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

DECEMBER 17, 2011

I am a big believer in VC pitches that the bio slide should come up front. I wanted to write a quick post on a pet peeve that I have when teams present “who they are” whether in a bio slide or just in the up front introductions. Actually, I think the advice in this post applies to any sales meeting also.

Slides 296

Slides GRP Partners Venture Capital Writing 296

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. I’m usually itching to just see what you’ve built. The best policy is to ask.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

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

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 6, 2022

He writes from first-hand experience, and is now a recognized business leader, motivational speaker, and mentor to many entrepreneurs. Don’t let yourself slide in making future commitments because these are the ones that can make you grow to the next level. In essence, you don’t want to risk getting pulled out of your comfort zone.

Mentor 134

Mentor Slides .Net Writing 134

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 26, 2022

For example, instead of quick slide presentations, teams at Amazon write six-page memos to lay out ideas in narratives to be read in silence at the start of a meeting. They need to hear your real organizational standards that define success, as well as the non-negotiable behaviors necessary to be a productive part of the team.

Coach 145

Coach Slides Social Network Metrics 145

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

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. It’s in their personality type.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

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

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

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

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

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. Some dreams sound great, but may not yet be viable or proven with today’s technology.

Ideas 94

Ideas Slides Technical Review Patents 94

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2017

Writing a business plan is hard work, so I get lots of pushback from prospective new venture founders that it’s just a waste of their valuable time in this rapidly changing environment. They all claim to have the plan in their head, and writing it down will only slow down their success.

Writing 71

Writing Startup Slides Entrepreneur 71

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

So I thought I’d write a piece on how to not suck when you give a presentation. 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. It is not sufficient to write yourself notes and read them before hand.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2019

In my experience as an angel investor, the perfect pitch length is ten slides, outlining the business problem, your solution, opportunity sizing, competition, and financial projections for the next five years. This section is especially important if you intend to attract outside investors or strategic partners.

Ideas 126

Ideas Slides Sample Examples 126

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

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

JUNE 26, 2020

Every good technologist should start with at least a single page business plan, or construct a “pitch deck” of maybe a dozen PowerPoint slides to cover all the important content. Most of the business plans I see getting funded today are less than 30 pages in total, even including financial statement attachments.

Product 169

Product Summary Startup Examples 169

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2015

People cite sources like this BusinessWeek story a while back “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ,” or even my own article on this subject, “ 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. Pitch your company, not your product.

Startup 104

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Slides 104

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

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

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. If you don’t have the time to write things down, or your writing skills leave something to be desired, don’t be afraid to get some help. The details can be added later.

Startup 65

Startup Writing Patents Competition 65

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. In school, you''re taught to stretch weak ideas to reach your document page limit. Touch-Typing for Dummies.

Class 93

Class Course Writing Slides 93

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. In school, you're taught to stretch weak ideas to reach your document page limit. Touch-Typing for Dummies.

Course 97

Course Writing Slides Email 97