LinOSX TechnoMash

11 Tips on Pitching an Investor, Mentor, etc.

2012-03-22T09:24:17-07:00

Over the last few months, I’ve Been hearing lots of pitches from entrepreneurs. Before going on, I want to say, congrats to all of you on taking the leap towards building your businesses.

That being said, I want to tell you that most of your pitches suck! 75% of the time I want to go to sleep after the first 3 minutes. I guess it’s not your fault (the education system in India never really teaches public speaking). Do the research. It can only help you. Don’t “read Facebook” (I had to put that in. A lovely quote from an entrepreneur I recently met.)! Go read some incredible posts by people like Mark Suster, Dave McClure, Eric Ries, Brad Feld, Fred Wilson, etc.

I’m no pitch expert but here are a few pointers from what I’ve learned over the years.

Do some research on the person/people you are pitching to and understand, as best as you can, their perspective BEFORE walking into pitch them.
Start with the problem. In two to three sentences, explain what is the problem. If you can’t do it in three sentences, stretch it to five but get the problem across in e first thirty to sixty seconds. If you can’t hook the other party and help her identify with the problem in sixty seconds, you will lose them for the rest of the meeting. Check out this post by Dave McClure
In another sixty seconds, explain your solution. Don’t take five minutes to do this. Sixty seconds to ninety seconds is the most time you should take to explain your solution.
Don’t make up jargon that doesn’t fit with the industry vertical you are talking about. For example, I had two entrepreneurs working in the travel space talking about products and content and I’m thinking souvenirs and TripAdvisor. They were actually talking about customized city tours and concierge services. That was ten minutes of my life that I was never getting back. Stick to terms people identify with your industry. It makes it easier for people to follow along.
Practice! Practice! Practice! Record yourself pitching on a video camera or webcam and watch it over and over. Critique yourself objectively and repeat. Share it with friends or family and see if they ‘get it’. Got to startup events like Startup Weekend where you can do 60 second pitches as well as long form demos and presentations.
Refine your pitch every time you do it. Don’t stick to what you always do. If you have done 1), then you should be able to do your pitch in a way that resonates with your audience
If the person you are pitching starts asking questions, that’s a good thing. You want them to interrupt you and be engaged. This means they are interested and/or trying to help. Don’t try to get thru the rest of your mental pitch in a specific order. Engage them in a discussion about the problem and your solution. (Check out Dave McClure’s talk ‘How to Pitch a VC’ from Startup Weekend Delhi)
Be prepared to pitch without a deck. If you have one, pull it out but a demo is far more interesting if you really need to show something.
Show passion! I find this incredibly important. Most of the entrepreneurs I come across in India may be passionate, but they don’t show it. Speak with conviction and show your passion about your idea, your business, and your team. Emotions can work in your favor if you do it right.
Be open-minded. I may not know as much about your industry as you do but if you asked to meet, consider my suggestions with an open-mind. I may surprise you
Don’t pretend to know what you don’t know. It makes you look more foolish than if you honestly say you have no idea what I’m talking about. You won’t believe how many times people pretend to know and follow Eric Ries‘ Lean Startup methodology but really know nothing more than buzzwords. If you don’t know something, it will show so don’t pretend.

Check out these additional resources:

Ever Wonder What It’s Like Inside a VC Pitch Meeting? You Can Be a Fly on the Wall Here by @msuster
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries
A VC by Fred Wilson
Feld Thoughts by Brad Feld
500 Startups Tips
A VC’s Advice on How to Pitch a VC on TechCrunch

Join Geeks on a Plane on a Trip to the Taj!

2011-12-05T22:58:13-08:00

If you’re a startup and would like an opportunity meet, pitch, and hang out with 20-25 serial entrepreneurs, investors and startup ecosystem stakeholders from Indian and Silicon Valley, including Super Angel, Dave McClure, please fill out the form below by Friday December, 9th and we will let you know if you’ve been selected to send a representative or two! Travel and lodging will be sponsored by Geeks on a Plane!

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11 Tips on Pitching an Investor, Mentor, etc.

Startup Weekend India – The First Six Months

2011-09-13T01:51:49-07:00

The first round of Startup Weekend events in India came to a close in March. Startup Weekend Delhi was held at the American Center from March 4th till March 6th 2011 and Startup Weekend Bangalore was held from March 11th till March 13th 2011 at Microsoft’s Signature building.

