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

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A This applies equally to VCs, startups & big company executives. The key is channeling what you learn when you drive onto paper for retention purposes so you have to write it down soon afterward. So no whinging about what a long post this is!

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 31, 2020

June 2019 (left) and November 2020 (right) I’ve been reluctant to write this blog post because historically I don’t like talking about weight. I’m going to make this post pretty high-level because my goal is to help anybody who wants to get started quickly. How to Get Started? Then should write down your “target goal.”

Startup 526

Startup Course Writing Help 526

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. Write down the customer pains so you’ll have them for later.

Sales 367

Sales Slides Startup Customer 367

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Either way, don’t assume that the entire room is up to speed on your company. tip: write it down when asked / parked). Let me write that down.&#. -

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

The mistake entrepreneurs make is either writing a lengthy email (everybody has too much email so it will get skimmed / not digested) or not having a deck which means the VC can’t quickly determine his or her fit as a potential investor. If the investor spends all of his or her time staring at slides you’ve lost.

Venture Capital 261

Venture Capital Slides Email Startup 261

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Make sure you go through the 32 Questions Developers May Have Forgot to Ask a Startup Founder. Here's an example of that kind of email.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

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

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2011

I am a big believer in VC pitches that the bio slide should come up front. I wanted to write a quick post on a pet peeve that I have when teams present “who they are” whether in a bio slide or just in the up front introductions. I know it’s incredibly important to me in my investment decisions.

Slides 296

Slides GRP Partners Venture Capital Writing 296

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

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 20, 2013

Teams usually start with terminology that is very insular and less relevant to customers. You’ll need it so that you can work on “objection handling” when prospects naturally bring up these areas. So now you’ve got your key USPs written down and you’ve worked them into slide format to get them across to your prospects.

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2010

The concept comes from a Stephen Covey book called “ First Things First ,&# which is a worthwhile book ( Wikipedia overview here ) but if you haven’t read his seminal book “ 7 Habits of Highly Effective People &# you should start with that. I did the outline of the 15 slides on the flight over (after a few beers).

Slides 374

Slides Email Entrepreneur Startup 374

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. Let me start with the obvious baseline that most people probably know instinctively: Los Angeles is the 3rd largest technology startup ecosystem in the US. LA By The Numbers.

Entrepreneur 376

Entrepreneur Snapchat Startup Google 376

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

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 150

Startup Slides Email Customer 150

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. My starting salary was $27,000. I can’t make this up. I have published many of these PR Tips before. ” F**k.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

TechEmpower

MARCH 27, 2013

At the time of this writing, Java 8 development is still very much in progress. I'll do my best to keep this document up to date. A stream can only be traversed once, then it's used up. They start off as one and may be switched to the other using stream. It performs better than RRWL when used as a plain read-write lock.

Java 560

Java Class Software Review Examples 560

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

MAY 15, 2010

We’re staring to get the hang of how to divide the show up into talking about deals but also talking about issues for entrepreneurs during funding. Nevertheless, if you share too much in your funding process or meet too many VCs expect a certain amount of your ideas to spread around the startup community. They also avoid Reg D.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

They decide to wake up early to read the materials. In town board members also only scan it because they, too, have morning meetings before the board meeting starts. The deck itself was produced by a committee of functional team lead who were asked to do 5–7 slides each for an update. The meeting starts.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Rarer still is the startup CEO who can make the transition effectively on their own. Unwillingness to devolve power is the bane of many management teams at startup companies. I see the problem directly at many startups I know. The problem is that we started with an SLA that was too favorable to us. This seldom works.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

I have been writing a series on how startup boards get selected, who sits on them and what to avoid. I will also delve into how to prepare for them, how to make the meeting effective and how to best follow up to make sure people take action. A good board member cares enough to weigh in BEFORE the meeting starts.

Startup 251

Startup Help Technical Review Writing 251

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

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.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2015

As a mentor to startups and new entrepreneurs, I continue to hear the refrain that business plans are no longer required for a new startup, since investors never read them anyway. For aspiring entrepreneurs, or if your last startup failed, it’s all about standing out above the crowd of others like you, and demonstrating your readiness.

Startup 104

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Slides 104

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. business consultant entrepreneur specialist startup'

Startup 102

Startup Slides Email Customer 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2021

As a mentor to startups and new entrepreneurs, I continue to hear the refrain that business plans are no longer required for a new startup, since investors never read them anyway. For aspiring entrepreneurs, or if your last startup failed, it’s all about standing out above the crowd of others like you, and demonstrating your readiness.

Entrepreneur 156

Entrepreneur Tips Funding Startup 156

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

It was an online community like CompuServe and eventually started offering people dial-up access to the Internet for a monthly fee. Brands didn’t advertise their web pages they advertised “AOL Keywords.&# You couldn’t pick up a magazine in the 96-99 timeframe without seeing AOL Keywords advertised everywhere.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Web 2.0 Startup 318

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and was going to use AngelList by Nivi & Naval as the basis for my example and the perfect prompt came yesterday when I read Fred Wilson’s blog post on AngelList. Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice. From there Rob decided to make a small investment.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 16, 2013

Article after article points out that Los Angeles is on its way to becoming one of the most robust startup communities in the United States. It is meant to bring everyone together so that they can learn, network and leave with the sense that they now belong to a family of entrepreneurs, all trying to make LA a startup hub.

Rustic Canyon 74

Rustic Canyon Startup Los Angeles Class 74

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

Thus I offer the following outline for how to organize and present your business plan, with specific examples: Start with outlining the customer problem, and your solution. The most common business entity used for startups is a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC), which is the cheapest and simplest to manage.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

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

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2014

As a mentor to startups and new entrepreneurs, I continue to hear the refrain that business plans are no longer required for a new startup, since investors never read them anyway. For aspiring entrepreneurs, or if your last startup failed, it’s all about standing out above the crowd of others like you. Written business plan.

Entrepreneur 108

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Slides 108

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 17, 2011

I do not often write blog entries which reference other blog articles. As he lowers his loupe for a moment and glances up from his slides, he suddenly notices a flash of brown amidst all the white outside his window. A UPS truck is pulling up in front of his studio. Image source: ©Jeffrey Aaronson.

Slides 164

Slides Blogging Writing Demand 164

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

We both felt that the critical reasoning skills and writing skills were critical to our career development. How did they end up with such an irreverent site and what was their objective? Should you have 7 people doing your seed round and why Ron Conway is the S&P 500 of Venture Capital (this discussion starts at minute 59).

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

As a startup mentor and investor, I am approached regularly by aspiring entrepreneurs who assert that business plans take too much time, are inaccurate, and rarely add value. 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.

Technical Review 126

Technical Review Writing Entrepreneur Slides 126

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

We started hanging out a bit and discussing technology and entrepreneurship. What Cham rarely tells people – he’s both private and humble – is that he started making some small co-investments with me in tech firms starting with Maker Studios where he was one of the earliest investors. Startup Lessons'

Conference 150

Conference Slides Social Media Summary 150