Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

It’s a marketing deck and nothing in it should reveal some “secret sauce” that your competitors could magically copy and destroy you. If a VC has read your deck and gets the basic premise they will turn up to your meeting a lot more prepared to discuss & debate the merits of your deal versus trying to think about it on the fly.

Venture Capital 261

Venture Capital Slides Email Startup 261

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 16, 2011

I generally don’t like to speak about fund raising in a frothy market. I think you can get the gist of it from my presentation although some slides don’t quite tell the full story. I think you can get the gist of it from my presentation although some slides don’t quite tell the full story.

Venture Capital 307

Venture Capital Marketing Funding Slides 307

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2022

Every startup wants to be a predictable success, yet so few ever achieve this enviable position. His studies show that companies at this stage show five key characteristics, which I believe every startup should strive to achieve from the very beginning: Decision making. As a startup, you need to walk before you can run.

Startup 140

Startup Slides Framework Resource 140

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2012

As a member of the local Angel group selection committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short - maybe short on content, but not short on pages! A perfect round number is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Marketing, sales, and partners.

Slides 99

Slides Competition Sample Sales 99

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

I have long advised startup companies that if you don’t control your messaging somebody else will and your potential customers will form impressions of you shaped by somebody else or by nobody at all. It is simply the most important way to proactively control your career development and how the market perceives you.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

In a VC business when you raise additional capital you need to “level up” and act the round you are. I’d say 20% of startups I see level-up early after their A round. What they do with the money is add more engineers and maybe hiring a marketing person. Act your stage. Objection Handling training.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

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. First to market, for example, is not normally a sustainable advantage for startups. Startup team with experience and connections is this domain.

Competition 166

Competition Funding Startup Patents 166

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

As a member of the local angel group Selection Committee, I’ve seen a lot of startup presentations to investors, and I’ve never seen one that was too short - maybe short on content, but not short on pages! A perfect round number is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Marketing, sales, and partners.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

If you want the whole deck you can find it on SlideShare but I’ve written up a short summary with commentary below. Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital Capital Startup Funding 292

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Startup Advice. As startup entrepreneurs we all want to work with them because having their name as reference clients makes it so much easier for marketing, PR, selling to other customers, fund raising and even recruiting. Have minimums but a sliding scale. Sometimes it actually does.

Startup 298

Startup Sales Slides Metrics 298

The Quigley Report

MARCH 4, 2008

Early stage VCs typically say that the ebbs and flows of the stock market don't effect the valuations they pay in start up financings. These firms most definitely do look at public stock market valuations as a measure of how to price a private company. That may be true. And guess what? Two observations fall out of this.

Startup 40

Startup Slides Marketing Clearstone 40

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

One of my favorite events last year was attending Startup Grind where I got to interview Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. ” We talked about my influences as a younger person and what got me started in technology and entrepreneurship. And of course we talked about many of my views of building startups.

Startup 337

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Venture Capital 337

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Brian Coryat, Founder and CEO of Local Market Launch and former Founder and CEO of ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) recently winged his talk at UC Santa Barbara''s Distinguished Lecture Series. He shared a number of witty entrepreneurial insights, including: "Startups are like high school. Both are fun, but mostly in hindsight.

Startup 223

Startup Yahoo Santa Barbara Slides 223

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

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. Can you just show up without one? Act I – The Discussion: You’re goal in starting the meeting is to establish rapport. I need something structured like slides or a demo to orient me.

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Slides Startup Sales 238

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

The biggest complaint I hear from investors is that startup founders often talk way too long, and neglect to cover the most relevant points. If you start by pitching your extended life story, that’s the wrong point. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides. Start with the problem and your solution.

Startup 64

Startup Slides Technical Review Research 64

InfoChachkie

JULY 1, 2013

If you are forced to display financial data, ensure that the slides are unintelligible. early-stage, late-stage, market-sector focuses, etc.) For instance, emphasize basic market issues that are familiar to even the most casual observer of your venture’s space. Limit the use of pictures or graphs on your slides.

Slides 220

Slides Tips Startup RSS 220

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp, Sept 2009) View more documents from Dave McClure. We need to make sure we have these numbers. Great stuff.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Web 2.0 Slides 225

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

We had a training session from somebody who put up the four-quadrant graph you see above. This is really important as extroverts like to have the answers presented to them up front. For extroverted people I recommend that entrepreneurs have an “executive summary&# slide up front that cuts to the chase.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

One of the readers asked my opinion around sharing your startup concept: My first question has always been - how do you protect your idea while shopping around for feedback, partners, developers, etc.? Especially if the idea could be whipped-up by a few 24-year olds in a few weeks? Lots of thoughts here.

Startup 211

Startup IP Ideas Patents 211

Berkonomics

APRIL 11, 2019

An entrepreneur pitches using a deck with no slide for competition. Perhaps buyers cannot obtain attractive financing in the current market. If you are raising funds, list “do nothing” as a viable competitor in your slide deck. We investors see this all the time. When asked (as we always do,) the response is “This is new.

