Build, measure, learn. That’s the Lean Startup mantra. It sounds simple, but it’s surprisingly tough to do well. And while it’s designed to eliminate waste and provide a speedier path through product development and validation, it can still lead to silos in how we think about startup progress. It’s so easy to spend an inordinate […]
Kill the Goddamn Buzzwords and Give Me a Use Case
Recently I’ve been reviewing a bunch of startup pitches (over 150) for a couple of different things, and it’s frustrating to see potentially good ideas and quality entrepreneurs get ignored too quickly because their pitches suck. It’s like resumes with typos – there have to be some basic filtering mechanisms for written pitches, otherwise reviewers […]
8 Questions on How to Prepare for VC Meetings
Lately I’ve been answering questions on Sprouter and having a lot of fun doing it. Hopefully it’s useful to the people asking as well. Not surprisingly, a lot of the questions are about VCs and investors – how to pitch them, what to pitch, how to prepare, etc. It’s a popular topic and something I’ve […]
How To Pitch Your Startup to a Complete Stranger
Don’t. That’s my first reaction when I think about how to pitch a startup to a complete stranger. But that’s not the entire story. I get pitched a fair amount from people with startups or startup ideas. Oftentimes they’re interested in learning about how to raise financing. I try my best to read all the […]
An Introduction to Pitching Investors
Kudos to the students at McGill University for putting on some great events. I’m a big fan and advocate of anything that bridges the gap between students and startups. I was invited to speak along with Daniel Drouet at an event entitled, “The Perfect Pitch”. I’m not sure such a thing exists, but I was […]
Using Mega Trends When Pitching Your Startup
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about “mega trends” and how to use them when pitching your startup. Investors like mega trends. After all, they’re big. And most of us are aware of them and have been affected by them (or expect to be in the future). Tens of millions of baby boomers getting set […]
15 Quick Pitch Tips for Kick Ass Presentations
The pitch isn’t the only thing that will make your business successful; far from it. But it sure does matter when you have an opportunity to get on stage and present. Those opportunities may be few and far between, but you don’t want to blow them. And opportunities to pitch your business should happen all […]
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