Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

Will I have information that other journalists don’t have (otherwise known as a “scoop”)? ” 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.

mix-use 389

mix-use advice VC technology 389

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. Information Asymmetry - The biggest problem that presenters face in large (5+ people) is information asymmetry. Congratulations. What could go wrong?

advice 318

advice VC pitching venture capital 318

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

I have sat through countless pitches with Ivy League grads spewing off intellectual descriptions of the details of their product or service and why it will win in the market. In a VC pitch this type of messaging will do just fine. These messages need to pass the cocktail party pitch. And I think this is a mistake.

entrepreneurs 370

entrepreneurs pitching startup education 370

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2011

In the past I’ve given some tips for handling meetings effectively, covering topics like: - How not to let your meeting go down a rat hole ; - Dealing with the elephant in the room ; - Dealing with skeletons in your closet ; - How to make meetings discussions, not “pitches&#. - Tactical advice for meetings.

pitching 392

pitching advice culture VC 392

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

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.

pitching 319

pitching media advice venture capital 319

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

You may feel as I did in 1999 that the more smart people around the table the more intros you’ll have, the more sage advice you’ll receive and the more impressive you’ll seem to outsiders. Each VC came on with different information, at a different price and with a different risk appetite. The Pitfall of One.

VC 314

VC advice pitching investing 314

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

a really wide angle view of the tech industry since you see so many concepts / so many pitches and REAL data points on how startups perform financially. Have really strong analytic skills to put large amounts of information into context. Startup Advice' inside insight into VC decision-making. Congratulations, Jordan.

investment 365

investment investing VC board 365

Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 12, 2017

A study by Harvard Business School professor, Francesca Gino , says that because our views of our own competence are often overly positive, “we rely too much on our own information and too little on the opinions and perspectives of others even when they are good ones.” Whose advice would you seek out? What would you ask them?

advice 130

advice peer-to-peer sustainability entrepreneurs 130

Startup Blogpost

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

20 Tips for Pitching New Business Ideas to Potential Investors To provide you with the best advice on pitching new business ideas to investors, we asked twenty CEOs, Founders, and other professionals for their top tips. You should highlight the potential future earnings while pitching your proposal.

pitching 105

pitching strategy investing investment 105

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 23, 2011

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.

startup 349

startup pitching advice consulting 349

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2009

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.

VC 275

VC peer-to-peer pitching advice 275

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JUNE 19, 2024

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. I was not licensed, did not have a college degree, could not code.

finance 255

finance financing mentorship entrepreneurship 255

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 17, 2011

In large part, that is a result of who pitches to VCs, not surprisingly. 4) You get one shot at pitching. Too many times I hear pitches that include “And we haven’t even spent any money on marketing yet” as if money was this magic dust that makes everyone want to download your app. 9) You need a deck.

venture capital 346

venture capital capital ventures pitching 346

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

One of the hardest things to know when you’re new to fund raising is what you’re supposed to send to an investor, when and will they keep your information confidential. As a VC and former entrepreneur let me offer you some advice. During the Meeting One last pitch for why you should send the teaser deck in advance.

VC 261

VC pitching advice entrepreneurs 261

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

They pitched on a Wednesday. Soleil is paranoid about leaking design & product information because she’s been burned. Startup Advice' It’s not much different than having Dave Morin, Dick Costolo or Sheryl Sandberg sitting next to you at lunch. Turns out Punky was a childhood hero for Tasha. That’s cute.

startup 398

startup creativity advice entrepreneurs 398

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 8, 2011

I'm sure each of those guys got questioned by entrepreneurs as to why they should accept advice from them as opposed to the entrepreneurial veterans of the days who worked in VC. Facing live pitching is a new thing, but that's no excuse for not having an approach to hitting and studying up to face this particular pitcher.

VC 275

VC peer-to-peer board advice 275

TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Mentors are immensely helpful, but they’re not a requirement: We run articles regularly that explain how to create pitch decks and reach out to investors. I surveyed six seed- and early-stage investors to get their tactical advice for laid-off tech workers who are thinking about starting up. “IP is important to us.

advice 91

advice pitching startup ventures 91

Entrepreneur's Handbook

APRIL 13, 2022

A Very Honest Guide to Writing Your Fundraise Pitch Deck How to optimise yours for success Congratulations! You know you need a pitch deck to do this and so fire up your slide software of choice and crack your knuckles, ready to wow. I often see pitch decks positioning themselves as a Seed raise but realistically are at Pre-Seed.

pitching 79

pitching advice accelerator investing 79

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

It’s true that many VCs over promise how helpful they’ll be with introductions / strategic advice / recruiting, etc. They see you as an extension of their competitor and that all information will flow to the corporate parent. Most VCs aren’t either? What’s the difference? Great question. But this is benign.

advice 279

advice venture capital frameworks entrepreneurs 279

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

I was meeting regularly with entrepreneurs and offering (for better or for worse) advice on how to run a startup and how to raise venture capital from my experience in doing so at two companies. Or “I’m a new entrepreneur, why would I offer advice on how to run a startup?&#. People often ask me why I started blogging.

