Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A It’s why I always work hard to find images for my blog posts & why all of my keynote presentations are visual rather than bullet points with words. When I write a blog post I often see the words before I write them.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2009

This post covers the first out of 10 that I’ll write about. The moderator asked the question, “if an entrepreneur writes an email to a VC and doesn’t hear back what should they do?&# This VC responded, “Move on. If you fold at the first un-returned email what hope to you have as an entrepreneur?

Entrepreneur 338

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Google 338

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing. OK, well, actually the first thing I did is come up with a list of 50 posts that I wanted to write. I didn’t want to run out of things to write about in the first 6 months. My first series was the slides that go into a PowerPoint presentation.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I did a presentation about the use of Social Media to a great group of people who mostly are different kinds of service professionals (attorneys, accountants, consultants, etc.). I promised that I would do a follow-up post with some thoughts out of the presentation and providing links. Be interested in what they write.

Social Media 222

Social Media Services Media Blogging 222

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2011

I have long wanted to write about FNAC (feature, not a company) because it’s part of my normal lexicon to push teams that present to me to think harder about where the economics in their industry is coming from. I received a couple of emails from my friends and colleagues vigorously defending GroupMe. It lingered.

Email 270

Email Writing Blogging Competition 270

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2012

My pal Dave occasionally presents “headline risks” for investors. I told him only 2 weeks ago when we were in London together that I wanted to write a blog post that has been in my head for 2 years. Dave is terrible with email. He’s so bad that his email auto-responder tells you he likely won’t email you back.

Startup 309

Startup Venture Capital Email Writing 309

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

The short answer is that you should have multiple versions of your “pitch deck” (a short, visual presentation in Keynote, PPT or similar and shared as a PDF) and each occasion has a specific goal. Remember that the goal of an email to a VC or an introduction from a trusted mutual connection is simply to get you the meeting. Poppycock.

Venture Capital 261

Venture Capital Slides Email Startup 261

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 11, 2011

We talked about a lot of great stuff in the video including how to do sales calls and a how a new “culture of writing&# is emerging as a critical skill set in business today. I’ll write a post on how to give feedback to employees and then I’ll get emails from people telling me they forwarded it to their whole team.

Buzzfeed 354

Buzzfeed Content Tips Blogging 354

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

Today we’re in a world where 10 accelerators are bombarding you with emails to meet their 10-15 companies. I know I can’t be in every deal and I know that the easy part of being a VC is writing the first check in a deal. You need to be very present in these periods of time. I don’t. Probably more.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

A couple of years ago an entrepreneur had requested a meeting with me to present his business. I wrote him the following email. We write that into the calendar entry so that I (and any my partners) know this and would only reschedule if extremely urgent. Basically, don’t be cavalier about rescheduling meetings.

Conference 369

Conference Startup Century City Email 369

Berkonomics

MARCH 28, 2024

They write in their investment documents that they will occupy a seat on the board for as long as they are invested in the company, thinking of this as a protection for their investment and tool for them to influence growth. All other board functions are secondary.

Class 282

Class Coach Invest Sales 282

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 18, 2010

“Thank you for writing to me – it’s nice to hear from you (or meet you) via email. Politely warm the presenter before they start, “I’m really sorry. I told him it was best if he had a standard line he could send out when he gets these kinds of requests. I suggested something like the following.

Startup 305

Startup Venture Capital Writing Conference 305

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 16, 2010

A couple of years ago an entrepreneur had requested a meeting with me to present his business. If you need to reschedule a few days in advance - Whether you do your own scheduling or whether you have an assistant, a polite email to reschedule a meeting with a few days notice is usually acceptable. Let me give you an example.

Startup 346

Startup Conference Century City Email 346

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

You likely are writing your first one of these. Just make note of it in the document and/or in an email when you send it. See User Story is Worthless - Behavior is What We Need although you don't need your behavior description to be as formal as what is presented. Don't stress over format. Don't stress if you are doing it right.

Develop 354

Develop Development Technical Review CTO Coach 354

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Both Sides of the Table , July 22, 2010 An updated Digital Trends presentation - Jeff Hilimire , June 2, 2010 I do what I hate - Jessica Mah , January 7, 2010 Startup Equity Allocation - charliecrystle.com , January 11, 2010 When good investment decisions end up backing more women CEOs: Conversation with Cameron Lester at Azure Capital.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

As a teenager he experimented with writing & producing his own rap music and received a lot of feedback from elders that he had a talent with words. I had written a blog post on exactly this – how to not suck at group presentations – and what he said reminded me a lot of this post. His email list became his power.

Entrepreneur 356

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Email 356

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. The value of Pitch Decks; Brad’s personal preferences on deal presentation; and Brad’s practice of accepting cold approaches via email. Very few people can do a good job with a presentation that is emailable.”. You still need the presentation to back that up.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2023

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. You have to be able to communicate effectively in all the common forms, including business writing, as well as talking, presenting, and producing videos.

Tips 123

Tips Writing Startup Summary 123

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2016

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. You have to be able to communicate effectively in all the common forms, including business writing, as well as talking, presenting, and producing videos.

