Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. I had kept a personal blog for more than a year and was new at keeping a professional blog. You have an “hour” to pitch in your first meeting. My blog was wiped out.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Shockingly, some of the recommended tactics pitched by NPS gurus could actually decrease your sales by solidifying a propensity to not promote your solution. As noted in Personal Pitch , entrepreneurs must make it easy for others to help them succeed. Reciprocity is another well-documented persuasion technique.

.Net 182

.Net Satisfaction Entrepreneur Custom 182

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

We were trying to optimize around a few criteria: price, size of round, number of syndicate partners and, of course, terms. You know that every turn of the legal documents can add weeks. They’re not bothered when the lawyers didn’t get the documents out when they promised. Push hard to document turns. Grind on that.

Venture Capital 301

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Technical Advisors 301

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2018

In the case of the investment they are often also not only committing personal risk of looking bad at their partnership if things don’t go well but also countless hours of board meetings, financial reviews, legal documents across what is often 7–10 years or more. Of course stringing out the process doesn’t lead to good outcomes.

Funding 189

Funding Software Review Entrepreneur Venture Capital 189

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

You come into a meeting where your sponsor (the person who invited you to present to the partners) knows a lot about you and the rest of the room may have varying degrees of knowledge. Also, you might be presenting your telecom company to a 6-person team where 3 people are telecom experts and the other 3 have only superficial knowledge.

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

SoCal CTO

APRIL 28, 2014

Developers don’t communicate well We likely could have gone on from there, but I had thought this would be more fun, instead it seemed to be poking a sore spot and I could see the pitch forks coming out. Other Topics Covered I also covered topics that are covered more thoroughly in the following posts: Document Your MVP for a Developer.

Develop 280

Develop Development CTO Coach CTO Hire 280

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Shockingly, some of the recommended tactics pitched by NPS gurus could actually decrease your sales by solidifying a propensity to not promote your solution. As noted in Personal Pitch , entrepreneurs must make it easy for others to help them succeed. Reciprocity is another well-documented persuasion technique.

.Net 168

.Net Satisfaction Custom Customer 168

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2012

His new book, “ HOT or NOT: How to know if your Business Idea will Fly or Fail ,” focuses not only on the elements of a good idea and a good pitch, but also on the key attributes that we both look for in identifying the entrepreneur who can deliver, versus the fast-talking idea person: Never fails to be an evangelist.

Entrepreneur 97

Entrepreneur Ideas Metrics Activity 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2013

Of course there are scenarios where a written business plan is not critical, but I haven’t seen one yet where a well-written 15-page document, or at least a 10-slide pitch, is a negative. You need an investor, and want a document to mass-mail to everyone. On the other hand, your mother probably won’t read one.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Technical Review Writing Slides 100

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

Scott Sangster: I'm a serial entrepreneur, and I have been angel funding personally. Scott Sangster: It's only January 25th, so I'm not sure whether I'd like to opine on the deal quality for the year just yet, but we are seeing lots of people applying for our Fast Pitch event in February. Of course not.

Tech Coast Angels 182

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review Angel Southern California 182

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

And a key point is that when it comes down to “negotiations&# you need to turn up your personal heat and dial back the middle man. One thing I learned from the book is that real estate agents always sell their personal property at higher relative prices than their clients’ properties. They want to place this person.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Outsource 319

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2016

If you or your team sees you as an idea person, your first task as an entrepreneur should be to find a co-founder who can deliver. Professional investors expect far more than an idea pitch – they are looking for a documented opportunity analysis and realistic financial projections. Tailor investor proposals and term-sheets.

Ideas 53

Ideas Startup IBM IBM 53

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

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. I was the laggard.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Custom 296

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 13, 2010

This will result in personal and specific descriptions of your involvement. However, be sure that any statistics you quote are primarily attributable to your personal efforts. Imagine a resume that only describes the person’s personality traits, likeability and strong character. As noted in Cialdini et al.’s

Startup 113

Startup .Net Organization Networking 113

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 1, 2010

But I use this all of the time as a metaphor when talking with entrepreneurs in person and I’ve found it to be a useful way of explaining to entrepreneurs what is going in in the VC’s life. a term sheet has been signed, the legal documents are being drafted and the deal will close some time in the near future).

Venture Capital 275

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Capital Ideas 275

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

Oh, they didn’t cover that in your Stanford CS course? I personally like startups to work with firms based on three criteria: local, right sized and startup focused. I know the industry as a whole has been plagued with criticism over over billing and personally I think much of this criticism is deserved. Get to know them.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318