Articles:

  • 22 subtleties that can turn a losing pitch deck into a winner.

    When a startup company tries to raise capital from a venture capital fund, an angel investor or a group of angel investors, it prepares a “pitch deck” that explains to prospective investors exactly how the company plans to make money and how investors will receive a return on their investment.   The purpose of a pitch deck is to capture the attention of investors and possibly obtain either a first meeting or a follow-up meeting to explore the company’s plans in more detail.  A pitch deck does not have to provide exhaustive information about the startup; the details will unfold during a due-diligence process if investors are interested.  But it must answer the most critical questions that affect an investor’s decision to invest, or not.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of startup pitch decks that are loaded with beautiful graphics that confuse me. I’m not sure who decided that pretty graphics improve your pitch, but sometimes they  don’t. More and more, I find myself telling entrepreneurs, “Sometimes a word is worth a          thousand pictures.”

If you have read “The Fundable Startup: How Disruptive Companies Attract Capital,” you know that I have struggled to understand the difference between “entrepreneurship” and being a successful CEO, I know that entrepreneurial studies programs try to teach students how to build businesses, but I have always felt that there is a disconnect between the essence of entrepreneurship and the essence of the processes involved in building a successful business. Let’s look at the definitions.

Many company founders want to be the CEO of their firm, but is that the best approach? Most successful CEOs work for 15-20 years to acquire much-needed expertise. A study of 2.7 million startup companies tells us that the average age of the successful startup CEO is 45. Venture
capital investors have many opportunities to invest in companies with proven management teams. Startup founders need to consider all these factors when deciding who will make the best CEO for their company.

The concept of value is extremely elusive for startup companies. How is a startup company valued and how is value created in a startup? One reason the concept of value is so difficult is that it
lies in the eyes of the beholder.

How should a startup company compensate its advisors? This is a tricky question because there are no guidelines and most founders do not have experience in this area. But there are some general  principles that can help you arrive at compensation that should be fair to the company and attractive to your advisors.

Choosing advisors and directors for a startup is much more complicated than most founders realize. A very high percentage of startups pick advisors for the wrong reasons and end up regretting their choices.