The Perfect Pitchor strikeout

Akhil Saklecha

Artiman Ventures

Artiman: Investors & Entrepreneurs

U.S. Investment Team

Amit ShahYatin MundkurTom DennedyAkhil SaklechaAjit SinghTim Wilson

India Team

M. J. AravindRamesh Radhakrishnan

US Operations Team

Ida Ng

EIR

Frank ThibodeauAdam De La ZerdaMahmood PanjwaniAtul SharanRob Levy

Venture Investing Experience– Collectively managing $900+M invested in 140+ seed/early–stage

companies – 88 exits with aggregate realized return of 3.3x– 11 IPO’s and 32 acquisitions

Entrepreneurial Experience– Co-founded 10 startups in the U.S. and India– 6 successful exits with aggregate value of > $1 Billion

• ZeitNet, PipeLinks, Equator, Daksh, Ross, Kaleida, Clarity, Airgo, BioImagene

Operating Experience - public and private – Cisco, Rockwell, Siemens, AMD, AT&T, Lucent, Cabletron, Digital

Island, FireEye, Airgo, Clarity Wireless, Adaptive, Compaq, Qualcomm, HP

Technology Background– Played pioneering roles in seminal industries: Server Computing,

Networking, Voice over IP, IPTV, Digital Consumer Electronics– 26 US patents

Shop talk

• VC’s are ‘shallow’ people• KISS• Start at the beginning and top-

down• Don’t get sucked into

arguments that aren’t pertinent to the company

• Financials at 3 years aren’t $10M+

• Don’t try and ‘create competition’

• Don’t bluff. We all talk to each other.

• White board

Be prepared…

• Know your data, market, customers

• Bring your own dongle• Expect your demo to fail• How much time do you have?• You’ve got less than 30

minutes…

12 Slide Rule

• Exec Summary

• The Problem• Market• The Solution• Business

Model• Technology

• IP/Regulatory• Competition• Team• Financials• Capital needs• Exec

Summary

The Breakdown

• Exec summary– Begin and end with it– It should tell the story– Current status of the company– Broad strokes– Don’t let questions distract you

The lion and the mouse

• The Problem– Go big or go home– Needs to touch a lot of people

• Market– Top Down– Bottoms Up– Is it growing?– Who and where are the

customers?

Bigger is better

• The Solution– Must Have, Deadly Sins– Disruptive– Makes sense– Can you do it?

• Business Model– How do you make money?

Breakeven?– Do you understand sales &

marketing?

Dogs pee to mark their turf. What do you do?

• IP– Patents are like gold– But is it fundamental?– Crowded areas need FTO

• Regulatory– What is needed here?– It’s all about time and money

Find the white space

• Competition– Know them well– Your uniqueness needs to be very

clear– Three’s a crowd

• Team– If you had great exits - move to

slide #1– Brands and experience– Domain knowledge and depth– More than 50% of the equation

Show me the money

• Financials– Bottoms up creation– Does it scale?– VC’s love haircuts

• So what’s the Ask?– What’s been raised? Any skin in

the game?– What are you going to do with it?– Is it realistic?

Wrap it up

• Exec summary– End where you began

• Concluding remarks– How do you get to $1B revenue– Summarize thoughts and concerns– What info can you send?– Who are the experts that you can

connect?– When is the expected follow-up?