Things to know before you present
With so many of my friends involved in a presentation or a pitch recently, I thought I might post some notes that I have from a short lecture by David S. Rose on 10 things to know before you pitch a VC for money. Why is this relevant? One of the worst presentation situation to be in is when you have to ask someone else for money, hence being able to do so effectively would give one wings when in other situations. (I will not discuss the fact that VCs actually need credible entrepreneurs as well to achieve their investment requirements.) And of course, there is a fair number of people actually looking for funding.
Having attended so many such lectures throughout my days in ASES and NOC, and read more detailed commentary on the topic (do check out The Art of the Start if you’re interested), the content wasn’t anything out of the blue, but it was a good lecture nonetheless.
Key Ideas
1. Define your goals – VCs invest in people, keep in mind that you’re really trying to say “I’m the one you’re looking for”
2. Manage Emotions – Grab attention, Wow with solid content, end off by hitting the homerun with something they cannot resist
3. Use Imagery instead of bullet points (I am a huge advocate of this)
4. Go to the point – Give them what they are looking for (adhere to the conventional templates which VCs are used to looking out for)
5. Give attention to detail – It tells what type of person you are when you don’t check for typos
Jumping right back into the great Mac vs PC debate, an interesting take away from the lecture might be that despite Jobs having raised “corporate presentations and product introductions to an absurdly high level”, one can more than make up for the inability to do this by being extremely good in everything else like Bill is.
Enjoy the 15min video and share any comments that you might have!