driven people and devolved more daily operational ownership to people running individual functions such as product management, sales management, finance, etc. One of the most obvious places where you see this is in sales & marketing. Ditto the CFO.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

As a startup advisor and investor, I recommend a pitch deck with about 10 slides backed up with a written business plan of approximately 20 pages, both containing quantified answers to the following key questions. This is also the place to first mention patents and any other differentiators that put you ahead of competition.

Invest 108

Invest Startup Slides Equity 108

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

controlling your psychology ) you no doubt have heard me say that raising capital is a sales & marketing process. If the questions aren’t organically flowing you have “pocket slides” after the main deck you can pull out to share more information or analysis. This is Sales 101.

Venture Capital 314

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest Slides 314

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 5, 2011

As noted in RIP RFPs , entrepreneurs should generally avoid RFPs because they cannot afford to expend the time and resources required to participate in such regimented and lengthy sales processes. As noted in Competitive Sleuthing , some partners routinely share information about the companies with whom they are working. .

Startup 216

Startup Slides Resource Organization 216

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. There was no viral social networking products back then like Twitter where people could easily discover your content. My blog was wiped out. Don’t be frazzled … this is just the way it is.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

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. Professional investors look for the right people, more than the right product. The details can be added later.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

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. Cho, a former sales manager for Nikon Instruments and Vala Sciences, founded Echo Labs in 2014.

Tech Coast Angels 40

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review San Diego Software Review 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

We then walked through our sales pipeline and discussed major campaigns. We then talked about our product roadmap. Then competition. You put some update slides on things like key hires or biz dev deals being negotiated and you didn’t plan to talk about them. We started with our financial statements. Let them.

Startup 331

Startup Slides Guide Writing 331

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2015

Skip the fuzzy terms, such as nice to have and easier to use in favor of specifics, such as costs 50 percent less or increases productivity by 100 percent. Skip the sales pitch and avoid preaching. Your second sentence should acknowledge competition, but highlight your added value. Build up for the punch line at the end.

Startup 104

Startup Summary Patents Examples 104

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. Our sales guys were on the front line and heard what they needed to win deals. Tim started to change our processes.

Organization 280

Organization Customer Custom Tips 280

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. Whenever I meet a team that had a consulting firm (even a great one) build their product it’s an immediate “pass&# from me. Coordinating new product releases into the entire fabric of your company will become vital. or add your 2 cents).

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

I was thumbing through Twitter messages on my Blackberry on Monday (I use Twitter as a “ mobile first, web second &# product) when I saw the following Tweet (see graphic). If Ventro was worth $8 billion on $2 million of sales surely a paltry $1 billion would suffice. rounds and still be competitive. This is mostly true.

Startup 294

Startup Sales Venture Capital Slides 294

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

For the rest of us, we need a business plan, as well as a product plan. Some of you may be convinced that your product specification communicates the product message even better than a business plan, so why be redundant? Professional investors and even customers invest in people, rather than just a product.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

You’ll learn about competitive products that exist or are being built. You’ll gauge people’s excitement level for the product and for various features. You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides?!

Startup 211

Startup IP Ideas Patents 211

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

You’ll learn about competitive products that exist or are being built. You’ll gauge people’s excitement level for the product and for various features. You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides?!

Startup 198

Startup IP Ideas Patents 198

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 16, 2015

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. There’s plenty of capital out there, but there’s also a lot of competition for startup funding. This can be a great way to test your product and get customer feedback. Crowdfunding.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Equity Funding 40

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

No amount of persuasion would work so I asked simply if I could be staffed on one of his projects to teach some of his MBA geniuses about computer networks since they were working on defining telecom product offerings for the Internet age. Send me in a corner to work on slides, graphs, spreadsheets and charts. 25, ISDN, T3s, etc.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

If you buy into the argument that a strong board can actually help you then this post will lay out how to help you have more productive meetings by preparing properly in advance. The deck itself was produced by a committee of functional team lead who were asked to do 5–7 slides each for an update. There are too many pages.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Or on a sales campaign you’ve finally gotten your project sponsor to take you to the “executive committee&# where decisions are made and budgets are agreed.

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

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. Private, flash sales site focused on apparel goods (women, men and children). Competitor: Slide.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217