Canva posted an interesting collection of early stage pitch decks from 20 well-known companies. It is definitely worth checking out the list and seeing how they are presenting their market, product and opportunity.
Here’s the full post from Canva: http://bit.ly/2s94pHT
Featured startups are:
Intercom, AirBnB, Buffer, Front, Mixpanel, Youtube, Mattermark, SEOmoz, Ooomf, Crew, Linkedin, Foursquare, Wework, TouristEye, task.ly, Dwolla, Appnexus, Chewse, Mint, Kibin.
Posted in Funding, Pitching, Presentation, Venture Capital
Probably not much new, but always a good “back to basics” kind of article that is a good refresher for new and seasoned startup founders a like.
“Five Worst Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Pitching Angel Investors“, from Entrepreneur.com gives you the problems and the fix for each potential blunder:
Mistake No. 1: You don’t explain what problem your business solves.
The Fix: Share why customers will buy your product or service.
Mistake No. 2: You offer too many facts and numbers.
The Fix: Tell a story.
Mistake No. 3: You tout sales forecasts.
The Fix: Focus on the benefit your business offers customers.
Mistake No. 4: You’re too attached to your business plan.
The Fix: Embrace new revenue opportunities.
Mistake No. 5: You discuss ownership stakes.
The Fix: Save it for the follow-up.
Check out the full article, here.
Posted in Funding, Pitching, Presentation
Tagged elevator pitch, fundraising, investor, pitching
This is a pretty funny (and true, I have to admit) list of terms used in the startup scene, be it Boston, New York, or Silicon Valley.
Stephanie Kaplan, Co-Founder & CEo of Her Campus Media, tells us what commonly used phrases really mean, so that next time you think you got that VC interested, think twice. For example:
If there’s a subject every startup founder fears, is the pitching / fundraising. No matter how many pitch sessions, competitions, and training you do there is still room for improvement. But, as my kung-fu instructor used to say “practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect!”. You’ve gotta know how to pitch right to be able to raise capital.
A recent Mixergy interview with Oren Klaff (author of “Pitch Anything“) is a great source of material to better understand the dynamics of the perfect pitch. A key concept he talks about during the interview is turning the table and instead being the jester performing in front of kings, make the VCs, Angels, Private Equity guys the ones who have to perform to get the privilege to fund your business.
Easily said than done? Sure, but the interview is worth watching for great insight into how to better prepare yourself for the fundraising presentation.
Throughout the interview Oren talks about key concepts he discovered that allowed him to get multi-million dollar deals. Here are a few:
Turn the Table: When you come in for a meeting with a VC or private equity firm, usually right in the beginning they will spend a few minutes introducing you to their partners and telling you about their company. Turn it around and instead suggest you pitch right away and have them at the end talk about their company in the context you presented. This will save you time and will put you in a stronger position.
The Big Idea: Instead of being too quick to dissect your pitch, talking about the market, opportunity, distribution, etc. think of the Big Idea. Capture the painful problem you are trying to solve and tell the audience (VC, Angel, etc.) how you can solve it. Your big idea should trigger an emotional response, be insightful. You want people to start thinking/saying “wow, I didn’t know that! That is very interesting. I want to learn more.”
Creating Tension: If you had two, three, five hours to pitch someone you probably could convince them that your idea is good and worthy of investment. But you have 20 minutes of their attention, so you have to use tension and novelty. When you lose the neediness, when you push people away, that is when the most amount of capital is raised. Be direct, forthright, not supplicating.
Want an example? This is a great clip to watch:
(Don Draper, from Mad Men, giving a pitch).
Novelty: People come to meetings or talk to you to learn about new things, meet interesting people, learn about places and ideas they have not heard about before. The second people can interpolate, extrapolate, figure out, or create a pattern on what you’re doing, they are checked-out and gone. Don’t use the same powerpoint deck template everyone uses, try something different, show that you are different. Peak their interest in you and your idea.
Big Picture: Don’t let yourself get bogged down during the pitch by detailed questions that want to escape the “big idea” frame, because that’s just a way they are using to filter you and go from an emotional to analytical frame of mind. So when asked about revenues, put that off by saying you have them and will get to that later but let’s just focus on the big picture first, the whole concept you are trying to present. You only have 20 minutes (even if the meeting is scheduled for one hour, you only have 20 minutes of their attention anyways), so better make it count and focus on the big important things.
It’s worth checking out the full interview at Mixergy. Andrew asks detailed questions and Oren is a great speaker. Definitely worth watching.
Posted in Funding, Pitching, Presentation
Tagged andrew warner, fund raising, mixergy, oren klaff, pitch, pitch anything
Steve Blank has made available his Lean Startup LaunchPad Course, the class he teaches at Stanford that is built around his customer development methodology, all accessible directly from his blog.
The classes are:
Posted in Lean Startup, Presentation
Tagged business model, customer development, lean startup, stanford, steve blank
The Demo Conference 2011 ended yesterday and has announced the winning startups:
Zugara: uses augmented reality to aid in shopping experience. Really cool demo of someone browsing an online sore and “trying” a dress virtually as if she was at the store.
Nimble: a Social CRM, gives you a tool that combines basic contact management with your social stream and activities (twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc.) in one single location. Great looking product that has potential to become a standard tool in sales organizations.
ecoATM: is your CoinStar for cell phones. Users go to their kiosks and put in their old cell phones in exchange for money. The intelligent kiosk can test your cell phone and determine its working condition, then gives you a price and you decide if you want to cash out. In that case the cell phone is kept in the kiosk for later recycling.
Stratosphere (by V3): Incredibly fast virtual desktops.
Manilla: helps you keep track and pay your bills on time. Is a central online location that consolidates all your payments and pending bills so you never miss the payment deadline again.
eCobe: helps content creators make money by giving back 75% of search engine’s advertising profit to content providers.
And for the people’s choice award: GutCheck, a do-it-yourself qualitative research online tool that helps you do your market research on a dime.
You can catch all startup pitches for the Demo event at their website.
Startup Web Guide 