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Everybody has a blog these days and there is much advice to be had. Many startups now go through accelerators and have mentors passing through each day with advice – usually it’s conflicting. So far from not taking advice from other people – I want more advice, more data points, more opinions.
By definition, you read blogs. If you care about accessing customers, reaching an audience, communicating your vision, influencing people in your industry, marketing your services or just plain engaging in a dialog with others in your industry a blog is a great way to achieve this. People often ask me why I started blogging.
I'm often the last one to leave an event, held back by the most persistant of entrepreneurs trying to squeeze as much advice as they can out of me. Conferences, startup blogs, meetups--they're all filled with people telling you how to build your company. Often times, the advice is terrible or impractical. They don't stress test.
If you’re pitching, selling or proposing a partnership, you want to find out what will spark the other person’s interest so that they can’t help but want to work with you. It’s because you just haven’t pitched your products or services to solve their problems. I have held back because I place more value on the relationship.
So here’s advice I give people all the time when they’re raising money. Many entrepreneurs pitching err on the side of too much information. I’ve blogged for years. Or they’ll remind me of my common advice to take “ 50 coffee meetings.” Show me your unicorn. Narratives matter.
I can't think of a single time when a white man came to pitch me and I told him his fundraising plans weren't aggressive enough. Yet, for some reason, the goals for her pitch were incremental--despite being in an extremely hot space. And no, that doesn't mean pitch like a man. Something else is at play.
This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC.&#. I recently wrote a blog post here in which I argued that the best VC meetings are discussions and not sales pitches. Many people agreed and added that even the best sales meetings are also discussions and not pitches. A Tale of Two Pitches. is important.
Power Pitches. If you’re doing investment pitches, you should read this book. If you’re doing a pitch I’m going to see, I want you to have read this book. Here’s Why on his Both Sides of the Table blog for a good read and a good lesson. It seems like good advice to me. Power Pitches.
Sure, you need to learn what the common theme of the no’s are and be willing to make adjustments to your pitch. How to get your Series A mojo back The rest of the outline I’ll write as a series to come back to this blog if you want to read more. … the most counter-intuitive fund-raising advice you’ll get 8. Confidence sells 10.
The frantic pace of technology cycles, the amount of tech news, the blogs, the conferences, the demo days, the announcements, the fundings, the IPOs. It got me thinking about the advice that I often give to new VCs. I don’t want any formal pitches. It’s exhausting. Perhaps unsustainable. Lines, Not Dots.
By spending more time educating your board on your business you get more valuable advice from them. So what are Rob’s secret hacks that he didn’t spill in his blog post? . Key point – if your emails are as long as my blog posts you’re forked. Startup Advice' .” His argument is as follows.
I became aware of Sam several years ago as I started noticing his name repeated in the comments section of my blog. He pinged me that he was thinking about joining a startup based in LA with the CEO in NYC and would I be willing to meet him and give him advice on this process. Of course he pitched me the entire ride down.
File this under both Startup Adivce and Sales & Marketing Advice. It got me thinking, which for me is always the sign of a good blog post. In my blog I just save that for the comments where people can say what their perspectives are. I wasn’t trying to pitch a tightly controlled message about my company.
Instead, we saw competitors supporting each other by giving advice and feedback. As business owners, we constantly have new ideas for films we’d like to make–so we’re out there pitching, much like the GSEA competitors. We took notes during the competition to help improve our pitch!”.
” The ultimate measure of success for a journalist is viewership so if nobody cares about your shitty little company and the story you’re trying to pitch then the journalist doesn’t want to publish. The major battle for press is a battle for “mindshare” and it’s exactly the reason I blog. I am a VC.
On my blog I’ve been hesitant to take the topic head on. But last week I noticed a blog post by a woman, Tara Tiger Brown, that asked the question, “ Why Aren’t More Women Commenting on VC Blog Posts? In it she observes that only 3% of the comments on this blog are from women. But then the truth sets in.
To understand this in great detail see this very important blog post by Henry Blodget on the unemployment rate in the US and its impact on the recovery. So if I am unnecessarily concerned in this blog post (great!) My advice : if you’re raising a $750,000 round and you have demand for $1.2 million – take it.
This is part of my ongoing series “ Pitching a VC “ There’s a great meme developing this morning on the need to simplify funding terms and documents. That prompted Fred Wilson’s blog post appealing to the industry to make these simplified term sheets standard. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice.
So my simple advice is to start PR as early as possible (and certainly earlier than most of your investors will advise) when you have your head around your product plans and are well into execution (or ready to launch) precisely because your recruiting, seed funding and initial user base may depend on it. In a startup this is a mistake.
If I had to put a number on it I’d say 1 in 20 pitches – maybe 1 in 30 – are by an entrepreneur who comes across as truly passionate about her project. His blog is even called SaaStr (a bit too close to Suster if you ask me ;-)). Startup Advice'
They get pitched by so many blowhards that more genuine people who aren’t in it for just a story stand out from the crowd. Obviously you should have somebody that helps you research journalists, gets you meetings, pitches stories, helps prep you for interviews & helps make sure your writing is cogent.
