Startable - Healy Jones’ & Prasad Thammineni’s Blog

Returning to the theme of pretty much useless tips for the entrepreneur pitching their startup to venture capital funds:

VC Pitch Tip #6 - Bring a USB drive with your pitch saved on it

For a first pitch with a VC you will probably walk through a fund raising presentation. It is likely that the venture capitalist will have a screen onto which you will project your slide deck. Usually getting your laptop to interact with the screen is pretty easy… but occasionally its not. Recently an entrepreneur was meeting with me, and despite the best efforts of this CEO, our tech guy and several administrative assistants, we couldn’t get the laptop to be recognized by the projector. 

Thankfully, this entrepreneur had his presentation on a USB drive and was able to quickly get us the deck to print. This made it much easier for us to learn about his business and hear the pitch. (A different time that this happened we used the drive to transfer the presentation to a random laptop we had and projected from there.)

This doesn’t happen very often; I’d say every few months - and we see many, many startups per month. So, the probability of this problem happening is very low but the downside is pretty large. You only have one shot to make a first impression, and who wants to be nervous/struggling with a stupid projector when you are supposed to be getting the room excited about your business?!? A USB drive is good insurance against technical difficulties, doesn’t rely on you having to connect to the internet to email/share your presentation and is easily understood technology by the person who will likely be doing the printing for you at the VC’s office.

This isn’t quite a VC Pitch Tip, but it is a tip for technology entrepreneur raising venture capital. As a founder of a technology company, when you bring on venture don’t forget to make sure you have a board seat. Assume you are going to get one until you get the term sheet - then make sure the founders will have someone representing them!

Yet another probably not particularly useful tip for entrepreneurs pitching their startup to a venture capitalist:

VC Pitch Tip #5 - The Venture Capitalist will want to hear a lot about your team

One of the most important, if not THE most important, component of a startup is the team. Venture capitalists will want to know a ton about the people starting the business. This is pretty intuitive, since most VCs invest in ideas before they are real businesses. Thus, the founders/management team ARE the business!

For whatever reason, CEOs sometimes forget to describe their background and accomplishments to me when they talk about their business. This happens much more often than you’d think. Don’t get caught off guard by the “tell me more about your team” question - have a great answer ready! Impress the VC! You can do this without seeming like a braggart. You’ll want to make sure you mention your role and key accomplishments. Metrics are great. Things that come across wonderfully are “I was the third employee and we sold the business for X million dollars two years after I joined” or “I managed 30 people” or “my last company developed critical IP in XYZ space.”

Here is another almost meaningless pointer for an entrepreneur about to pitch a startup to a venture capitalist:

VC Pitch Tip #4 - You don’t need to wear a tie to meet with an early stage venture capitalist.

In Palo Alto or Boston you don’t need to wear a tie if you are presenting to an early stage technology venture capitalist.

If you do wear a suit and a tie, I’m pretty sure that the VC’s first thought is that you are… well, hmm. How do I say this nicely. A bit of a dinosaur? We usually groan when we go into a meeting and the management team is wearing suits and ties.

I’m not suggesting you dress like an idiot or anything, but I’m just saying that you are better off in khakis and a shirt than an average suit and tie if you are pitching early stage investors. (Per Prasad’s comment below, there is nothing wrong with a sports jacket!)

Although, as an aside, there was one entrepreneur who wore such a crazy suit it was actually a positive. The guy was clearly a propeller-head, but quite backable. His suit only added to the charm. I’m trying to think of how to describe it, sort of retro with a funny skinny tie. Not like an expensive Prada suit or anything, but something quirky like you’d expect a guy who had made a nice chunk of money selling an algorithm in his early 20’s would have - which is exactly who the guy was. And I guess European management teams sometimes pull off the suit, and sometimes the flashy media-types from NYC or LA can get away with their giant pink ties. But for the rest of us… a suit and tie is just not a great idea.

This tip may not hold for startups meeting with VCs in other parts of the country - I just don’t have any experience away from Sand Hill or Winter Street, so I don’t know.

I guess the real tip here is: if you are not certain what to wear, you can ask. Since most VCs probably have an executive assistant who helps arrange the meetings, you can easily ask this person without embarrassing yourself as you are setting up the meeting. Or, you can call the general number and anomalously ask what most teams wear when the present to the venture fund.

