Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

A perfect round number is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Most advisors will tell you to write the business plan first (20-30 pages), then distill the key points into a set of Microsoft PowerPoint slides for standup presentations to potential investors. Marketing, sales, and partners.

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A The key is channeling what you learn when you drive onto paper for retention purposes so you have to write it down soon afterward. When I write a blog post I often see the words before I write them. These are all creative processes.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2010

I guess let’s file this under sales & marketing advice. 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.

Blogging 286

Blogging Startup Writing Summary 286

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

We then walked through our sales pipeline and discussed major campaigns. 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. Then competition.

Startup 331

Startup Slides Guide Writing 331

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The path I went down after a few years was to hire more process driven people and devolved more daily operational ownership to people running individual functions such as product management, sales management, finance, etc. One of the most obvious places where you see this is in sales & marketing. Ditto the CFO. I was the laggard.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Custom 296

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 22, 2019

Initially that means a creative, collaborative toolset for visual communications, allowing users to develop really compelling slides, print materials or social media posts that are more visually compelling and easier-to-build for those who aren’t naturally gifted as visual story tellers. We know that apps are fully moving to the cloud.

Startup 191

Startup Social Media Slides Design 191

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

If you’re an early investor like I am that often means writing the first $2-3 million check into a business that previously had either survived on fumes or on a $500,000 angel round. The best ones bring in more executive leadership so you can appropriate allocate resources across sales, marketing, product, engineering and support.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

Whenever you write your deck and send it out I think you should actually think to yourself, “my competitors are probably going to read this one day and this will be forwarded widely” and if your response isn’t “so what!” There are a million ways to make graphics lighter or resize your file without a huge impact on the quality of the slides?—?after

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

Because they’re street smart, most great entrepreneurs tend to prefer getting out and talking with real customers rather than sitting in a cubicle all day doing beautiful PowerPoint slides. He asked each sales / biz dev person to call customers and tell them they had to change their contracts. We were SMOKING cash.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

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. Private, flash sales site focused on apparel goods (women, men and children). Metrics: 2.5mm members, 1,000 brands, 2,500 sale events to-date. Metrics: 2.5mm members, 1,000 brands, 2,500 sale events to-date.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

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. From there Rob decided to make a small investment.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

. - 500 Hats , July 30, 2010 Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 Customer Development Checklist for My Web Startup – Part 1 - Ash Maurya , February 16, 2010 How-to learn about angel/vc term sheets - Gabriel Weinberg , June 28, 2010 Why Every Entrepreneur Should Write and 9 Tips To Get Started - OnStartups (..)

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

The deck itself was produced by a committee of functional team lead who were asked to do 5–7 slides each for an update. Each section head reads his / her 5–7 slides. If you put up 5 slides on “what should we order for lunch today” the board will spend 30 minutes debating that. There are too many pages. It passes the weight test.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. Results” these days are not PowerPoint slides, or theories and recommendations. Speak to people, rather than write a document every time you want a change. Produce results.

Startup 150

Startup Slides Email Customer 150

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. A great post by Elizabeth Knopf , FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder where she breaks down the process much like how you think about a sales process. I'm focusing on the sourcing ("lead gen" on her slide) aspect.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

Include marketing, sales, and customer rollout plans. Set specific targets on the sales channels and marketing initiatives you need, including the use of social media, brand building, franchising, trade shows, affiliates, and distributors. Professional investors and even customers invest in people, rather than just a product.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

It eventually closed at 11,204 in April ’10 before sliding back around 10,000 as I sit here and type. VCs have also gone back to writing checks because as an industry we can’t be seen as “sitting on the sidelines” for years at a time. The housing market is not recovered : Sales in existing homes in the US fell 27.2%

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. Send me in a corner to work on slides, graphs, spreadsheets and charts. I told her I wasn’t yet convinced that she’d make a good: product manager, designer, sales person, leader, CEO.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

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. If I see tons of “update slides” and know that we don’t have an important board decision I might just bite my tongue. I’m sure it’s true but consider writing yourself a note and telling them after the meeting. The thing is?—?no

Startup 251

Startup Help Technical Review Writing 251

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2012

Business Writing for Email. Writing in business is not the same as in an academic environment. The challenge is to communicate your idea in one page, and close the deal quickly without a big slide presentation. Business Sales Techniques. In school, you're taught to stretch weak ideas to reach your document page limit.

