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Here’s some of the “Sausage Making” of early stage venture funding. When we’re raising capital, we tend to over-index on getting the meetings and honing the pitch. Both are critical to the process. But, there are a number of other factors you need to take into consideration during the process, especially in a Venture or

How do investors evaluate your startup company? Are you ready to raise capital? Let me take some of the mystery out of the process and give you one approach and some of the questions venture capitalists will be asking of your deck. It’s not the only approach and different investors will put a different weighting

I love office hours and listening to pitches – most of the time. This week I had an odd meeting that reminded me of some epic fails in pitching your startup idea. I will protect the “Pitching Parties” in this post and not identify them, but here are some quick reminders and lessons learned: Don’t

<Special thanks to my friend Felipe Chaves for translating my first Portuguese post! Here’s to a group of up and coming Entrepreneurs in Rio!> Você preparou seu “investor pitch”, sumário executivo, modelo financeiro. Você ensaiou seu pitch, listou perguntas e respostas (Q&A) e montou o seu 1:1 para investidores. Agora está de cara com um

You’ve prepped your investor pitch, executive summary, and financial model. You’ve rehearsed your pitch, prepared your Q&A and done the 1:1 investor meeting. Now you’re faced with the thoroughly contrived startup group pitch event. instead of a conversation with a potential investor you now have a timed event with timed Q&A. This can take place in the

Fundraising as an Enterprise Sales Process. Which means it’s going to take time to get fundraising done and you’ll need a lot of prospects at the top of your sales funnel. As you prepare for your fundraising effort and you need to get the basic tools of the trade completed before you start the process.

What do first time founders need to know about fundraising mechanics? This post should help you understand the basic lingo of fundraising – so you don’t look surprised or sound like a noob when you’re discussing funding. An  attorney will go into a lot more detail and it’s important that you understand investor motivations – not

Some new investors – or those who aren’t experienced in launching and growing a technology or software business – will ask a Startup Founder, “What is your Sustainable Competitive Advantage?” <Thanks for the reminder of the question from a current #TSSeattle Team.> That question makes you look smart<not>. It reminds me of a college philosophy class

One of the things I love about startups is that ability that a founder needs to have to see a vision before it happens. A friend of mine called it the “power of focus!” You’ll hear people around startup often say “it’s not the idea that matters, it’s execution” that is partially true. There were

Really (as my teenagers would say)?! Is it that hard to add your phone number to your email signature? I know those of us in tech are uber responsive to Google Chat or Hangout or even Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the old standby email. I received one of those emails today from a company wanting