Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

We had a special edition of This Week in Venture Capital this week shooting out of the Next New Networks offices in New York. Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital. Topics we discussed in the first 45 minutes of the video include: What is VC like in NY? Competitor: Slide. Total raised: $129.0mm.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. - First Principles.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

For extroverted people I recommend that entrepreneurs have an “executive summary&# slide up front that cuts to the chase. Don’t dwell on this slide for ever. If I have an hour with you I want to maximise the time we have a discussion so I want to get through the slides quickly. 25% of VCs are expressives, like you.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. And VC’s are tough customers. I’ve talked before about how to build long-term relationships with VCs.

Startup 360

Startup Venture Capital Invest Slides 360

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

Non VC Growth Rounds. The other major trend of 2012–2015 was the entrance of “non VCs” into late-stages of venture capital , which mostly consisted of hedge funds, mutual funds, corporate investors, sovereign wealth funds and even LPs doing direct deals. VC Infighting. Some called this “buying logos.”

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Funding Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. I’d link to it but it’s behind a paywall.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2011

I am a big believer in VC pitches that the bio slide should come up front. The short answer is that by knowing the key members of the management team the VC firm can quickly identify strengths on your time and know whether you have some competitive advantage in your chose field relative to other people with whom you will compete.

Slides 296

Slides GRP Partners Venture Capital Writing 296

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2009

Handling PR with VCs. This is part of my series on How to Raise VC but could equally be filed under Startup Advice more generally. Just notice how many VC emails you get after your TechCrunch article or after you were on stage at TC50. In your VC pitch your PR page should take no longer than 30 seconds – Wait.

Venture Capital 291

Venture Capital Press News Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2011

This might be a VC meeting but also might just be a sales or biz dev meeting. It’s any meeting where you are in a small room and are being called on to present on some form of overhead slides. The worst behaved will literally never be on the slide you’re presenting. In slides, less is almost always more.

Tips 392

Tips Screening Slides Venture Capital 392

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Hire admin / office management after you raise a reasonable size VC round. Ok, well not that pretty since I do my own slides and often at 1am. But my slides are linked above and you can also download from SlideShare. If you need a COO then perhaps you’re not a CEO? It’s all in this deck in a prettier format.

Startup 388

Startup Slides Outsource Development Sales 388

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 11, 2009

I run a monthly meeting called the VCA that represents the majority of Southern California venture capital firms. 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).

Slides 188

Slides Southern California Social Network Startup 188

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. You’ve found a VC partner or principal who has invited you to the Monday partners’ meeting. Congratulations. Is that OK with you?&#.

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

I spotted my fellow VC Leo Spiegel (from Mission Ventures) who had spoken previously to the same group and asked about his experiences. They had slides with moving images and music. If you really get nervous and are afraid you’ll forget your lines have one 3X5 cue card in your hands for each slide.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I believe the rise in angel investing is here to stay and the professionalization of this class (aka “super angels&# or “micro VC&# ) is a good thing for the VC industry and for entrepreneurs. Mostly, this segment of the market (like all of VC) is stacked in favor of the few. Unfortunately that’s a myth.

Invest 306

Invest Angel Venture Capital Slides 306

InfoChachkie

JULY 7, 2016

Fool A Fool – I sold surgical robots from PowerPoint slides in the early 1990’s, before the robots existed. The post VC Confessions: I Don’t Really Care About Your Product Demo appeared first on John Greathouse. You can follow John on Twitter: @johngreathouse. Image credit: Shutterstock. Share and Enjoy.

Venture Capital 176

Venture Capital Product Software Review Technical Review 176

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

But I guess you could say the same about VC. Stock market declines would bring back dog days of VC. If you want a comprehensive summary of the industry in this era it’s worth a read: VC Ice Age Part 1 – What Happens When a Market Comes to a Standstill? VC Ice Age Part 2 – Why the Market Started Moving Again?

Marketing 305

Marketing Venture Capital Funding Technical Review 305

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Most of them are completely mundane such as choosing which: bank, office space, 1-year lease vs. 2-year lease, logo, URL, pricing structure or which VC. I said (out loud), “I sure wish that some of the time that went into these PowerPoint slides would have gone into meetings with the COO, CFO or CMO of [Elephant Customer].&#

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

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. Personally, I don't like weighty board packs and I do not wish to inflict slide preparation upon anyone. Yes, even bootstrappers.

Startup 175

Startup Venture Capital Slides Blogging 175

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 27, 2012

As per my video, think about the data in the following slide. I remember a discussion with an older VC who told me that in the early 90′s they wondered whether the VC industry had a future. That’s why I say, “ It’s Morning in VC & the Startup World. The future certainly looks brighter to me.

