Posts Tagged ‘VC’

The rise of VC

Via: Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen – Fortune Management: “I never heard the term ‘venture capital’ until I got to California. I got a job and landed in Silicon Valley, and I found out about this venture capital thing. And I was dumbstruck. ‘You mean there are people who will give you money to invent new things and start a company? Really? Seriously? It’s like wow! That’s really cool!’  And of course we got lucky.”

Caught in the middleThat was 20 years ago. There was a lot less media coverage of VC, deals, angels, etc.

What would be an interesting exercise is to see when VC firms in Asia started? Is it all pushed by the democratization of media?

The fact that today, media is cheaper – everyone and his uncle has started a publication of some sort. In tech, it seems that most of the media will only cover VC-related stories (i.e. money driven). They’ve forgotten real tech.

MAVCAP, the largest VC fund in Malaysia, only started in 2001. A mere 12 years ago! Singapore’s first firm started in 1984 – Seavi Advent Private Equity (29 years ago) – though I’m not sure if they deal with tech much.

So is this the rise of VC/angels/incubators/etc. or the rise of media?

On pitching to VCs

I give a lot of talks, but not a lot of pitches to VCs. But if I were planning to, I’d definitely recommend you to watch David S. Rose on pitching to VCs from TED. It’ll eat up fifteen minutes of your life, but the pitch coach, is simply fabulous. Heck, you can learn a thing or two for normal presentations too…

I took some notes:

* People – convince them that you are the people and convince them you are the one they are going to invest it
** 15-30 minutes at most
* Convey integrity, passion, experience, knowledge, skill, leadership, commitment, vision, realism, coach-ability (ability to listen)
* Business models, financial requirements – this is normal
* Timeline: 10-30s to get attention (grab the emotional attention), and keep on getting better, better, better, and then knock them out. A logical progression (think like a staircase)
** validation, believable upside (don’t lie!), things I know or understand, things that make one think, no typos/errors/etc.
* when speaking? use images, or something like what steve jobs does
* slide deck: company logo, business overview, management team, market, product, business model, strategic relationships, competition, barriers to entry, financial overview, use of proceeds, capital & valuation
* always use presentation mode, always use a remote control, hand outs are NOT your presentation (lots more information as it has to stand without you), don’t read your speech, never, ever look at the screen

Thanks to @ditesh for pointing this out.


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