Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

Francisco Dao came up with the idea of letting 10 companies that weren’t selected for Twiistup to do a presentation the night before to a group of people and let the audience pick one company to win the final slot at Twiistup. I’ll put up the video when they post it on their website. Stories have starts, middles and ends.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

It’s a conversation that creeps up from time-to-time. For a combination of reasons I didn’t end up talking with the CEO in time and the company quickly became over subscribed. Because management is so important I always tell people to make the bio slide the first in your deck. They might want you to start lean.

Startup 360

Startup Venture Capital Invest Slides 360

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 20, 2013

Many of them have their iPhones and laptops ready to command their attention the moment that you start sucking. Stories have starts, middles and ends. I They all start to blend together. In any speech I do that is information rich I often have a summary slide at the end with the key points I want them to remember.

Slides 399

Slides Startup Conference Writing 399

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

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2009

This involves a person who leads a PowerPoint presentation in which the presenter feels more comfortable racing through pre-practiced slides and rattling off charts & bullet points than having a discussion. The VC might have tried a few times to prompt a discussion and you didn’t take the queue but in stead reverted back to slides.

Venture Capital 275

Venture Capital Sales Slides Startup 275

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 28, 2010

I grew up in the US but lived in England for so long I can never remember from which country my slang comes. But then I started to see it happening internally. So we (and by we I mean “they&# ) at Accenture decided to come up with our own bull shit. Plus, everyone on Twitter egged me on and then some.

Startup 378

Startup Framework Slides Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. A few people have asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart. But I do have more insight into understanding your startup team. Often I’m asked by startup CEO’s about how to best build an engineering team.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

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. Startup Advice' Just watch Mad Men and you’ll know that.

Sales 367

Sales Slides Startup Customer 367

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

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

This is part of my Startup Advice series. So I was surprised at the sheer volumes of decisions that had to be made when I became a startup CEO. Somebody asks whether you plan to set up 401k’s and do contribution matching. I would far rather have some messes to clean up than to never have them cross the line trying.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 5, 2011

Note: This is Part I in the Startup Advantages series. Startups have few advantages. The more sensitive the data and potentially damaging to your company, the more likely it will end up in the hands of someone who can use it against you. If the other party asks you to send them your slides, find out why they need them.

Startup 216

Startup Slides Resource Organization 216

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

Some great content around the intersection of startups and being a Startup CTO in June this year. This continues my series of posts: Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March There was some really great content in June. It shows a lack of interest.

Startup 175

Startup Venture Capital Slides Blogging 175

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2010

Start by defining the problem you’re solving – I see way too many early-stage entrepreneurs who start their companies with a product definition rather than a market problem. I covered this a bit in my post about the market definition slide in fund raising. Here’s my take on the topic: 1.

Product 348

Product Startup Design Blogging 348

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2009

slide 29). 70% of Korean population has Internet speeds > 5mbps (and avg = 15 mbps) – don’t bet that the Koreans won’t innovate on online content (slide 30). Larger online game market ($1 billion) than Japan despite 1/3 population and 1/2 GDP per capital (slide 99). Way ahead of the US on mobile gifting.

Slides 188

Slides Southern California Social Network Startup 188

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

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. These additional slides are often called “pocket slides” as in you have them in your pocket in case you need to pull them out.

Venture Capital 261

Venture Capital Slides Email Startup 261

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

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 19, 2009

I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. But in that moment of hearing the news, I tried to remind myself that dwelling in the negative never helps, that in fact every kick to the head provides motivation to crank it up.

Entrepreneur 288

Entrepreneur Startup Slides Seed Funding 288

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2011

It’s any meeting where you are in a small room and are being called on to present on some form of overhead slides. If you look at Diagram B you’ll see that the people you’re presenting to can look you in the eyes and glance up at the screen. In slides, less is almost always more. Yes, it’s rude.

Tips 392

Tips Screening Slides Venture Capital 392

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2011

If you can meet a partner up front it’s always best but sometimes it’s not possible. If you don’t, make sure you follow up and ask for feedback. Remember that most people are visual thinkers and Powerpoint slides simply help frame the conversations. NDAs would make it impossible to do business. Competition.