Technical Review 299

Technical Review Venture Capital Yammer Google 299

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. If you haven’t read the other VC fund-raising posts I’ve done as part of this series you can find the whole outline and this first in the series here.]

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

Send me in a corner to work on slides, graphs, spreadsheets and charts. I talked with a few VCs and batted around the idea of becoming a VC. No prizes for guessing how my VC chats went. But you don’t really have VC experience.” How can you become a VC unless somebody decides to let you become a VC?

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

Berkonomics

JULY 3, 2014

When I give a keynote address, I often start by asking my audience, by raise of hands, to tell me how many are angel or VC investors, and how many are entrepreneurs, how many are service providers such as attorneys. Immediately, I can tell how to orient the explanations behind my pre-cast slides, based upon the response.

Slides 201

Slides Startup Venture Capital Organization 201

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

One of the interesting things about being a VC is that you often see companies in transition. In a VC business when you raise additional capital you need to “level up” and act the round you are. I have seen many companies raise their first $3 million and still act like a company that has no resources at all.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2019

If you present slide after slide and if this becomes a download of too much information and not enough of a discussion then people’s attention spans wane. The best board meetings are discussions and debates about the business yet many executive teams spent their time wanting to walk through hours of slides on how great they’re doing.

Slides 275

Slides Email News Startup 275

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2010

The first was to do a 5 minute “ignite&# presentation – 5 minutes, 15 slides. I did the outline of the 15 slides on the flight over (after a few beers). I tried to visualize how I was going to hit such a precise presentation where you get 20 seconds per slide and then they get auto forwarded.

Slides 374

Slides Email Entrepreneur Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

“Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is filled with great info from a guy who has been a very successful operator. So what are you waiting for?

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 5, 2010

And this is my chance to give back to all of those people for whom I don’t have enough time in the week for that “15 minute coffee meeting&# that many people wants with a VC. I have my basic slide decks complete but always happy to add, amend or ad-lib. Tags: VC Industry. Hope to see you!

CalTech 222

CalTech Startup Santa Monica Venture Capital 222

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2010

So here goes … As much as I like to occasionally make fun of having been a consultant early in my career (although I built computer systems rather than just PowerPoint slides), I realize upon reflection that I did learn a lot of great management practices from working in such a large and well-structured organization as Accenture.

Slides 342

Slides Help Ideas Venture Capital 342

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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

Pitching a VC – As I said in a previous post – the best VC meetings are discussions and not sales pitches. VC’s have a crocodile aversion as much as the next guy. We found some success when we tried D, E, F. Have you guys faced similar experiences in selling?&#.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Custom 314

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2023

Even if you have booked an hour with a VC, you should plan to talk only for the first fifteen minutes. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides. I’ve seen several presentations that never moved past the first slide before running out of time. Then match your pace to cover all the material.

Slides 147

Slides Funding Technical Review Startup 147

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 28, 2010

And having frameworks is a useful way to standardize your customer studies so that highly intelligent, inexperienced young people can crank out PowerPoint slides with such authority and beautiful consistency. I found that most VC’s never gave me any feedback when I was pitching. By “people&# I do not mean the rest of us.

Startup 378

Startup Framework Slides Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

You put some update slides on things like key hires or biz dev deals being negotiated and you didn’t plan to talk about them. But they were in a slide and people asked you questions so it ended up chewing up 30 minutes. If a VC is on 7 boards it becomes impossible to always have board dinners.

Startup 331

Startup Slides Guide Writing 331

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

.&# It was my investment philosophy that observing teams’ performance over time was far more insightful than reacting to how good of a product demo they do, how good they present Powerpoint slides or how great tech blogs say they are. I call it “focus on basecamp, not the summit.&# Let me explain.

Entrepreneur 330

Entrepreneur Marketing Venture Capital Hulu 330

Berkonomics

JANUARY 21, 2021

When I give a keynote address, I often start by asking my audience, by raise of hands, to tell me how many of them are angel or VC investors, how many are entrepreneurs, and how many are service providers such as attorneys. Immediately, I can tell how to orient the explanations behind my pre-cast slides, based upon the response.

Slides 156

Slides Startup Venture Capital Email 156

SoCal Tech Calendar

JULY 30, 2020

See [link] (more)

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Slides Startup Venture Capital 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 22, 2019

Upfront immediately wrote a check to back this vision and we later teamed up with their former colleague from Twitter turned VC, Rishi Garg of Mayfield and we’ve stayed quiet on what we were up to. They teamed up to solve this problem and when I heard about their approach it completely resonated with me.

Startup 191

Startup Social Media Slides Design 191