{"id":1111,"date":"2008-10-22T23:07:40","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T04:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=1111"},"modified":"2008-10-22T23:08:42","modified_gmt":"2008-10-23T04:08:42","slug":"on-pitching-to-vcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2008\/10\/22\/on-pitching-to-vcs","title":{"rendered":"On pitching to VCs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> 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… <\/p>\n

I took some notes:<\/p>\n

* People – convince them that you are the people and convince them you are the one they are going to invest it
\n** 15-30 minutes at most
\n* Convey integrity, passion, experience, knowledge, skill, leadership, commitment, vision, realism, coach-ability (ability to listen)
\n* Business models, financial requirements – this is normal
\n* 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)
\n** validation, believable upside (don’t lie!), things I know or understand, things that make one think, no typos\/errors\/etc.
\n* when speaking? use images, or something like what steve jobs does
\n* 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
\n* 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<\/p>\n

Thanks to @ditesh<\/a> for pointing this out.<\/p>\n

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