Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

The size of the document should be based on your style, but 10-20 pages or slides are usually more than adequate to outline even a complex business. Although the major crowd funding sites today, including Kickstarter and Indiegogo , don’t technically require a business plan, they do demand essentially the same information in a project format.

Technical Review 126

Technical Review Writing Entrepreneur Slides 126

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2012

The New York Times recently ran an article titled, “ Tech Companies Leave Phone Calls Behind.” Tech Companies most certainly do take calls. But only from customers. That’s because you are not their customer. The customer are advertising agencies and brands themselves. Let me explain: 1.

Mobile 311

Mobile Technical Review Google Screening 311

Tech.Co

MAY 22, 2018

Truth be told, your only path to some serious funding is perseverance and diligence in getting meetings and being prepared. To help you crush your next investor meeting, we asked top VCs and tech leaders to share their best pitch advice. Try to keep the presentation tight, 10 slides is ideal,” Gruber said. Know Your Stuff.

Tips 70

Tips Help Slides Technical Review 70

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2015

Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation. Equally bad is a full tutorial on your new disruptive technology. Investors are more interested in your solution and your business, rather than your technology. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides.

Slides 105

Slides Technical Review Startup Research 105

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 27, 2012

David encourages entrepreneurs to stay away from the big tech firms (such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple) because they are hard to compete with. I believe entrepreneurs should, in David’s words, “build big businesses on the outskirts” but I don’t believe that Silicon Valley tech giants will outmaneuver startups.

Technical Review 299

Technical Review Venture Capital Yammer Google 299

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Thus, I’m more impressed with entrepreneurs who ask me to review their implementation plan, rather than listen again to their idea. In my experience, the key steps I look for always include the following: Testing the idea against customers who have money to spend. Prepare your marketing story for customers and investors.

Ideas 94

Ideas Slides Technical Review Patents 94

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2013

Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation. Equally bad is an extended pitch on your new disruptive technology. Investors are more interested in your solution and your business, rather than your technology. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides.

Angel 102

Angel Funding Slides Technical Review 102

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation. Equally bad is a full tutorial on your new disruptive technology. Investors are more interested in your solution and your business, rather than your technology. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides.

Startup 64

Startup Slides Technical Review Research 64

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. There’s a guy in Los Angeles that I met at several tech networking events. He was a really nice and personable guy who had deep domain knowledge in an industry that he’d worked in for 10 years that is in need of technological advancement.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2012

Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation. Equally bad is an extended pitch on your new disruptive technology. Investors are more interested in your solution and your business, rather than your technology. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides.

Tips 97

Tips Slides Technical Review Startup 97

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2017

Management teams whisk through slides trying to get through a presentation to share how great things are going and they are eager to get through the meeting so they can get back to their real jobs. The board’s job is to review the company’s financial performance and strategy and help provide counsel to the executive team.

Tips 212

Tips Slides Startup Technical Review 212

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2011

Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation. Equally bad is an extended pitch on your new disruptive technology. Investors are more interested in your solution and your business, rather than your technology. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides.

Slides 95

Slides Technical Review Startup Research 95

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

How Most Board Meeting Prep Works I’ve been sitting on tech boards for two decades so I have some experience with what goes wrong. The deck itself was produced by a committee of functional team lead who were asked to do 5–7 slides each for an update. Each section head reads his / her 5–7 slides. There are too many pages.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

The size of the document should be based on your style, but 10-20 pages or slides are usually more than adequate to outline even a complex business. Although the major crowd funding sites today, including Kickstarter and Indiegogo , don’t technically require a business plan, they do demand essentially the same information in a project format.

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Writing Entrepreneur Slides 109

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

It included one firm who I asked not to call Salesforce.com as a reference (they were our largest pilot customer) and in their kindness they called Marc Benioff (the CEO) and asked his opinion. We have also been very busy with our next release, which is due out by December 11th (but I’ll save that for a different post). I was wrong.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

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. There is no substitute for knowing your customers first hand, and iterating on a minimum viable product to find the most marketable solution.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Technical Review Writing Slides 100

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

are eliminated during due diligence. Investors expect a one or two-page executive summary sheet for the initial screening, backed up by a ten-slide Powerpoint investor presentation. Remember to aim the content of both of these at investors, not customers. Close at least one initial customer.

Invest 99

Invest Angel Technical Review Summary 99

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

Before booking a hotel I always check out Trip Advisor and read reviews. It’s hard for angels to assess whether or not to invest because they often have day jobs and can’t commit to the kind of due diligence that most VCs go through. Anything requiring lead generation and/or customer acquisition I call Matt Coffin.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

are eliminated during due diligence. Investors expect a one or two-page executive summary sheet for the initial screening, backed up by a ten-slide Powerpoint investor presentation. Remember to aim the content of both of these at investors, not customers. Close at least one initial customer.

Angel 89

Angel Funding Technical Review Startup 89

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2010

Engineering is pissed off because they need to do some technical infrastructure improvements and the sales team is always pushing them to deliver too many features. &# Sell what we have!!&# And you want us to work yet another weekend while you’re playing golf with clients and getting fat bonuses? MySpace dithered.

Entrepreneur 330

Entrepreneur Yahoo Startup Technical Review 330

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

When I need to give a speech and I’m writing a slide for my deck, I think up the story in my mind that I’m going to tell for this slide. I want to know how many people, their level of tech sophistication, their age and their interests. How much power does Google have due to search? So I thought I would.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. The United States is now a debtor nation to China and that the bill is about to come due. These are probably the two sites where I've posted the most reviews. One out of ten of Americans are out of work.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

If you were a newly minted, venture-backed consumer Internet company you had to have a deal with AOL to reach your customers. So along come companies like Slide, RockYou & Zynga who wanted to build apps across all the social networks but were green-lighted the hardest by Mark Zuckerberg. They controlled distribution to the masses.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Web 2.0 Startup 318

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

10 Ways To Be Your Own Boss - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , June 18, 2010 The folks at Behance and Cool Hunting asked me to talk at their 99% Conference a couple months ago. had two occasions recently to review products which had clear market leadership. gave him my favorite, "keep it to six slides."

Startup 175

Startup Venture Capital Slides Blogging 175