September 2nd 2011 marked the beginning of the next round of Startup Weekend events across India. Startup Weekend Hyderabad was held at ISB from the 2nd – 4th of September. This was the first SW held in Hyderabad and we honestly didn’t know what to expect. We had only sold 25 tickets in the first 2 months that ticket sales were open. In the last three days before the Friday night pitches, we sold over 50 additional tickets.

I’ve seen lots and lots of “me too” ideas and quite a few “ho-hum” ideas. There are some decent ideas with very little depth prior to SW. Startup events in India need to be about team formation, experience building and experimentation. Between these three events, Startup Weekend has kicked off 39 teams of entrepreneurs, techies, designers, and business people. Granted, out of these 39 teams, probably not even four will survive more than a year but that’s not the point. The point is that these 175 or so people, will be better entrepreneurs the next time around.

I believe these three events did something that no other event in India has done so far. It showed people that they CAN execute their ideas in a very short span of time. With complete strangers, in most cases, they can put together a business case and build a prototype to showcase to potential investors.

In a few cases, teams from Startup Weekend in India have had discussions with investors directly as a result of Startup Weekend. One of the biggest pain points for many entrepreneurs in India has been funding and Startup Weekend in India has helped ease this pain point in a small but important way.

Startup Weekend has also shown investors that entrepreneurs, techies, designers can do some really interesting things in a short period of time if all the ingredients are there. It’s created potential deal flow for early stage investors starved for invest-able ~~ideas~~ teams. Already, Startup Weekend clones are popping up across India.

The confidence and the energy that people have displayed at Startup Weekend in Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad has been quite contagious. Techies were pushed to deliver minimum viable products and marketers and business people were forced to come up with viable plans in a very short time span. In just a weekend, many people were able to successfully deliver business cases and prototypes. Having done so has shown them that they CAN, in fact, put together teams of the right people and deliver. Being able to find co-founders that can execute has given people the confidence needed to take their ideas from Startup Weekend and pursue them.

Another very important factor was the presence of great mentors that spent considerable amounts of time with the business, techie and design members of each team, helping them develop various aspects of their ideas and the technology being employed. Many of the mentors present have exhibited interest in helping future teams in the same way. Even some panelists have shown interest in being mentors and working with the various teams throughout the next Startup Weekends in India. However, some mentors and panelists have also been disappointed by the lack of depth in the ideas.

I have found that for entrepreneurs in India finding the right co-founders and having mentors to help guide them through the various pitfalls that they continually faced is a continuous problem. Of course, funding issues are an issue everywhere but in India, it’s far more pronounced. To me, the idea of getting the right people with similar mindsets and mentors, serial entrepreneurs with significant experience in a room with raw ideas and oodles of enthusiasm was what people in India have been missing. Bringing all these components together, mixing them up, laying down some rules and bending a whole lot of others has given people who had very little chance of execution or success an opportunity to try their ideas in a safe and risk-free environment. In essence, the Startup Weekend philosophy is helping Indians try out ideas without quitting their day jobs, find people who buy into their ideas, and have people around to immediately guide them in their execution.

Personally, Startup Weekend has given me an opportunity to return to India and give back something that I’m very passionate and excited about – entrepreneurship. The opportunity to help entrepreneurs, both young and old, realize that they can and should take a chance on themselves and their ideas is a great feeling. Instead of just telling them that they should, Startup Weekend has given me a chance to show them that they can. If my contribution to the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem can help create even one startup out of each event, I believe I’ve given back more than I could have hoped for.

India is a difficult place to understand, with all of its contradictions, it’s rapid modernization, it’s pathetic infrastructure, it’s volatile stock market, it’s real-estate market that defies all logic, it’s incredible wealth and it’s dire poverty. However, India has been a land of entrepreneurs with it’s small businesses, it’s kinara stores, it’s newly minted multi-national corporations. In the last twenty years, much of the entrepreneurial spirit that’s in India’s blood has been lost. Mostly because better opportunities to make money presented themselves with the IT, ITES, call center and other service businesses. However, I believe a new generation of entrepreneurs is emerging. India is draining entrepreneurial and engineering talent from other parts of the world. It’s not just Indians or people of Indian origin coming to India, it’s the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, the British, the Americans, the French, the Germans, the Italians and everyone else in between who are contributing to a new entrepreneurial culture.

Qualifying Startup Events in India

2011-04-15T19:14:51-07:00

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Startup Weekend is Coming to India

2011-02-14T20:00:29-08:00

Startup Weekend is a 54 hour event where developers, designers, and entrepreneurs get together and build great new Internet and mobile products. Startup Weekend is coming to India

Get your tickets to Startup Weekend Delhi or Startup Weekend Bangalore before the early-bird pricing ends.