Writing 62

Writing Summary Email Ideas 62

Berkonomics

MAY 22, 2014

In most cases, those entrepreneurs choosing to raise capital using PPMs retain specialists (many of whom are lawyers) to write their PPMs – a rather expensive undertaking. Then, only after convincing these “unsophisticated” investors to sign up and write their checks, the entrepreneur may approach an angel or group of angels.

Writing 199

Writing Invest Entrepreneur Equity 199

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know that you can use an email system with this to track my open rate, whether I forwarded the email, the IP address where I read it, whether I was on a mobile device or a wired computer and you can tell who else read the document. after all you aren’t presenting this at TED. What should be in your deck?

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. Who do I write the check to and where do I send it? Business Plans are dead. As such, the primary goal of your executive summary is to open the door to an in-person meeting.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

I got an email recently from my friend & fellow VC, Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston. The idea that the course asks students to write public blog posts is a testament to its more modern teaching style. This includes presentations, ROI calculators, competitive analyses and so forth.

Startup 319

Startup Sales Course Competition 319

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2011

Except that without providing the Twittersphere any scope for write-in votes 9 people actually said to go to Jim’s instead. From this list and one email that came in forwarding me a blog post by Joanne Wilson on what to do with kids under 10 in NYC I formed my “to do&# list. My son is addicted to Mario Bros.

Startup 299

Startup Training Course Email 299

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

I recently spoke at Caltech at the Caltech / MIT Enterprise Forum on “the future of social networking,&# the 30-minute video is here and the PowerPoint presentation is here on DocStoc ). We had email, instant messaging, group calendars, discussion boards, etc. Social Networks: Past, Present & Future. The Present Era.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Web 2.0 Startup 318

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

There’s one attribute (coming soon) that I need to have in order to write a check but I don’t believe is vital for success. This is exactly the reason I like people who present to me to start with their personal bios. It will be controversial – I know. I’ll be they’ll build a successful business.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Startup SaaS San Diego 267

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

As we all know the VC industry is now set to contract dramatically as profiled in this seminal Paul Kedrosky presentation predicting a 50% contraction. Enter the famous Sequoia “RIP Good Times” presentation and Ron Conway’s publicly leaked emails calling for big slashes in burn rates. I only had one board with this problem.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Startup Invest Funding 263

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

Businesses want experienced people who get their hands dirty, rather than experts who give presentations, make recommendations, and disappear. Speak to people, rather than write a document every time you want a change. When your customer phones or emails you, his timer starts, so it behooves you to return his call or email quickly.

Startup 150

Startup Slides Email Customer 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2015

Save it to Pocket, bookmark it, email it to yourself or whatever other coping mechanism you have. I have checked Twitter at least 10 times during the writing of this post so far and Facebook 3 times. Email twice. I can’t write a blog post and then wait 3 days to publish. I write my presentations the night before.

Startup 150

Startup Writing Class Orange County 150

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

They write into their investment documents that they will occupy a seat on the board for as long as they are invested in the company, thinking of this as a protection for their investment and tool for them to influence growth. Email readers continue here.] All other board functions are secondary.

Class 179

Class Coach Invest Sales 179

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. Have calls or emails with other board members before the board meeting Equally I spend a lot of time talking with other non-management board member prior to the board meeting. Put your electronics away and be present Yes, it is obvious.

Startup 251

Startup Help Technical Review Writing 251

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 29, 2023

Sign up to Tech.co's weekly newsletter today Please fill in your name Please fill in your email Subscribe By signing up to receive our newsletter, you agree to our Privacy Policy. Founded in 2020 by two former Meta executives, Tome is a business-focused storytelling and presentation tool that leverages generative AI.

Startup 195

Startup Generative AI Newsletter Tool 195

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

By Mahesh Raj Mohan Writing a business plan can be a difficult process. you still have to write the plan for a particular audience. Your business plan’s writing style should take their preferences into account. So what writing styles should you use for these very different audiences? Hi, I’m writing this plan because.”

Writing 97

Writing Summary Ideas Research 97

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 30, 2012

And now without further ado I present the Spotlight: LA Tech Winter Companies: Spotlight Companies. All it takes is an email address to start receiving our exclusive deals for sports tickets to your favorite teams in your city. We write and create our own content for the game.

CalTech 91

CalTech Company Companies Idealab 91

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

socalTECH

MAY 18, 2010

As of the last four months, we've had about 200,000 plus downloads, a bunch of great write ups, and a lot of mom bloggers who have been reviewing the app and writing stories on it. Every time the person launches they are presented with the flower navigation. We built that and put it on the App Store on December 24 of 2009.

Mobile 168

Mobile .Net Pasadena Software Review 168

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

I stayed up late every night after a day of meetings doing email until 3am so that I didn’t feel out of touch with our product and sales pipelines. Alcohol wasn’t consumed in enormous quantities (ok, well, occasionally it was) but it was an ever present fixture in our socializing. Somehow this is more honest.

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Conference 308