Business

What’s Your Story? Pitch Deck Flow

January 10, 2015 by Christopher 1 Comment

Augustin Rafael Reyes

Competent entrepreneurs can explain their company in terms of what the product does. Good entrepreneurs can explain their company in terms of their customer and their market. Funded entrepreneurs can pitch their company in terms that an investor can relate to.

For most entrepreneurs, it’s not easy or intuitive to put the investor version of the story together. They can talk a blue streak about the product, the customer, maybe the market. But they cannot pitch the business as a good investment in a way the investor can quickly grab onto.

Turns out, there is an easy formula that works nearly universally. The key to this formula is that it covers all the required subjects, but strings them together into a coherent and engaging narrative flow. Once you grok the formula, it all kind of clicks and you suddenly understand what it is you are trying to convey. From then on, it’s easy. (Note in addition to talking about the subjects here, I have also discussed why you should sweat your executive summary here, talked about the importance of keeping a pitch deck lean here, and about the importance of practicing your delivery here.)

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Angel Investing, Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Greatest Hits

Fool Born Every Minute – So You Want To Be An Entrepreneur (Inc. Column)

October 31, 2014 by Christopher Leave a Comment

I’ve been contributing a column at Inc. Magazine devoted to the topic of de-mystifying angels and the early-stage investing process. A recent piece was a list of key books every would-be and new entrepreneur should read.

Fool Born Every Minute (So You Think You Want to Be An Entrepreneur?)

Could you be an entrepreneur? A start-to-finish reading list for entrepreneurs and people who think they want to be.

Entrepreneurship has come a long way toward being a better-understood and accessible way of life. But it will never be completely mainstream, because it’s not for everyone. Consider the temperament and skills required. Entrepreneurs need a broad skillset and, equally important, a high degree of awareness about their weaknesses. It’s a lonely, difficult, risky, frustrating, and sometimes scary path to choose.

Do you have what it takes? To help you figure that out, I’ve assembled a list of critical reading every would-be entrepreneur should digest. The list is not comprehensive–I have purposely tried to make it as short as possible. This core set of thoughtful materials will help immensely with decision making about your path and execution of it, if you decide to pursue it.

What’s It Like? What Does It Take?

The first question to resolve is whether you have it in you. Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh (et al) is a very readable exploration of the psychology and temperament of the successful entrepreneur. A good resource for understanding the massive scope of skills necessary is the simply titled Entrepreneurship by William D. Bygrave and Andrew Zacharakis. This book will give you a nuts-and-bolts overview of virtually all aspects of the process (and will serve as a useful desk reference later). If 90 percent of the material in Entrepreneurship seems uninteresting or overwhelming, it’s time to write a résumé.

There Is No I in Team

It has been said that all startup problems are people problems…

[Surf over to Inc. Magazine to finish the story.]

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If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy my other posts on Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship, Video Interview Series, or my recent curated links you might have missed on: Big Tech & Mobile, Internet, IoT, Social, Cybersecurity, Investing & Entrepreneurship.

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Filed Under: Angel Investing, Business, Entrepreneurship, Greatest Hits, Media / Publishing

Career Advice – Grad School Angst

October 18, 2014 by Christopher 1 Comment

Photo by Bruce Gilbert

Not everybody I deal with in the start-up world knows of my secret past-life. To frame this post, it is necessary to come clean and fess up that I am a recovered corporate and securities lawyer. Because I am one of the ones “who got out,” I get a ton of requests give career advice to grad students or speak on career panels. I was even a chapter in a terrific book on the subject.

Since it feels inefficient to repeat myself, and I can help more people by putting it out there in writing, here’s one recent exchange that is so complete and contains so many concepts I repeatedly touch on over and over (including big cosmic themes at the end), that it is worth just republishing verbatim and unedited (except to hide real names). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship

7 Reasons Why Angel Investing Became Serious Finance (Inc. Column)

October 12, 2014 by Christopher Leave a Comment

I’ve been contributing a column at Inc. Magazine devoted to the topic of de-mystifying angels and the early-stage investing process. My first piece was on the seismic forces which have slowly but profoundly re-shaped the early stage investing landscape.

7 Reasons Why Angel Investing Became Serious Finance

Discover the forces converging to make angel investment a serious source of capital for savvy, high-growth focused entrepreneurs.

