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. What is the timeframe for the exit?

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

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. And then there’s the key transition slide, which I call “What We Find” (WWF) or some variation of this. Just watch Mad Men and you’ll know that.

Sales 367

Sales Slides Startup Customer 367

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

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 19, 2017

I discovered the power 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 243

Slides News Equity Writing 243

TechEmpower

JULY 31, 2023

The metrics, and how they relate, are captured in his slide: Note the relationship between retention/referral efforts and lifetime value. Please write us at blog@techempower.com ! R : Retention - Do they come back & re-visit over time? R : Referral - Do they like it enough to tell their friends?

Metrics 260

Metrics Startup Slides Technical Review 260

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2010

I’m a pretty natural public speaker so I can write my presentation the day before and do just fine. 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). Internally I was a wreck.

Slides 374

Slides Email Entrepreneur Startup 374

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. You didn’t intend it to happen that way. I appreciate your input.&# Sounds obvious, I know.

Startup 331

Startup Slides Guide Writing 331

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. I have a few slides later that address that.&# (obviously if you say that you need to come back to the question either later or after the meeting. Congratulations.

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital Startup Sales Writing 318

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

Note the full presentation deck with additional slides can be found on SlideShare here or you can simply scroll through it at the bottom of this post.]. Just 3 years ago there was talk of institutional investors “not being able to write small enough checks.” Why is this?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

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’ve been reluctant to write about weight in part because I don’t want to sound self righteous. Then should write down your “target goal.” I figured out something that worked for me.

Startup 526

Startup Course Writing Help 526

TechEmpower

MARCH 27, 2013

At the time of this writing, Java 8 development is still very much in progress. It is essentially another way of writing Collections.newSetFromMap(new ConcurrentHashMap ()). It performs better than RRWL when used as a plain read-write lock. Language features and APIs may still change.

Java 560

Java Class Software Review Examples 560

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

The other worthwhile exercise is to write down what your competitors uses as its USPs – even ones that you don’t think are really valuable to customers. 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

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

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

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 14, 2023

The argument FOR… I discovered the power 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. Show everyone financials?

Slides 156

Slides News Equity Writing 156

Berkonomics

APRIL 3, 2014

You will have to hone your story well, down to fifteen minutes and perhaps fifteen slides in your presentation. This class of investor typically writes checks from $50,000 to $250,000. With angel groups, you should plan of spending months in the process, from application through funding. company.

Equity 232

Equity Startup Organization Invest 232

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.

Slides 164

Slides Blogging Writing Demand 164

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. One of the interesting things about being a VC is that you often see companies in transition. Act your stage.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

These have the benefit to VCs of not cross-collateralizing returns and to LPs of being able to know the underlying asset before they write the check. Here are some simple slides that outline the point: a. Some of the earliest-stage funds have set up SPVs because they are at times easier and faster to raise than new funds.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital Capital Startup Funding 292

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2019

Even if it’s only a few PowerPoint slides or typed paragraphs, writing something down is the first step toward making it real. Always write in the future tense, what you will do, and name yourself as the key person responsible. The process will force you solidify the specifics, and mentally commit to them.

Ideas 99

Ideas Slides Writing Startup 99

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. And of course we have great public companies that have spanned content & communications like J2 Global whose market cap as of this writing is a cool $2.5 “There’s something going on in LA.”

Entrepreneur 376

Entrepreneur Snapchat Startup Google 376

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

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. In fact, they are probably in such a hurry to give you money that they don’t want you to waste time writing anything down and passing it along to new investors.

Technical Review 126

Technical Review Writing Entrepreneur Slides 126

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

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. Share the everyday life of the startup team you are working with. Produce results. Have "customers", not "clients."

Startup 150

Startup Slides Email Customer 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

Chamillionaire has a way more refined sense of what customer behavior is like than most ivy league graduates with nice Powerpoint slides that I meet.

Conference 150

Conference Slides Social Media Summary 150

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. Competitor: Slide. Mo & I both have double majors with one being finance / econ. Mo’s other degree was English, mine was Political Science. Targeting SMB’s (small & medium businesses). Total raised: $129.0mm.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. I'm focusing on the sourcing ("lead gen" on her slide) aspect. I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. Here's an example of that kind of email.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

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. And when they walk in my office and present you can tell that they know what they’re talking about.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

They cite sources like the BusinessWeek story, “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ” and this Forbes article. 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. Writing it down promotes both understanding and commitment.

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Writing Entrepreneur Slides 109

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

You should be actively listening the whole time (actively listening as in listening, writing important things down and asking relevant questions as they talk about their problems). The end goal in your meeting is to get the customer to trust you enough to talk about their existing problems.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2021

A perfect size is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Disciplining yourself to write down the plan is actually the best way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. Investor and strategic partner pitch. Even if you have an hour booked, the advice is the same. Written business plan.

Entrepreneur 156

Entrepreneur Tips Funding Startup 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2013

They cite sources like a recent BusinessWeek story, “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ” and this NY Times article. Of course there are scenarios where a written business plan is not critical, but I haven’t seen one yet where a well-written 15-page document, or at least a 10-slide pitch, is a negative.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Technical Review Writing Slides 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

Clearly a startup should consult its lawyer before filing or not filing.But the attorneys I relied on to write this piece told me that they’ve done lots of Section 4(2) deals in the past, and would recommend it to clients who had relatively simple financing agreements (not tranched-out, not too many investors, etc.)

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2014

People cite sources like this BusinessWeek story last year “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ,” or even my own article a while back, “ 10 Reasons Not To Write A Business Plan First.” A perfect size is ten slides, with the right content, that can be covered in ten minutes. Investor and strategic partner pitch.

Entrepreneur 108

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Slides 108

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

I spoke a lot about the need for “personal branding” which I plan to write about soon. It was like nobody would give me any respect and they just saw me as the guy who goes and talks to senior people who does PowerPoint slides. If I write $2 million and we hit a bump in the road, I can write another $2 million.

Startup 337

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Venture Capital 337