Tonight I attended the 20th Entrepreneur Roundtable, moderated by Murat Aktihanoglu of Centrl.com. The Entrepreneur Roundtable is a pitch event where 5 companies give 5 minutes pitches and receive 5 minutes feedback from the guest speaker. The guest speaker for this evening was the charismatic and renowned Venture Capitalist, Brad Feld.
Brad answered numerous questions about venture capital from the group, but I felt everyone in attendance benefited most from his feedback given to the companies that pitched. Personally, it was refreshing to see a VC with candor and thoughtful criticism. In an industry and community where time is valuable, those that received feedback should be quite thankful. Brad’s mother, Celia, clearly raised him well.
Below are some of the more notable items I took away from Brad’s advice on pitching and meeting with a VC.
One of his first and most repeated themes was keeping the VC excited. Specifically Brad said that your current meeting should leave a VC more excited than the previous meeting you had with them. He even cited this as a way he and his partners at Foundry Group vet potential investments.
When it comes to communication and clarity, make sure your unique selling proposition is easy to understand within the first fifteen seconds of your pitch. As Brad noted, “this is the chocolaty goodness of your company.” Make sure you identify the problem and why your solution stands out above all others. Get to the punch line quick.
However be careful when using analogies and references to competitors. Overdoing it may actually leave the name of your competitor in mind your audience. Mentioning someone more than once could have an adverse effect on your pitch.
When mentioning your revenue model make sure it’s easy to understand. The more complexity there is behind revenue generation, the more likely someone is going to not want to take the time to figure it out. Avoid complex payment dynamics for the customer. If anything the revenue model from the value you are providing should be obvious.
It’s very easy to try and impress someone with numbers, but are the numbers meaningful and relevant to your pitch. If you got 50k unique visits from a Tech Crunch feature can you show that it has a direct impact on your revenue? Numbers should be used to validate a hypothesis.
Make sure you can clearly define your demographic. This helps in getting your audience to understand your marketing.
When talking about milestones and projections, talk in weeks and months. Anything that stretches into years for an early stage startup is bullshit and will most likely change in a few weeks. Like wise you want to leave something on the table to talk about in your follow up meeting. If you mention you are looking to get 10k user sign up in a month, then you have something meaningful to follow up about.
My last note is when you’re pitching ALWAYS have an “ask.” You’re meeting with a VC to raise funds so make sure you put that in your pitch in addition to what the funds are for. Be realistic about how much you are asking for.
Brad gave some great advice and his mother will be receiving an email letting her know how much her son’s advice helps aspiring entrepreneurs.
Enjoy,
Tob.in (:
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