11 Big Things Not To Say When Pitching… « Funding startups & other impossibilities… As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably noticed that the Internet is crammed full of bodacious startup advice, mostly blogged by VCs and angels masquerading as normal (even altruistic!) Human beings. Yes, they simply ‘want the best for you’, and they have no hidden agenda at all. And almost all of them are in the US. Now… something (if not actually everything) about that preceding paragraph tells me that this whole American-startup-advice-from-on-high genre may not in fact be a particularly valuable resource for us over in the UK. So here’s my own set of pitching lessons for you, all of which I’ve basically learned the hard way this side of the Atlantic (i.e. it’s a smorgasbord of my own mistakes and those of other entrepreneurs I’ve seen pitching)
. (1) “I value my company at X” . (2) “My company has no competition” . (3) “Competition is a good thing“ . (4) “If we build it, they will come“ . (5) “As a child, my interests were…“ . (6) “Right now, it’s just me“ . (7) “Exits are hard right now“.
Networking events. Preludegroup » What we do. Business cards. Startups 101: The Complete Mint Presentation. Companies. Printers. Media Trust. SeriesSeed.fi - Standardized, Free Seed Investment Legal Documents for Finland. Forestry Credits - Carbon. There’s no room for common sense in startups. (Editor’s note: Jason Cohen is an angel investor and the founder of Smart Bear Software. A longer version of this story originally appeared on his blog.)
Let’s say you’ve decided to provide something tremendously fantastic for your customers, even though it meant great expense and hardship. It would be incontrovertible — you’d refuse to compromise on that one thing, even if it seems impossible to work out how to do it profitably.It’s easy to identify companies who became wildly successful with this technique. Of course this is survivor bias at it’s finest; these examples don’t prove this is a great strategy, they just illustrate that it can work: Zappos decided to sell shoes over the Internet, even though it meant eating shipping costs as customers tried shoe after shoe, constantly returning merchandise on the basis of fit or look. What’s the upside of sticking to “fantastic” even when it doesn’t seem sustainable? Word-of-mouth by definition. Easy to get free press.
Fun. Seed Stage Valuation Guide « Jordan Cooper's Blog: startups, venture capital, Hyperpublic. Posted on January 12, 2011. Filed under: startups, venture capital | I find it strange that with all the VC and Angel blogs out there, nobody seems to explicitly talk about the single most interesting term in startup financing: Valuation. Look no further than Chris Dixon’s blog for elucidation on such nuanced terms as founder vesting, convertible notes with caps, etc…but where do you go to find out how much you should expect to give up at various stages in your company’s development.
In the past week alone, I’ve regrettably passed on more than one deal because the valuation the founder was seeking was an order of magnitude off from what was appropriate, and frankly I am pissed. I am pissed that the earliest “committers” to these rounds aren’t advising founders that they are pricing their rounds incorrectly. DISCLAIMER: this may vary by geography and past experience of founding team.
Still at your old job Valuation range: Don’t bother. Pre-product Valuation range Valuation: Valuation: hmmm. Sandbox. Sparked.com - micro-volunteering by The Extraordinaries. How To Become Legendary- 23 Things Michael Jordan Taught Me About Entrepreneurship. How To Become Legendary- 23 Things Michael Jordan Taught Me About Entrepreneurship If you know me personally, or even digitally , then you know that I am a physical fitness and athletic enthusiast.
I find that there is a certain level of determination that is built up by being physically fit and sticking to a regimen. Athletics and exercise are the purest physical expression of true mental discipline that one can find. As an entrepreneur, I don't think I would be able to do what I do without the mental preparedness a daily workout routine brings.
With so many parallels between athletics and entrepreneurship, I asked myself "Who is the Steve Jobs of athletics? " It's About Knowing Where You're Going You have to have a clear path as to where you want to go. Don't Forget Where You Started/Came From This holds true for you as a person as much as it holds true for the company itself. Have the courage to fail Don't break when broken What goes up, must come down. Work Before Glory Remember Beacon? The 11 Harsh Realities Of Being An Entrepreneur. The rise of the angels. This is Naval’s keynote from Capital Factory‘s demo day. It’s called The Rise of the Angels, but it should be called The Rise of the Entrepreneur. It’s excellent. Video: The rise of the angels Here are the slides. Slides: The rise of the angels Some of my favorite quotes from the presentation: The venture industry has already changed.Venture capital is a business and is open to attack by startups with disruptive new business models and technologies.Less meeting; more tweeting.
Thanks to Joshua Baer for inviting us to give the keynote. Topics Presentations. Web 3.0 by Technospooler. The London startup scene: Too much funding, boozing and not enough collaboration and execution. This is a guest-post from Ben Colclough, founder of travel start-up Tourdust.com. Tourdust is an online travel agent specialising in adventure travel and local tours for independent travellers. The London start-up scene is seemingly a great success, it buzzes with events and most are packed with entrepreneurs and assorted hangers-on.
Beer and investment advice usually flow in generous quantities. But is this hive of activity actually helping London’s budding startups succeed? Like many others, I threw myself into start-up events in the early days. Here is how I summed up the situation whilst sullenly cradling my pint in the corner: Cynical investors (I know, I know, they have every right to be cynical)Over-loud venues (Wasn’t loud music in bars designed for dancing and courting, not networking?) But, the root problem with the scene as I see it, is that the topic du jour and social currency (and trust me there is one – this ain’t no egalitarian community) is investment. Video From Business Of Software 2009: Building Great Software Businesses. Video From Business Of Software 2009: Building Great Software Businesses Of the several conferences I attend or speak each at each year, my favorite is the Business of Software conference organized be Neil Davidson (of Red Gate) and Joel Spolsky (of Fog Creek).
There are several reasons for this. The speakers are great and have enough stage time to really get into the topic they’re passionate about. There’s no no “sponsor fluff”. You can’t pay your way into a speaking spot. The 2010 conference is in Boston Oct 4th – October 6th. The 2009 conference was held in San Francisco and the title of my talk was “Ideas For Building Better Software Businesses”. Ideas For Building Better Software Businesses Some notes from the video, for your convenience: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. If you attended this talk or took the time to watch the video, would love to hear your feedback I can make my talk this year more valuable.
The Magical Founding Team Mix For Web Startups.