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I spent my days meeting companies, figuring out what areas of the market interested me and trying to get a sense for how VCs thought about fair valuations. I started showing my partners more deals that I found interesting and doing loads of analysis on the future of markets I thought were ripe for disruption. The market had tanked.
Proving your Business Model Works - Build, Define, and Review But how do you prove your numbers? Finally, review the numbers with your partners. The metrics, and how they relate, are captured in his slide: Note the relationship between retention/referral efforts and lifetime value. Don’t worry about scaling just yet.
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.
My original thinking from Oct ’09 was, while I didn’t (and still don’t) have a crystal ball I worried that: consumers were over-stretched with debt (and make up 77% of the economy), unemployment would continue to rise, which in turn would drive the stock market south and cut the rate of M&A activity and VC investment even further.
some came from our customer service, some were to improve performance / scalability from tech ops, some were bug fixes, etc.) Letting our customers and the market know that we were a real organization with real people rather than a pre-packaged, pre-processed marketing machine. But he didn’t grow up with technology.
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.
No cookies for guessing which reason they use to market to us. 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 duediligence that most VCs go through.
Other times the partner wants to test whether there is support before sinking in tons of duediligence time. I have a few slides later that address that.&# (obviously if you say that you need to come back to the question either later or after the meeting. Do you mind if I answer that a little later in the presentation?
Fool A Fool – I sold surgical robots from PowerPoint slides in the early 1990’s, before the robots existed. Rather than be sold , I’d much prefer to understand a product’s value proposition and the extent to which it has achieved fit among the company’s target market customers. Customers Are All That Matter.
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.
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. I literally imagine myself on stage saying the words. So I thought I would.
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.
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. 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.
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.
sure, still slightly awkward to slide into your back-pocket comfortably. If you simply need to make calls or post a quick check-in, there are plenty of other phones on the market. The post The Samsung Galaxy MEGA is a MONUMENTALLY MASSIVE Mecha [Review] appeared first on TechZulu. Exclusive to AT&T, the 6.3-inch
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. But it only works if you observe the following principles: Never hide from your team. Provide immediate direct and constructive feedback.
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.
Was it massively better software, better companies, better markets? It was: up-market, exclusive, urban, elite, aesthetically pleasing, ad-free and users were verified. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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. But it only works if you observe the following principles: Never hide from your team. Provide immediate direct and constructive feedback.
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.
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.
Thus, I’m more impressed with entrepreneurs who ask me to review their implementation plan, rather than listen again to their idea. Some dreams sound great, but may not yet be viable or proven with today’s technology. Prepare your marketing story for customers and investors. Make sure your solution is defensible and unique.
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. It’s validating that there is a market for their idea. Know Your Stuff. Less Is More.
are eliminated during duediligence. Investors expect a one or two-page executive summary sheet for the initial screening, backed up by a ten-slide Powerpoint investor presentation. All the conviction and market research in the world are no substitute for real customers paying real money. Free trials don’t count.
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.
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. But it only works if you observe the following principles: Never hide from your team. Provide immediate direct and constructive feedback.
This is often management’s fault because a long-deck plus financials that arrive the night before a board meeting don’t allow for directors to properly review them. If I see tons of “update slides” and know that we don’t have an important board decision I might just bite my tongue. Materials should always be 72 hours in advance.
are eliminated during duediligence. Investors expect a one or two-page executive summary sheet for the initial screening, backed up by a ten-slide Powerpoint investor presentation. All the conviction and market research in the world are no substitute for real customers paying real money. Free trials don’t count.
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?
controlling your psychology ) you no doubt have heard me say that raising capital is a sales & marketing process. Building models to evaluate the deal and/or reviewing customer files, company financials, business plans, etc. If you’ve read any of my ongoing series on fund raising from venture capitalist (episode 1?— ?controlling
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.
The New York Times recently ran an article titled, “ Tech Companies Leave Phone Calls Behind.” Tech Companies most certainly do take calls. Tech Companies & Calls: I once read a quote on Twitter that said, If you use a tech service for free then product is you. But this article missed the real trend.
Well … I have had many late nights and I really didn’t contemplate writing many blog postings this month because I spent November in this interesting venture capital / fund raising dance involving lots of late night sessions reviewing legal documents, rewriting business plans and preparing for pitches. Slides, please.” It got worse.
In the technology world there are a few websites that most startups track to keep up with the latest financings, acquisitions, product announcements and gossip: BusinessInsider, TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, etc. Specifically we talked about Slide having gotten a $550 million valuation before being sold to Google for $182 million.
In most cases, these applicants for equity funding must be rooted in technology to apply to this limited discussion. You will have to hone your story well, down to fifteen minutes and perhaps fifteen slides in your presentation. Friends and family investors. This class of investor typically writes checks from $50,000 to $250,000.
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.
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