Competition 120

Competition Slides Research Sales 120

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. Can you just show up without one? I think the norm in the industry is still to see Powerpoint slides and I wouldn’t hold this against anybody. I funded them 8 weeks later. Bijan is right.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

One of the readers asked my opinion around sharing your startup concept: My first question has always been - how do you protect your idea while shopping around for feedback, partners, developers, etc.? Especially if the idea could be whipped-up by a few 24-year olds in a few weeks? Lots of thoughts here.

Startup 198

Startup IP Ideas Patents 198

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

If you want the full SlideShare deck with many slides not in either post it’s in this link –> The LA Tech Market. Has it begun to mature or is it just better marketed than in was say 5 years ago? Given how efficient markets are when a large market like LA starts to blossom it attracts capital pretty quickly.

Entrepreneur 376

Entrepreneur Snapchat Startup Google 376

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2013

Too many sales reps walk into customer meetings with their pre-canned sales decks and proudly squawk through 30 of their favorite slides without engaging the customer in a discussion. I recommend starting with a brief overview of you, your company and your solution. Just watch Mad Men and you’ll know that. It’s just human nature.

Sales 367

Sales Slides Startup Customer 367

socalTECH

OCTOBER 14, 2013

One of the startups to come out of that 3D printing revolution is Deka Sounds (www.dekasounds.com), which is based in Orange County. We caught up with founder and CEO Erik Adams to hear more about what is startup is up to, and how it''s trying to use the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo to raise money for its startup.

Startup 241

Startup Slides Orange County Design 241

Xconomy

JANUARY 31, 2018

But this month their billions in estimated market value are eroding , amid widening suspicions against one trading platform, a half-billion-dollar heist from another exchange, and an awakened global regulatory community. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have seen dramatic but volatile price surges during the past year. The possible.

Slides 61

Slides Research Pricing Platform 61

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

15 years ago we were at the peak of Internet hype with the launch of many over-capitalized businesses with a market size & opportunity was limited. The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). But markets value high growth over short-term profitability. Where are we today?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

” There are a lot of data points that one can observer to get a sense of the venture capital markets – both LP fundings into venture and VC financings of startups. They point to some widely known facts: financings & valuations are up massively over the past 7 years and non-VC money has entered the system.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Course Marketing 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2014

If you need to know how to do something, just look it up online. My message today is to avoid the consultant stigma by signing up to do the job, not just talk about it. My message today is to avoid the consultant stigma by signing up to do the job, not just talk about it. But certainly the Internet doesn’t do the job for you.

Startup 102

Startup Slides Email Customer 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2015

The biggest complaint I hear from investors is that startup founders often talk way too long, and neglect to cover the most relevant points. If you start by pitching your extended life story, that’s the wrong point. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides. Start with the problem and your solution.

Slides 105

Slides Technical Review Startup Research 105

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2016

Entrepreneurs who are looking to attract investors need to develop and pitch a plan -- preferably written -- that answers every potential investor question about your startup before it is asked. How big and growing is the total market and your target segment? They like billion-dollar markets with double-digit growth rates.

Invest 108

Invest Startup Slides Equity 108

socalTECH

DECEMBER 28, 2016

Wolpert is also a longtime angel investor in Southern California's technology industry, helps to run technology accelerator Amplify, and has been involved in countless other startup ventures. At the end of last year I was prepared for a massive decline in the public stock markets this year and with it, a drying up of funding for startups.

Southern California 100

Southern California Startup Slides News 100

InfoChachkie

JULY 1, 2013

If you are forced to display financial data, ensure that the slides are unintelligible. early-stage, late-stage, market-sector focuses, etc.) For instance, emphasize basic market issues that are familiar to even the most casual observer of your venture’s space. Limit the use of pictures or graphs on your slides.

Slides 154

Slides Tips Startup Research 154

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. This blog post ended up on Valleywag (which had much bigger presence back then). Anyway, the starting point for this blog entry is a cartoon I remember reading in the New Yorker.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2019

Image via Pixabay In my role as a new business advisor and occasional investor, I hear lots of people talking about their dreams of “someday” starting and running a new venture. They can talk with passion about their innovative new idea, and ask lots of questions, but never seem to really get started.

Ideas 99

Ideas Slides Writing Startup 99

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2017

Eugene Cho is CEO of San Diego-based Echo Laboratories (www.discover-echo.com), a startup which is developing a new kind of microscope. The startup is backed by the Tech Coast Angels and Dolby Ventures. One, is an upright, traditional looking microscopes, where you look at glass slides. How did you start the company?

Tech Coast Angels 124

Tech Coast Angels Startup Sales Slides 124

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2022

For example, you must forego the traditional meeting approach, where a team member presents a slide deck with all the background and multiple solution options on an issue, and asks you for a decision. For one-on-one coaching from the startup founder, I call this approach five-minute mentoring.

Mentor 154

Mentor Technical Review Coach Slides 154