Why does it seem like angel investing received more press coverage in the last few years than in its first few hundred years combined? Private investing has suddenly become part of mainstream consciousness.

What’s going on? It’s more than just an academic question. As an active angel and co-head of one of the largest and busiest U.S. angel groups, I’ve watched and charted these market changes since the early 1990s.

In just a couple decades a handful of seismic forces affecting early-stage financing have combined to make angel investing a very different business. The result? Angel investors have become a serious source of capital for savvy high-growth entrepreneurs.

Seven key trends have fueled this radical transformation.

[Surf over to Inc. Magazine to finish the story.]

Filed Under: Angel Investing, Business, Entrepreneurship, Greatest Hits

Why Should I Sweat My Executive Summary?

March 25, 2014 by Christopher 1 Comment

I’ve written about the importance of keeping a pitch deck lean, and about the importance of practicing your delivery, about what it should contain and about how to give it the required flow. But a recent exchange with my friend Pete McDonald at Silicon Valley Bank reminded me I haven’t spent a lot of time on another critically important document, the executive summary. It’s time the executive summary got its due. Pete hit me up with a few questions on how he should advise entertrepreneurs on executive summaries and here is what I told him. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, Greatest Hits

Why Giant Smartphones are Still the New Normal

March 2, 2014 by Christopher Leave a Comment

March 2014: The New York Times reports this week that at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the giant smartphone trend is not only continuing, but accelerating. I was just in a meeting the other day with one of those monsters, and I could barely take my eyes off it it. Some kind of a Samsung with a screen well over 5 inches diagonally. By the time you add the heft of its aftermarket silicon rubber case, the thing was about the size and thickness of a 350 page paperback book .(But not the same weight as a book – that Samsung brick is going to really pull down one side of your coat – and forget about your jeans pocket.) Screen was pretty flashy-looking, though.

However, the press continues to miss the point on these things. As I pointed out a year ago, they are not taking off because they are better than phones or tablets, they are taking off because they are cheaper and easier than having to buy both. If you compare them to a tablet, the tablet is better for content consumption and productivity. If you compare them to a smaller phone, the phone is better for portability and, well, being a phone. So if you are willing to pay for and carry both, you’d be better served from a functionality standpoint. But most people are not willing or able to buy, carry and maintain both. So they are looking for a single device compromise – as I pointed out below a year ago, this is especially clear when you look at the demographics of initial phablet growth. And now the trend is continuing with a new demographic – the non-techy early mainstream. I called it just over a year ago, and I stand by my original thesis:

Jan 15, 2013: Until a very recent epiphany, I had been observing this trend of growing smartphone screen size with puzzlement. Android smartphones grew to 4 inches. 4.5 inches. 4.8 inches. Then Samsung releases the Galaxy Note at 5.3 inches. And now the Note 2 at 5.5 inches. And now Huawei has just released a a phone with a 6.1 inch screen (the Ascend Mate, pictured above).

Yet Apple was not wrong that good one-handed operation maxed out at a screen size of about 3.5 inches diagonal. And you definitely look a bit odd holding a tablet to your head. And these things are giant in your pocket, if they even fit. So what is driving this? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, Communication, Mobile / Gadgets, Social Networking

Funding Startups (Panel Video)

October 3, 2013 by Christopher 5 Comments

A few days ago I did a panel for The Capital Network called Just About Everything You Need to Know about Funding Your Startup: The Accelerated Version. That title’s an exaggeration, but, still, it was a good discussion. Kent Bennett from Bessemer Venture Partners and Ben Sprecher now from Google were my fellow panelists. William Perkins from Bingham moderated. You can watch it below. [Email readers click here].