And, ok, I’m not a real fashion buff myself. (Below is the picture to prove it… my wife hates this shirt.) But since you are selling yourself when you meet with Vcs you ought to try to look the part.

Yet another low-value tip for the entrepreneur about to pitch a startup idea or business plan to a venture capitalist. This one is for entrepreneurs/founders who will be presenting at the VC’s office:

VC Pitch Tip #3 - Get to the venture capitalist’s office early

A good venture capitalist is very scheduled during the day, and has only allotted a certain amount of time to meet with your startup and listen to your initial business plan pitch. Usually, for a first meeting, this is an hour to and hour and a half. The VC will likely be running off to meet with another entrepreneur or to get onto a phone call with a portfolio company right after the meeting with you - so you don’t have a lot of time to get your vision across!

The reason that you should get to the VC’s office a bit early is because you may experience annoying technical issues hooking your computer up to the projector, connecting to the internet or preparing your product/solution demonstration. Since you’re only got a short amount of time to make the venture capitalist “get” your vision, any time spent fiddling with your laptop or messing around with projector cables is time lost. By getting to the meeting early you will allow yourself some buffer to set everything up and do a trial run of your demo - hopefully giving you all the time possible to get your idea across.

I know this doesn’t seem fair. You’ve gone through the effort to prepare a presentation, dragged yourself away from your team and development work and are ready to bare your soul to some jerk VC… and they won’t even give you the courtesy to run over the schedule meeting time by a few minutes. However, keep in mind that there is likely another entrepreneur in the meeting room next door ready to pitch their idea to the very same VC.

While we can debate the rudeness of being late to a meeting (something VCs are notoriously prone to doing, sorry), there is no debate that the more time you’ve got to explain your startup the better your chances are. So, while it’s a pain to get set up early and then twiddle your thumbs for a few minutes waiting for the VC, it is much better than giving a half-focused introduction to your idea while you mess around with F8 key on your laptop.

Continuing with my theme of quick tips for the startup entrepreneur pitching his/her startup to venture capitalists, I’d like to offer this relatively worthless tidbit:

VC Pitch Tip #2 - You won’t be eating much lunch during that “lunch” meeting

A lunch meeting with a VC isn’t really a lunch meeting for you, because you’ll be the one talking. Remember, you are meeting the venture capitalist to pitch your business. That means you’ll be presenting and answering questions while the VCs stuff food down their throats. There will be food available for you to eat, but there will not be time for you to eat it. If you have low blood sugar or get distracted when hungry I’d suggest you grab a bite to eat before your lunch meeting with the VC. 

VCs don’t schedule these meetings to torture entrepreneurs, but sometimes it feels like that is the case, with the entrepreneurs staring forlornly at their plates while frantically working their way through the PowerPoint slides… the only chance to grab a quick bite when a self-important VC launches into a long-winded diatribe about the importance of technology differentiation and something about a “China Strategy.”

The other tip related to this one is that you probably want to pick the food that is the easiest to chew. You never know when that VC will finish up the useless “China Strategy” point and leave you with just a second to chew, swallow, clear your throat and come up with some sort of competent sounding response to the asinine question. 

(The intent of these tips is to help the entrepreneur with little things that can be done to make the actually meeting with a venture capitalist go a bit smoother. None of these tips will directly cause you to raise capital, but may make the actual pitch go more smoothly.)

I’ve decided to post some really basic tips on presenting your startup business plan to venture capitalists. The intent of these tips is to help the entrepreneur with little things that can be done to make the actually meeting with a venture capitalist go a bit smoother. None of these tips will directly cause you to raise capital, but may make the actual pitch go more smoothly.

Pitching a VC your company is quite stressful. I hope that these silly little tips can help you relax and decrease distractions, so you can focus explaining your business and selling your team.

VC Pitch Tip #1 - Turn off your screen saver.

Many times during a presentation by a startup CEO we get into a lengthy discussion. During these discussions the startup executive’s computer (the computer that they are using to project their slide deck for us) can kick on. I’ve seen CEOs horribly distracted by their screen savers turning on, even when we were not looking at the slide/screen at all. I don’t mind when the screen saver flicks on, and I’d imagine that most VCs don’t care either, but if this sort of a thing distracts you then turn off the screen saver before your pitch.