Venture Pitch 101

rohit sharma

Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV) www.mdv.com rsharma@mdv.com

e-Challenge Workshop "The Entrepreneurial Pitch"

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today

What are (early stage) VCs looking for?

Typical pitch content | guidelines vs. rules

Design

Q / A

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venture process

all about assessing risk & opportunity

Meeting w/ Pitch

Meeting

More Meetings w/ Pitch

Meeting w/ Pitch

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the risk curve

Risk (ideal)

Valuation

Seed A B

iterate

time

$/risk

Risk (likely)

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risk

Market

Technology/Product

Team

Financing

Strategy

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the risk trajectory (hurricane tracks)

money

time

objective

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the risk trajectory

money

time

objective

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market risk

Size of market

Characteristics of the market

Customer development plan?

Customer behavior change ?

Cost of customer acquisition

Competitive landscape

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technology/product risk

Technology creation

Product creation

Product 2.0?

Triangulate people time money

Other (support, maintenance, upgrades,…)

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team risk

Current skill-set (to address market/product dev)

Required skills, people –  fearless leader

–  bold visionary, evangelist –  grumpy ass-kicker

–  customer advocate

Hiring (Geography, sources, time, effort)

Will this team raise the next round?

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financing risk

How much $$ to subsequent financings

Financing sources, type

Does market permit (large) company creation?

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strategy?

Is there strategy risk?

(Un)Expected behavior of competitors, companies in adjacent market spaces?

Do ‘receptors’ exist in customers?

Identify: –  Early adopters?

–  Risk-takers? –  Market-makers?

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the un-definables

(this is what we are *really* looking for)

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but, that’s not how you organize *your* powerpoint

Introduction (team) Problem & Non-obvious insight Market Product development, customer development Customers: identify, acquire, retain,… (Market construction) Competition? State the plan, financial model End bits (plan? summary? insight?)

–  Single most significant factoid about you or venture –  Recap 5-minute drill in 1 minute

3-5 Minute drill

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design

All design is choice (Edward Tufte)

Powerpoint is a very challenging method of effective communication (worst S/N ratio of any method?)

Can you write your ‘pitch’ in report format? In ‘Word’?

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Edward Tufte | www.tufte.com

$7

$40 $48

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build a picture worth ten slides

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powerpoint guidelines