Run Plex on AppleTV 2G

2010-11-23T08:37:57-08:00

Apple recently released the Apple TV 2G and some pretty smart folks have hacked it open to support running Plex. I’m not advocating hacking your AppleTV but it is an interesting approach. Also, running Plex on your ATV is still pretty buggy from what some sites are reporting so think about it before proceeding.

You will need the following before you’ll be able to get ATV jailbroken. Please bear in mind that jailbreaking will void your Apple Warranty so proceed with caution.

All of the instructions to hack your AppleTV are online, mostly at http://iphoneblogr.com but I thought a consolidated page could be beneficial and save people time so here it is.

Micro-USB to USB
AppleTV 2G
Mac running Snow Leopard and iTunes 10.1
A Mac to run the Plex Media Server

Step 1: Jailbreak Your AppleTV 2G

To Jailbreak your AppleTV 2G and create your own custom firmware, you will need to download the following:
1. Pwnage or see a complete list here
2. AppleTV firmware
If you’d rather not waste the time doing this yourself, iphoneblogr provides pre-jailbroken firmware for you. So download the appropriate one and follow his instructions to put the ATV into DFU mode using Pwnage and upload the firmware using iTunes.

Now watch the video and jailbreak your ATV2G.
Step 2:

Install Plex on Your Mac

Download Plex for the Mac and install it like any normal Mac App. Be sure to install this on the Mac that you want acting as your media server (always on).
Step 3:

Install Plex on the Your AppleTV

http://iphoneblogr.com/2010/11/how-to-install-plex-onto-apple-tv-2g-play-almost-any-video-file-type-video-tutorial

Before doing this, you should download iphoneblogr’s command file so you can copy and paste the commands in your terminal.

Now watch the video and follow along.

In the course of installing Plex on the ATV, you may come across a few errors and here is iphoneblogr’s fix for the errors your get.

iphoneblogr has some other very ineresting tutorials if you’re interested in hacking away at your Apple hardware.

Setting Up a Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server Without a Display

2010-11-09T19:59:31-08:00

The Mac Mini has always been a great little workgroup or home server. The low power consumption combined with the form factor have convinced me to pick up my second mac mini since 2005. The first one was a PowerPC based 1st gen Mini and served as a primary desktop for many many years. This new Mac Mini Server with a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 1TB HD will be used as file, database, web and media server.

I’m not going to get into setting up all those things right now. I’m going to get into how to go thru the basic setup of the Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server if you don’t have a display to connect it to. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t ship the Mac Mini Server with an HDMI adapter so I had to dig around on getting the Mini setup. The instructions that come with the Mini aren’t very helpful.

What you need:

Mac Mini Server – called “minisrv” from here on.
Another Mac that will be used as your desktop/admin machine – called “mac1″ from here on. A PC with Windows may be ok but I haven’t tested that config.
An (wired) ethernet switch, a WiFi Router that has room to plug in at least 2 ethernet connections or an ethernet hub

Install the “Admin Tools” cd that came with the minisrv.
Ensure that you have DHCP enabled on your network so minisrv can get an IP address.
Make sure both computers are connected to the switch, router or hub. mac1 doesn’t have to be connected via ethernet if you’re connecting both machines to a WiFi router, though, minisrv should be connected using ethernet.

If you can’t go wired, you should disable any sort of encryption or passwords on your WifI and also ensure that the SSID broadcast is turned on.

Turn the Mac Mini on and about a minute or two after you hear the chime, you should SSH into the box. Now this will be tricky. You need to know what the IP address of the Mac Mini is. On mac1, go to Applications -> Server and launch “Server Admin”. You should see an IP address listed there. Unless you have multiple Mac servers running, this IP will be the one you should ssh into.
Launch Terminal
ssh from mac1 to minisrv
mac1# ssh root@
The password to use here is the first eight digits of minisrv’s serial number.
Type the following into your terminal:
localhost:~ root# cd /Library/Preferences localhost:~ root# echo -n enabled > com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd
Go to Finder -> Connect to Server and click on Browse. You should see minisrv showing in the list on the left. Click on it and then click on “Share Screen”.
Go ahead and follow the directions to finish setting up your new Mac Mini Server.