Venture Capital 340

Venture Capital Slides Doc Startup 340

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. Make sure you go through the 32 Questions Developers May Have Forgot to Ask a Startup Founder. You should definitely hit up the Startup Weekend events as well. Here's an example of that kind of email.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

He shared a number of witty entrepreneurial insights, including: "Startups are like high school. Note: I am an investor in Brian''s current startup via Rincon Venture Partners.). But the more I started to think about it, I said, well, why the hell not? and it was run by some college students up north (at) Stanford.

Startup 223

Startup Yahoo Santa Barbara Slides 223

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 31, 2020

I’m going to make this post pretty high-level because my goal is to help anybody who wants to get started quickly. I’m going to follow up with a series of detailed posts about what I did so that if you want more information, help, support or insights I can go deeper. How to Get Started? A way of life rather than a restriction.

Startup 526

Startup Course Writing Help 526

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2019

Announce at the start of the meeting that you’d like the board meeting to be “electronics free” including mobile phones, laptops or tablets. You will encounter many sensible people who say versions of this: @msuster I quite often use my laptop to look up and quickly research and feedback things we are talking about in the meeting.

Slides 275

Slides Email News Startup 275

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 26, 2010

The “competition slide&# of your investment deck is such a great opportunity to talk about how you’re positioned (premium product vs. economical product? where do you need to make investments to make up ground and therefore need capital?). The Harvey Ball slide should in a way just be a depiction of this strategy.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Slides Competition Education 313

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 22, 2019

A Startup I’ve Been Excited to Tell You About for Years A few years ago I spent time in prison with Trevor O’Brien , the founder of Projector. When we got out of prison Trevor began describing the startup he and his co-founder, Jeremy Gordon , wanted to build. you can sign up if you want to try the service.

Startup 191

Startup Social Media Slides Design 191

InfoChachkie

JULY 1, 2013

If you are forced to display financial data, ensure that the slides are unintelligible. An effective method to incite Death By PowerPoint is to deploy an extraordinary number of slides. A minimum of 20 to 30 slides per minute is a reasonable rule of thumb. Limit the use of pictures or graphs on your slides.

Slides 220

Slides Tips Startup RSS 220

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

This is part of my series on Startup Advice. I love working with Aussies because their outlook on life seems very similar to what I grew up with in California. I recommend starting the meeting with a VERY brief introduction of your company, your background and why it’s relevant to the job you currently have.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

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

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Otherwise they end up looking ineffective or insignificant and this is especially troublesome if you’re raising money. Assign out slides: The best way to involve your team members is to assign out slides they will own. We pick up eye-rolls, sighs, arm-crossing, boredom, etc. Startup Advice' Make a note.

Venture Capital 377

Venture Capital Slides Course Summary 377

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. Executive team. Marty Zwilling.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 16, 2011

I think you can get the gist of it from my presentation although some slides don’t quite tell the full story. But Adeo asked so I obliged. I don’t know whether they shot video. If they do I’ll post it. See you in the comments section for our debate. VC Funding in a Frothy Market.

Venture Capital 307

Venture Capital Marketing Funding Slides 307

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

Don’t blog about what you think would be “cool.&# I don’t think that most startup blogs should be about how to build a startup. The new stuff: How do I get started? The advantage of the hosted version is that it’s easier to get started. Since there are 10-12 slides this gave me my first few weeks.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

Either way, don’t assume that the entire room is up to speed on your company. My plan would be to start the presentation at the 50,000 foot view and then dive down to a more granular level once we’re all base-lined. Other times the partner wants to test whether there is support before sinking in tons of due diligence time.

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

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. Executive team.

Slides 99

Slides Competition Sample Sales 99

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. Street Smarts - OK, so you’re a tenacious person – you never give up. Well obviously that’s meaningless if your startup idea sucks. He was at a startup that was in a super hot sector.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

This applies equally to VCs, startups & big company executives. 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. It’s ironic because I believe creativity is the most important success criterion for a startup.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

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