We’re teaching our first ever online workshop about “How to pitch investors” on eduFire — a platform for live video teaching online. Sign up here. I’ve taken classes on eduFire and it works really well; here are some recordings of their classes. (Update: This class is full so I’ve opened up a second class. Sign [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Pitching'
Our first online workshop: How to pitch investors
October 30th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Event, Pitching
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Launch: Pitching Hacks, The Book
February 26th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Books, Launch, Pitching, Pitching Hacks
Pitching Hacks is here. The PDF is $29 and you can download it immediately. 83 pages. Buy it here. Samples We’ve raised $100 million for startups like Epinions, invested another $20 million in companies like Twitter, and advised many others. Pitching Hacks shows you how to apply the simple lessons we’ve learned along the way. [...]
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Raising money is a black swan
December 9th, 2008 · 15 Comments · Pitching
Raising money is like finding a black swan. It seems like you will forever keep hearing “no”, “let’s keep talking”, or “find a lead.” Or worse, you sign a term sheet and it blows up before you can close it. It seems like you’ll never raise money, until one day—boom—you meet the right investor, he [...]
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Why startup pitches fail (and how to fix them)
October 30th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Pitching
Summary: Pitches usually fail because they answer the wrong questions. The right questions depend on the stage of your business—for example, some businesses are just getting started with an idea, while others are printing money. Focus your pitch on the key questions for your stage and if you keep getting non-key questions, something is wrong [...]
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How should I format my deck?
October 23rd, 2008 · 6 Comments · Decks, Pitching
Don’t try to cram cogent arguments into the slides of your deck. Keep the slides simple, visual, and minimal. Put cogent arguments, talking points, and prose in the notes that accompany each slide. How? Check out Dan Cook’s Laws of Productivity (pdf) for a great example: (If you don’t see the embed above, see The [...]
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How Steve Jobs pitches a startup
October 20th, 2008 · 13 Comments · Case Studies, Pitching
Watch the master pitch man, Steve Jobs, analyze the market for NeXT workstations in Part 1 of his Chalk Talk. He explains: “Who is our target customer? Why are they selecting our products over our competiton’s? And what distribution channels are we going to use to reach these customers?” Steve covers a handful of the [...]
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Elevator pitches with bullets
October 1st, 2008 · 4 Comments · Case Studies, Pitching
Summary: If you’re having trouble writing an elevator pitch, try using bullets. And challenge yourself to keep the pitch under 100 words. I received a cold call elevator pitch yesterday that was very effective. It was short (88 words not including the signature), the company had good traction, and the author used bullets to make [...]
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A Hollywood for startups
June 13th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Case Studies, Pitching
John Manoogian sent me this great trailer for The Player, a satire of the movie making system in Hollywood: (Link: The Player) Silicon Valley is the Hollywood of startups. Business plans are scripts, entrepreneurs are writers, engineers are talent, VCs are studios, angels are independent financiers, recruiters are casting agents, lawyers are lawyers, advisors are [...]
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High concept pitch: Feedburner for iPhones
May 29th, 2008 · 5 Comments · Case Studies, Pitching
I want to give Pinch Media a shout-out for mentioning our post on high concept pitches in their funding announcement. Their pitch is, “FeedBurner for iPhone developers.” Can they shorten it even further? “FeedBurner for iPhones”? I wonder if they used our other hacks too when they negotiated their deal with Union Square Ventures and [...]
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From incoherent to high concept pitch
May 21st, 2008 · 10 Comments · Case Studies, Pitching
Anthony Stevens read our article on high concept pitches and decided to write a high concept pitch for his startup: “So, let’s see: my startup is Crowdify, a tool for brand and reputation managers to discover new insights into consumers’ attitudes about their subjects and make better decisions about marketing and public relations strategy. We [...]
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