Comments, questions or reactions to this post? Leave a note below and I will respond to your questions.
If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Swimming Against the Tide (Angel Investing), Nailing The One Minute Pitch, Start-Up Marketing Series, Customer Crowdfunding: Not So Fast Entrepreneurs (Again!), Constructing a Pitch, Pick Your Angel Investors Wisely (David Hornik), Why Angels Chase Electrons, Boards vs. Advisory Boards, Interview: State of the VC & Angel Market and How to Raise Money, Delusional Economics, That Vision Thing, The Power of An Advisory Board, Loch Ness, Unicorns & The First-Mover Advantage, Does This Slide Deck Make Me Look Fat?, The Long Road to Instant Success, Top Angel Investors in New England, Launchpad Overview – Angel Video Interview Series, Customer Crowdfunding: Not So Fast, Entrepreneurs, Angel Video Interview Series, Thoughts on Crowdfunding, The Crowdfunding Interview (Frank Peters Show), Getting Off The Ground; Early Formation Economics, Pitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video), Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage Financing, What I Look For In An Entrepreneur, The Overture, Open Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video), 20 Bootstrapping Ideas.
Subscribe – To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe to the RSS feed here, or to receive them via email enter your address in the box in the upper right or go here and enter your email address in the box in the upper right. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmirabile and on Google+.

Filed Under: Angel Investing, Business, Entrepreneurship, Video Interview Series

SEC Rules Threaten The Formation of Early Stage Capital

August 22, 2013 by Christopher Leave a Comment

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued final Rule 506 permitting startups to use general solicitation when raising funds from accredited investors. As required under the JOBS Act, issuers under 506(c) must “take reasonable steps to verify” that all purchasers are accredited investors. The rule is effective as of September 23, 2013.

The SEC did not define “reasonable steps to verify,” stating instead that [Read more…]

Filed Under: Angel Investing, Business, Entrepreneurship

Start-Up Marketing (Guest Post – Seven in a Series)

August 16, 2013 by Christopher Leave a Comment

Jeff Berman has agreed to contribute a series on marketing for startups to the Scratchpaper community. This is the seventh in the series (table of contents here). Stay tuned for more.

How to Botch Marketing #6:

Your Positioning vs. Your Why

The Story of Positioning

Fifty year ago, Ivory Soap dominated its category with its “99.44/100% pure” line. No one could compete with Ivory on clean, and so everyone else was fighting for 2nd place. Then, along came Ted Bates & Co., who positioned Dove Soap around moisturizing rather than cleanliness. Dove became the #1 brand in a blink, suddenly every marketer was scrambling to define their Unique Selling Proposition, and the idea of positioning became the rage.

What the Positioning Story Misses [Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship

John Huston – Angel Video Interview Series

May 3, 2013 by Christopher Leave a Comment

[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.]

John Huston is an institution in the angel investing world. He is a self-described former banker who flunked retirement and set out to find an angel group to join. Finding none, he went on to found Ohio Techangels, which has grown to become the largest angel group in North America. It has an interesting structure whereby each member contributes just $25K to a fund of 100 people and the State of Ohio matches that $2.5M with $2.5M of its own (read that and weep, residents of other states…) Members are free to invest additional dollars alongside the fund, and in fact that is where most of the capital in any given investment comes from.

In total, between the funds and the members’ side investments, the Ohio Techangels has put over $20 million into 36 Ohio-based companies. Four of the companies have exited to large publicly traded companies, yielding what the fund claimes is a 58 percent average return for investors. And as is expected with early stage investing, seven other exits were failures.

John is widely quoted and hailed as a driving force for economic development. He speaks frequently and eloquently on the topic of investors serving as directors of early-stage companies, and he is a charming rascal livening up any Angel Capital Association event. We talked in April 2013 in San Francisco. Here’s what he had to say. (Email subscribers, click here for the video).

Comments, questions or reactions to this post? Leave a note below and I will respond to your questions.

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Angel Video Interview Series, The Long Road to Instant Success, Thoughts on Crowdfunding, The Crowdfunding Interview (Frank Peters Show), Pattern Matching Can Cause Blindspots, Getting Off The Ground; Early Formation Economics, Pitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video), Why Angels Chase Electrons, Boards vs. Advisory Boards, Delusional Economics, Ten Rules For Navigating in The Age of Outrage, That Vision Thing, The Power of An Advisory Board, Loch Ness, Unicorns & The First-Mover Advantage, Are Entrepreneurs Wild Risk-Takers?, Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage Financing, What I Look For In An Entrepreneur, The Overture, Do The Right Thing, Open Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video), Should I Wait For A Technical Co-Founder?, and 20 Bootstrapping Ideas.
Subscribe – To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe to the RSS feed here, or to receive them via email enter your address in the box in the upper right or go here and enter your email address in the box in the upper right. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmirabile and on Google+.