Course 97

Course Writing Slides Email 97

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2013

Business Writing for Email. Writing in business is not the same as in an academic environment. The challenge is to communicate your idea in one page, and close the deal quickly without a big slide presentation. Business Sales Techniques. In school, you''re taught to stretch weak ideas to reach your document page limit.

Class 93

Class Course Writing Slides 93

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2014

An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. Results” these days are not PowerPoint slides, or theories and recommendations. Speak to people, rather than write a document every time you want a change. Produce results.

Startup 102

Startup Slides Email Customer 102

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Writing down key parameters will force you solidify the specifics, and mentally commit to them. Present at trade shows and network with your ten-slide pitch to build your following. Others may be so exciting that you will find multiple competitors fighting for the same space.

Ideas 94

Ideas Slides Technical Review Patents 94

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

If you provide these slides in advance you give board members a chance to reflect and come prepared for a real discussion. It shouldn’t be the place where they ask why you have 8 sales reps and not 6. In a perfect world you’d know the issues you want to discuss well in advance and you’d prepare a deck to guide the discussion.

Guide 196

Guide Startup Metrics Conference 196

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2010

An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. Results” these days are not Powerpoint slides, or theories and recommendations. Speak to people, rather than write a document every time you want a change. Produce results.

Startup 90

Startup Slides Email Customer 90

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 12, 2012

An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. Results” these days are not PowerPoint slides, or theories and recommendations. Speak to people, rather than write a document every time you want a change. Produce results.

Startup 85

Startup Slides Email Customer 85

Tech.Co

JULY 25, 2017

But if you want to level things up, you can use a platform like OptinMonster to create popup forms, sliding forms, floating bars, and sidebars. It integrates with OptinMonster, allows you to craft beautiful emails, and more importantly, enables you to create automated workflows without writing a single line of code.

Tool 37

Tool Custom Customer Sites 37

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Let me be quick to say that a plan doesn’t have be a book, and probably should start as a “pitch deck” of maybe a dozen slides which cover all the right bases. Marketing, sales, and customer experience. The details can be added later. Now let’s talk about the bases that need to be covered.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 16, 2017

When most people think of training , the first thing that comes to mind is a mandatory meeting in a stuffy conference room with a boring instructor walking through poorly designed slides. The good news is there's a better way -- and it can usually be accomplished with the same amount of time and resources as a "stand and deliver" training.

Training 48

Training Writing Conference Slides 48

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. I think the norm in the industry is still to see Powerpoint slides and I wouldn’t hold this against anybody. But flip you must – just as in a sales meeting. The best policy is to ask.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. And covered we did.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Berkonomics

APRIL 3, 2014

You will have to hone your story well, down to fifteen minutes and perhaps fifteen slides in your presentation. Second, there is a rather new term for those large, individual investors who are usually former entrepreneurs made rich through sale of their previous ventures.

Equity 232

Equity Startup Organization Invest 232

Berkonomics

JUNE 2, 2010

I discovered the power of employee feelings of ownership early in my management career, establishing an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), once popular as incentive compensation as well as a tax write-off for corporations and even a way to slowly transfer ownership of a company from the founders to the employees.

Slides 216

Slides News Equity Writing 216

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2013

Of course, you can’t predict everything, but writing down what you know will identify existing problems sooner, and allow other team members to help. Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. They pay just the smallest bills and let the rest slide.

Startup 114

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 114

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 17, 2020

You will have to hone your story well, down to fifteen minutes and perhaps fifteen slides in your presentation. There is a rather new term for those large, individual investors who are usually former entrepreneurs made rich through sale of their previous ventures. This class of investor typically writes checks from $50,000 to $250,000.

Equity 156

Equity Technical Review Class Organization 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2016

Of course, you can’t predict everything, but writing down what you know will identify existing problems sooner, and allow other team members to help. Seasonal sales fluctuations eat cash. Fluctuating sales means more inventory is required to cover the ups and downs. They pay just the smallest bills and let the rest slide.

Startup 64

Startup Sales Layoffs Slides 64

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 16, 2011

An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. Results” these days are not PowerPoint slides, or theories and recommendations. Speak to people, rather than write a document every time you want a change. Produce results.

Startup 93

Startup Customer Custom Slides 93