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Let the Games Begin – Barnes & Noble Announces the Nook color

2010-10-26T22:18:39-07:00

The e-reader/tablet wars are about to get really interesting with RIMM’s BlackPad and now Barnes & Noble’s Nook color. Barnes & Noble’s Nook color will have a 7-inch backlit color touchscreen (16 million colors), built-in WiFi, the ability to surf the web, listen to music on Pandora, a few games and even edit and view Microsoft Office Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. The Nook color will support portrait and landscape modes.

Other cool features include, B&N’s “Read In Store”, “LendMe”, and “Read To Me” features. Read In Store allows you to bring your Nook color to a B&N and read any NOOKbook for free for up to an hour in store. “LendMe” allows you to lend a book to a friend for 14 days or request to borrow one of their books. The “Read To Me” feature is great for kids as they can press a big button and the story will be read to them.

The Nook color will ship around November 19th for $249.

How many of you that don’t own an iPad will consider getting a Nook color instead of the cheapest iPad at $499?

Apple’s FaceTime for Mac

2010-10-20T13:46:38-07:00

I’ve been running FaceTime for Mac for a few minutes now and I have no idea who to call! Apparently, you can only call people based on their email address and they must be in your contact list. I know a few people with an iPhone 4 but I have no idea what email they have associated with their FaceTime accounts. So far every email address I have in my contacts has not allowed a successful call.

You can add multiple email addresses to your primary FaceTime account.

I also find it ridiculous that FaceTime and iChat haven’t been merged into one on the Mac.

So far, FaceTime for Mac needs to stay in beta for a long time. At this point, I’ve found it completely useless. What about you? Did you give it a whirl and have different results?

Apple’s Back to the Mac Highlights

2010-10-20T12:12:13-07:00

Here are the highlights of Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event held today.

iLife 11

- iLife ’11 is available today for a $49 upgrade ($79 for a FamilyPack), it’s totally worth it.
* Full screen apps like the iPad
* iMovie gets trailers and highlights plus better sound editing
* iPhoto gets full screen views and updated book printing
* Garage Band gets Flex Time to keep songs in rhythm, basic lessons and rate your play during a lesson with “How Did I Play?”

- We got a peek at OS X Lion which should be out in Summer 2011

OS X Lion

- Apple Mac App Store will be available on Snow Leopard in 90 days
* Will make buying and installing apps on a Mac a complete no brainer
* Mission Control to manage multiple desktops, windows, etc. sounds pretty cool

- FaceTime for Mac (available today) will allow you to talk to other Mac users and iPhone 4 and iPod Touch users.
* No idea why this isn’t integrated into iChat. I need another video/voice/chat application like a hole in the head

- As expected, a new MacBook Air
* 11.6″ and 13.3″ screens available
* Decent specs
* Great form factors and weight
* Sweet price points (Starts at $999 for 11.6″ version and $1599 for the top of the line 13.3″)
* Great battery life
* Has an nVidia 320m graphics chip for shared graphics memory. I’m not a big fan and prefer separate graphics memory, though, this MBA does have the ability support 25601600 on an external screen. That’s better than 1080p HD quality, right?
* No ethernet port. Adapter required.
* Wireless N, Bluetooth, integrated camer and mic, 2 USB ports
* No hard drive or optical drive. Only flash memory for really fast, instant-on operation. Max of 256GB storage.
* With all the audio and video these days, I need more than 256GB storage

MBA Prices

The new MacBook Air is a great machine for people who want something very light, compact (in the 11.6″ version) and need to do a lot of typing (iPad just doesn’t cut it). What do you think? Are you picking one up?
Update:Grab FaceTime for Mac
Update 2: AAPL Stock closes almost $3 below where the stock was trading before today’s announcement. Not a buying opportunity in my book.

LinOSX TechnoMash

11 Tips on Pitching an Investor, Mentor, etc.

Related Posts:

Join Geeks on a Plane on a Trip to the Taj!

Related Posts:

Startup Weekend India – The First Six Months

Related Posts:

Qualifying Startup Events in India

Related Posts:

Startup Weekend is Coming to India

Related Posts:

Run Plex on AppleTV 2G

Step 1: Jailbreak Your AppleTV 2G

Install Plex on Your Mac

Install Plex on the Your AppleTV

Related Posts:

Setting Up a Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server Without a Display

Related Posts:

Let the Games Begin – Barnes & Noble Announces the Nook color

Related Posts:

Apple’s FaceTime for Mac

Related Posts:

Apple’s Back to the Mac Highlights

Related Posts: