The video from Fred Destin’s Seedcamp talk ‘Hacking Venture Capital’ is available now. I did mention it in my review post from a while back and it’s finally online.
Must-watch for every founder & entrepreneur to get first-hand advice about how to have a best possible impact when getting started with VCs.
My friend Mark compiled a great list of music blogs on Tumblr and we’ve seen this list grow steadily in the past weeks. It has become great resource to discover new music tumblelogs to follow so I decided to do something similar:
Inspired by Mark, this is a list of folks involved in (but not limited to) entrepreneurship, venture capital, web, tech and business that I highly enjoy reading every day. This is an ongoing list so feel free to post a comment with a link to the blog you think belongs here.
Please leave a comment if you feel someone’s missing (pretty sure there is) and add a brief description. Let’s feed this beast.
Another great essay by Paul Graham. This time, he’s compiling the findings of Kate, an architect who joined YC 9 months ago.
Excellent outside view from someone on the inside.
These documents were originally created for YC-funded startups to use when raising angel rounds. They seem to have worked well in trial runs so far, so we’re open-sourcing them.
Paul Graham is the man!
This is the first out of nine videos in which Fred Wilson is talking to a group of NYU MBA students about his early career as a VC. Given he starts by saying that he usually doesn’t talk about his early steps that much, it’s great that InSITE decided to make these videos available publicly.
I’m not through all segments yet but I guess the tapings of the Q&A session will interesting to follow.
Tonight, I had dinner with two entrepreneurs who have been bootstrapping their startup for over year now besides running a daily operation. They’re thinking about raising a seed round. I will not go into the details but after thinking about their pitch and the conversation we had, I wanted to share this:
1. When pitching, be precise. Use clear, short sentences. You don’t always know if the person you’re pitching to is aware about all the details of your industry. Well, sometimes they are but they will not tell you (in this case they’re testing you). Quickly get to the point, cut the crap.
2. Start with something I know. Sometimes entrepreneuers will tell you about this huge vision they have (which is great, don’t get me wrong) but get caught up in a rambling speech. Tell me you want to be x for y. Make sure I know who x is. In that case, I will see if it’s a huge vision just by knowing who x is. Continue with point #1.
3. Be precise about the problem you’re solving. Starting by saying you want to be x for y is usually a good start because it suggests that x doesn’t exist yet (which could be wrong, but that’s another problem) and that there is a need for it. Be crystal clear about the answer to the question about what problem you’re trying to solve. It’s crucial: everything you do, plan, hire and spend results in that answer.
4. Kill your darlings. I know it’s hard, believe me, I know. Get rid of the stuff that isn’t essential when solving the problem. Especially when you bootstrap, you have limited resources (time, money, staff). Make sure you use them wisely and effectively. That will save you money, the focus on your product and keep up the morale of your team.
5. Make a partner want you, not vice-versa. A mistake I have made myself and that I see others do frequently. You think your service/company is the hottest shit out there and that the rich BigCo’s have been waiting to throw money at you? Wrong guess. Identify a partner and be sure to know how you can help him. You need to know his needs to be able to present him with an added value. If you can’t come up with specifics, it will be a lost afternoon in a big-ass boardroam and the only thing you’ll have scored is - if you’re lucky - free lunch and an espresso.
If you wish to know more, I strongly recommend to read these two posts written by people that are way smarter than me:
Brad Feld - The Torturous World Of PowerPoint: great checklist of questions you’ll need an answer to when pitching VC’s
Dave McClure - How To Pitch A VC (aka Startup Viagra: How To give a VC a Hard-On): fun to read and yet so true.
As I write this, the markets are going ballistic. The Asian, European and now the US markets tumble. This is severe, especially after lots had hoped for a calm-down after the bail out passed.
Last week, several VC’s, angels and bloggers started posting their views about how this would affect startups and fundraising. To sum it up, everyone seems nervous and not sure where this is taking us. The different views apparently change from one person to another, based on his/her experiences in the past.
The bottom line is, focus.
The following is no rocket science. As a matter of fact, this should be a mantra/credo for every startup, at any given time. But as we see this a lot in up-cycles, a lot of companies get funded faster and hope for the best. In down-cycles, as Fred writes, “all startups are going to have to batten down the hatches, get leaner, and work to get profitable”.
On top of this, startups will have a hard time to raise funds, especially companies in an actual seed or early stage. Angels are backing off and early stages VC’s will focus on guiding their portofolio companies through the sea. Doesn’t sound like best time to start something new, right? It depends on which angle you take to look into this. As history has proven, lots of (now) successful companies were started during the “down market cycle of 2000-2003”.
As I said, this is no rocket science. I’ll put it this way: It’s my cheat sheet should I (once) decide to start something new.
And as I end writing this, I see Bijan’s advice at the end of his latest post:
This is a great time to start a company. Go after a big honking problem. Do something you love and care about it. Now’s the time to do it!
“Raising money is the second hardest part of starting a startup. The hardest part is making something people want: most startups that die, die because they didn’t do that. But the second biggest cause of death is probably the difficulty of raising money. Fundraising is brutal.”