startup 373

startup advice communities VC 373

Dream It

APRIL 3, 2020

Do you have a track record that proves you’re a credible source of advice on this issue? Lodge that provocation with the relevant executive All of this work on communicating the problem effectively will go to waste if the information does not reach the right ears. What keeps them up at night? What are they ignoring?

pitching 221

pitching strategy advice board 221

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 19, 2021

This is a fantastic time to found a startup, but unless you plan to bootstrap it, you will still need to go through the laborious exercise of crafting a pitch deck. According to Jose Cayasso, CEO and co-founder of pitch deck design agency Slidebean, there are five slides where pretty much all founders miss the mark : Go-to-market.

pitching 85

pitching accelerator frameworks advice 85

Entrepreneurs' Organization

DECEMBER 15, 2023

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.

pitching 213

pitching consulting advice communities 213

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

Surely they have more information than I do.&# And I think this line of thinking has started to become conventional wisdom as outlined in Chris Dixon’s excellent blog post saying that you need to be careful raising seed money from a large VC fund. Tags: Pitching VCs Raising Venture Capital Start-up Advice.

VC 283

VC real estate advice venture capital 283

TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

I surveyed six seed- and early-stage investors to get their tactical advice for laid-off tech workers who are thinking about starting up. Most of them were so open to receiving pitches, they said we could include their contact information. How should we plan our spending?

advice 82

advice pitching strategy SaaS 82

TechCrunch

AUGUST 27, 2021

Now’s the time to start planning your Disrupt 2021 schedule , and you don’t want to miss out on these informative presentations. Korea Pavilion Pitch Session – Hosted by KOTRA. Buy one here and check out the breakout sessions for trends, advice and opportunities to help grow your business. Brought to you by Samsung Next.

disruption 100

disruption advice leadership energy 100

TechCrunch

MARCH 17, 2023

If you’re a recently laid-off worker considering striking out on your own , an H-1B employee who’s had it up to here or just looking for tips and advice that can help you connect with early-stage investors, please read and share. There’s plenty of tactical advice here, and much more to come.

pitching 92

pitching frameworks advice strategy 92

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

While Facebook was built on the idea that all our information was private and shared only between friend (before they changed this after the fact), Twitter was born under the idea that most of the information shared there was open and viewable by anybody. Social Networking goes Real Time: Twitter. Now I don’t get any.

networking 318

networking mix-use innovation development 318

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 25, 2022

The goals of such a meeting are the following: Give others enough information to form an adequate enough and objective picture of the business in order to check your blind spots and offer advice or other kinds of assitance (like intros to folks who have been there before or have the right skills to pitch in).

board 337

board founder energy investing 337

TechCrunch

MAY 4, 2023

We are a good 47 pitch decks into our Pitch Deck Teardown series , and one piece of feedback we’ve gotten frequently is that it’s easy to be a critic: What would we have done? So for this week’s pitch deck teardown, we’re going to try something different. At its heart, though, the deck was good.

pitching 72

pitching opportunity creativity investing 72

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2012

As a founder you end up having to deal with a lot of sensitive information & discussions. Well, I get nothing out of seeing how well a bunch of people can pitch their businesses on stage. You find some offices where the CEO or senior team have cordoned themselves off. It’s an obvious temptation. We’ll see.

pitching 319

pitching culture entrepreneurs mentorship 319

TechCrunch

APRIL 26, 2022

In a TechCrunch+ guest post, he shared three fundamental pieces of advice for new founders. Klaviyo co-founder Ed Hallen’s 3 top pieces of advice for launching a startup. Why a16z pitched Deel to lead its Series A. Why a16z pitched Deel to lead its Series A. Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to members.

pitching 90

pitching mix-use advice ventures 90

Entrepreneur's Handbook

APRIL 7, 2021

And in the process of meeting these people, I’m constantly hearing pitches, proposals, business plans, and product ideas. Soft pitches, consulting pitches, investor pitches, elevator pitches, all the way down to simple “Hey can I get your advice on this thing I’m working on?” Aim for that. It’s a fine line.

pitching 97

pitching entrepreneurs advice consulting 97

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2011

They pitch me features, not value. Healthcare information? When pressed not enough of these entrepreneurs can answer questions about why users would still be using this product in 5 years, about why their product is going to solve a consumer or business problem that isn’t being solved today. I play with features.

transportation 309

transportation VC networking energy 309

Entrepreneur's Handbook

DECEMBER 24, 2021

Otherwise, you lose sales even before you start Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash Do not mistake the perfect pitch for the well-rehearsed (read: memorized) presentation. The cookie-cutter pitch presentation kills your sales pipeline before you actually have one. My team members call it the Pitch Perfect experience.

pitching 72

pitching consulting creativity board 72

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 1, 2020

The combination of all of these factors creates an opportunity for companies to provide information and thought leadership during a difficult time—or even simply entertainment. Recently, I tried to think of the two very best people I could imagine would have great advice for startups facing a potential venture downturn.

peer-to-peer 323

peer-to-peer advice leadership education 323

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

They weren’t with you when you did the VC pitch where you looked them in the eyes 9 months ago and said, “I see only one outcome, we want to build something really big. I hate when companies publish too much information about the total stock option allocations, the company valuations, the dilution faced in every round, etc.

startup 417

startup peer-to-peer VC culture 417