Most conversations don't end in funding or even a follow up meeting, so your aim should be to get specific, helpful advice that moves you forward. What is it about me that makes you want to pitch me? 5) Aim for me to hear about you before you pitch. Are you blogging really insightful takes on your industry?
My first pitch was not to investors or potential clients; it was to my fiancée, convincing her to delay our wedding plans until Equifund was up and running — a promise that took significantly longer than the anticipated six months to fulfill. and more articles from the EO blog. I also did not have a business partner.
Psychology Today notes that taking advice somehow feels like admitting that we don’t really deserve our high status. But truly successful people understand that the advice and knowledge of people who have been-there, done-that is priceless. Whose advice would you seek out? What would you ask them? What would you ask them?
He wrote an excellent blog post on this topic. Tags: Entrepreneur AdvicePitching VCs Start-up Advice Startup Advice VC Industry. Jason started the Open Angel Forum in response to his frustration that entrepreneurs were being charged by some angel organizations to present at their events. They deserve more credit.
Chris Dixon wrote a blog post last week titled, “ Techies and Normals &# in which he defined “Techies&# as people who are not just “early adopters&# but also have more of a geeky, technical, product bent. Anyway, Chris’s blog got me thinking about Techies and Normals. He is both.
Detail Orientation / Hands On – One of the easiest ways to rule out people who are pitching to me is when they don’t know the details of their business. I once had a startup team pitch me for an investment where the President of the company led the first call with me on his own. There are easy tell-tale signs.
I think his advice is this op-ed is bananas. I have even had to get physical security advice from some of the crazy. By the way, I don’t spell check my blog posts either. Having read his latest op-ed on email I know why I erred towards the side of of not loving his book as much as some did. No, it’s not fun.
This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . It’s one of my favorite blog posts. I had planned to blog about it at the time but I waited 2 days and the whole world blogged about it so I didn’t pile on. I HATE LOSING. I hate it.
This is part of my blog series “ Pitching a VC.&#. I’ve sat through a lot of VC pitches and having been CEO of an enterprise software firm for many years I’ve also sat through many customer meetings with sales teams. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capital.
I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. I think my mentality to banker pitches was best summed up in this article about Y Combinator in which Paul Graham apparently made the following quotes. They know how to build pitch decks. Advice to VCs Startup Advice'
This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . It’s one of my favorite blog posts. I had planned to blog about it at the time but I waited 2 days and the whole world blogged about it so I didn’t pile on. Tags: Startup Advice.
This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Keeping a blog has been great because so many entrepreneurs have written me with questions about their companies and I’ve gotten to know many of you personally through the process. I pitched Gus twice and he told me no both times. Tags: Start-up Advice.
I eventually stumbled on to the best source of high-quality deal flow imaginable – blogging. I think the issue I have always had with investment bank pitches was best summed up in this article about Y Combinator in which Paul Graham apparently made the following quotes. They know how to build pitch decks. I hustled.
VC Blogger Fanboy This geek reads all the blogs religiously and is a lean startup ninja. Seems like a good pick, except that every piece of advice given comes from their own experience--experience that is all during a a single up cycle. By the way, do you know who (surprisingly) *doesn't* fit into this catagory?
This posting was inspired by an email from Rajat Suri who wrote me an email in response to Chris Dixon’s blog post (link below) from August, which recently re-ran on Business Insider and has generated much Twitter chatter. Chris talks in his blog post about your A round pricing being lower if you have a VC seed investor.
Men, on the other hand, can meet another guy just a couple of times and have no problem reaching out to each other for advice, a favor, or to pitch them on a deal. In another situation, I chat on IM with a junior editor for a tech blog on a regular basis.
There’s too much PR and too many tech blogs and too many newsletters and aggregators and Twitter summarizers to even try to catch everything that’s going on and equally there’s so much noise that it becomes harder to be heard. My general advice is to do less. The best of the best in our industry are feeling it, too.
You need a solid business plan, traction to demonstrate market fit, and the skills to pitch effectively. Evaluate investors thoroughly, not just based on the size of their check, but whether they can provide strategic advice and introductions that support your vision. Seek investor advice to strengthen your business model.
This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC.&# Getting a meeting with a prominent angel or VC is difficult enough. Some advice on how to do that was covered in this link – Getting Access to a VC. Plus, now they need to Tweet, use Facebook, attend conferences and keep a blog! This post covers the day after.
You get advice from people who have been where you are without worrying about damaging your reputation. Unlike other business owner communities, people aren’t joining to pitch you on their company’s products or services, so you can build real relationships and help one another. and more articles from the EO blog.
The number of times I’ve had people come to me and say they want to blog more. I t culminated in a series of blog posts I wrote while on Thanksgiving break that were transformational in giving me a mental model for what was important to me in venture. Board Meetings. Conferences. I get sucked up in “Do” mode.
Occasionally on this blog I break away from industry commentary and write more broadly. It’s why I still randomly meet up with people I’ve met on Twitter or this blog. Well, I get nothing out of seeing how well a bunch of people can pitch their businesses on stage. We’ll see. TechStars Interactions.
What about pitch competitions that sound like Ancient Roman death matches? They do, and I'll join these events, but when you name your pitch event after something violent, you shouldn't be surprised when you've gotten way more men to apply. How enthusiastic are women going to be to participate in shark cages and battlegrounds?
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