There's a great TED video by David S. Rose, startup guy and now a VC on how to pitch to a VC. There's lots of these out there but this is an amazingly well done, compacted and fast paced version well worth watching.
They invest in people.
You have at most 18 minutes to get the idea across.
First, You have to get across Integrity (straight shooter). Second, Passion for what you're doing. Third, Experience. Serial entrepreneurs are favored. Forth, Knowledge and domain expertise. Fifth, Skills to get a company going. Sixth, Leadership, to get the full set of skills in place to run the company Seventh, Commitment, to stay to the very end. Eighth, Vision. Ninth, Realism. Tenth, Coachable.
Start like a rocket. 10 seconds to grab them.
From there, a solid steady upward graph that gets better and better that knocks it out of the park at the end. Never skip a step or go backwards. think "Logical Progression".
Provide touchstones like referencing companies the Angel or VC might know of, give them outside validation, things the potential investors knows of and can touch on.
An upside and believable. Show both. "$1m revenue is 3 years' isn't an upside "$1B in 24 months" isn't believable.
Never say things that aren't true. Ever. If you do, 1/2 of what you've said and will say will be discounted (no one's done this before is a good example).
Treat them like a 6th grader, walking them through it, but don't be condescending. Tricky, but essential.
Typos will kill the deal: how do you run a company if you can't run spell check?
Steve Jobs is the master at this. Watch him and learn. (Yea, I know I bash Apple a lot, but it's only because I love them. If I didn't care, I wouldn't say anything).
He then goes into a step by step on the presentation itself.
Top five tips for the presenter:
Always use presenter mode Always use remote controls (don't touch the computer) Handouts are NOT the presentation. The handout stands without you. Do not read your speech Never, ever, look at the screen. You're connecting with the audience first and foremost.
Worth every second of the 14 minutes and 39 seconds that it runs.
I suppose this means the whole 'trying to reason' with conservatives is just moot. I've experienced it (many times) first hand with my conservative friends, but now I know for certain what I've always suspected... it's just how their brains seem to work.
I always said it was genetic. I was kidding, but, turns out, it was a little bit true.
Freddie and Fannie= Owned by the government. Controls over 1/2 of the mortgages in America.
A.I.G.= Owned by the government. Insures a huge percentage (globally) of all the 'mortgage debt instruments'.
And we're being dumb about it.
Dumbness example:
Sunday- A.I.G. asks for a $40Billion loan to stave off a change in it's credit rating. Monday- Fed's say no. Monday night: Credit agencies lower A.I.G.'s credit rating Tuesday- A.I.G. says it may have to liquidate. Tuesday night: Fed says, no no.. here's $85 Billion
$85 Billion vs. $40 Billion.
Why did it happen? The short answer appears to be the Fed's tried to scare the existing players (Goldmans, etc.) into funding A.I.G. and lost the stare down.
For decades the US has been on the leading edge of information technology (I.T.) and this has driven our economy (and the worlds) to new heights of prosperity, but it's soon to be the 2nd most important industry.
Energy is where it's at this century. The age of cheap energy is over and finding, developing and deploying (mostly) renewable energy sources is where the action will be. Thomas Friedman (NYT columnist and book author) calls this Energy Technology or E.T.
The railroads lost the battle to the auto/truck makers in the middle of the last century by thinking of their business as 'trains' and not 'transportation'.
The Oil companies of today are doing the same exact thing (and recruiting the politicians, like McCain's VP pick: Palen).
It's about ENERGY, not Oil. Investing only in an energy source with a finite supply is a waste of investment.
It's too bad today's Big Oil guys don't get that they're in the Energy business... not, just, the Oil business. They have the money to make the transition, at least today. But they won't in 10 years.
Big Oil is going the route of the train giants of yesteryear: focusing only on today and not investing for tomorrow.
