The anatomy of a startup, illustrated - TNW Entrepreneur. Creating an Early Stage Pitch Deck. Last week I gave a presentation on creating early stage pitch decks (primarily focused on the seed round). I took a (fuzzy) picture of my white board talk (very professional on a few fronts, I know) and thought it would be valuable to post it here. And please take this for what it's worth: just one investor's opinion.
As is true with everything - the best answer is "it depends". It depends on your background, your company, your raise, and your audience. And with that out of the way - here is what to think about and my proposed outline: General themes: - Most importantly, know your audience. 1. 10-15 slides. 2. 3. 4. 5. A suggested structure: A. B. C. E. G. H1. "Startup and Go" - First Steps to Building a Technology Company , by Founder Institute And StartupDigest. 6 Tips for Entrepreneurs Looking for Press. Almost all startups love press, and luckily it’s not too hard to get some extra exposure every once in a while.
For the startups that are dying for to be mentioned, here are 6 tips to get press: 1. 36 places to submit your startup Check out this neat list of 36 places (with a few bonus ones) to submit your startup for some coverage. Since many of these places are outlets that love the latest scoop on anything innovative, and are always excited to hear from new companies, your chances of getting some press when you start here is high. I’d even add social news sites like Digg and Reddit, since Hacker News was mentioned as a bonus to the list of 36 sites, but the trick here is to NOT submit your own startup, instead, find a friend who might be something of a power user on those sites and have that friend submit your startup to their followers and hopefully the traffic will flow on in. 2. Help A Reporter Out (HARO) 3. 4. 5. 6. Meeting with a VC - bijansabet.com. Much has been written about the VC process over the years.
The best VC and founder blogs have a done an amazing job at shedding some light and advice on a process that had previously been mysterious and confusing. Some of the important ways to prepare are to choose your VC targets wisely, do they have the same style as you do, do they share your vision, check references, and be clear about your objectives in the meeting. Partnering with a VC is a big one and should not be considered lightly.
Yesterday, Mark Suster shared his thoughts about how to best prepare for the actual meeting itself. I like Mark a lot, he has a terrific blog and I usually agree with much of his advice. His post nails a number of important things like: what is a VC looking for? Above all – the quality & potential of the team Exactly. But there are a couple things in this particular post that don’t work for me personally (every VC is different!). So true. Venture Capital. How I Got Kicked Out of Y Combinator and Then Raised $1.5m for My Startup - Jon Is Your Friend. VC industry dynamics. About the VC industry. LiquidSpace — Find a better space to work. VC - Silicon Valley ecosystem. VC approach and process (finance) More capital entering the lower level of the startup funding ecosystem | Grow VC > Blog.
By: Valto Loikkanen Again this post in Funding post continues from the topic of serious bootstrapping trend. More start-ups being capital efficient (good thing for entrepreneurs) etc. This comment below highlights the current trend very well: “I see a lot more capital entering the lower level of the ecosystem probably because… the opportunities for being capital efficient are actually more available now than they were before,” said Owen Davis, managing director of NYC Seed.” More about the subject in the video below: There is a reason why this is also looking more appealing for VC’s. Below is my dialog with Fred (in comments): Me: I think this just shows that money does not solve problems. VC industry is starting to look like the newspaper industry – better to wake up, the blogs are coming… Fred: What are the blogs of the VC business? I guess the closest thing to “blogs of VC industry” today are angel investors.
Got it I hope this works It would scale much better Join Grow Venture Community. Startup Tools. Startup Tools 1. Startup Tools Click Here 2. Lean LaunchPad Videos Click Here 3. 4. 5. 6. Startup Tools Getting Started Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything – Harvard Business ReviewThe Lean LaunchPad Online Class – FREEHow to Build a Web Startup – Lean Launchpad EditionHow to Create a $1M Web Business – Noah KaganWeb Fundamentals – Google developersQuickMVP – test your ideasFoundersSuite – Startup Mgmt SoftwareThe U.S.
Lists of Tools from Others Groups Startup Weekend – Launch a Startup in 54 hoursThe Lean Startup Machine – Launch a Startup in 48 hoursStartup Monthly – Launch a Startup in a monthStartup Grind – community looking to be educated, and network with the smartest startup mindsLean Startup Circle – Google Group for startup adviceWomen 2.0 – Launch a startup for womenMeetup – Meet people you’re interested inTop Startup Conferences (North America) Find a Co-Founder Developer Bootcamps Programing Bootcamp Finder – Thinkful “How Big is the Market?” “How Do I Contact Customers?” Surveys. Angels & VC. Business Angels. 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. Make sure you check out Slide 8 for a draft Entrepreneur’s Bill of Rights. And Slide 20 for Naval’s prediction that spectacular fraud will occur in angel investing.
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. Venture Capital Investors - Texas Investment Network - TX Angel. Super Angels to Super VCs: The Changing Face of Venture Capital. Prefinery: Beta Management Software.
San Francisco Wants to Tax Your Stock Options– All of Them. Few people are aware the San Francisco has had a tax provision in its municipal code since 2004 that requires companies to pay a payroll tax on gains from employee stock options. No one pays it, and San Francisco hasn’t enforced it to date, but companies are becoming increasingly agitated that the city may change that policy at any time. The number of high profile and high value startups based in San Francisco – like Twitter and Zynga – may be too big of a temptation for the city to ignore. Recently, I heard San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee on our local NPR station talking about how important it was to keep Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.
To those worried that the recent talks between Twitter and the City were stalling, his words must have been reassuring. But if Lee really wants to keep Twitter– and thousands more tech jobs– in San Francisco he needs to defuse this much bigger ticking tax time-bomb now. To be clear, this is not a trend. SEC. 902.1. – PAYROLL EXPENSE. The tax rate?