The Keys to Raising Money for Your Venture

1
The Keys to Raising Money for Your Venture

• Presented By
• Stu Benton

2
Where Do You Get The Money?

• Start Up or Seed Capital ( Less than 1 million)
• Friends and family
• Angel investors
• Industry partners
• Venture Capital Funds
• Product in market
• Paying customers
• Boot strap

3
The Five Key Factors Investors Look For

• People
• People
• People
• Market
• Product

4
The Three Risk Areas Investors Consider

• Management risk
• Market risk
• Technology risk

5
The Best Technology NEVER Wins!!The Best
Marketing Will Win!!
6
You Need Three Key Things to Ask For Money

• Tell The Story Of Your Company In Increasing
  Detail
• Telephone Pitch Elevator Pitch
• Executive Summary
• Team Presentation

7
The Telephone Pitch

• One to two minutes max
• Get foot in the door
• Four Key Items
• This is the problem
• This is how we solve it
• This is how were different
• This is who we solve it for

8
The Executive Summary

• One Page
• Clear, concise, brief, no buzz words
• Your mother should understand it
• Get VCs to let you in the door

9
The Executive Summary

• Opening sentence crystal clear statement of what
  your company does
• The compelling need
• How your company fills the need
• The value proposition
• Cost savings
• Improved performance
• Your competitive advantage

10
The Executive Summary

• Customers/Prospects
• Market size and industry forces
• Briefly explain how company and technology work
• Project into the future

11
Presentation Guidelines

• 15-20 slides
• Plain background, logo on all slides
• Slides are an outline
• Short words and phrasesno jargon
• 7 by 7 rule
• No clipart,animation etcappear only
• Slides or speaker

12
Objective Of The Presentation

• To get the investor interested enough to go the
  next step..due diligence

13
What is The Presentation?

• Bare bones version of business model
• What is the business problem you solve?
• What is the value proposition?
• Who are your customers?
• Who is your competition?
• How do you differentiate yourself?
• How do you make money?
• How much money?

14
The First Four Slides Make Or Break Your
Presentation

• Announce the problem and how you solve it
• Slide 1 Title Slide .Introduce yourself and
  team
• Slide 2 Whats the compelling need
• Slide 3 How you satisfy this need
• Slide 4 Whats the size of the market

15
Slide 2 Compelling Need/Business Problem

• What is the problem
• How significant is it

16
Slide 3 How You Solve This Problem

• Overview of how you solve this problem
• Your value proposition..
• Cost Savings
• More efficient
• Actual customers/prospectswhat they say

17
Slide 4 The Market

• How Big
• How fast is it growing
• Who are the customers

18
Slide 5 Highlights of Your Company

• Employees
• Revenue sizeif any
• Products Status
• Patents
• Where is the company today

19
Slide 6 Industry Trends

• Industry forces Drivers
• Serious
• Sustainable
• What this means for the future
• How/why you exploit driving forces

20
Slide 7 Product/Service Overview

• Product families..beta..prototype
• How do they work
• Show tell
• Market focus
• What is unique

21
Slide 8 Your Competitive Advantage

• How customers do things now
• Drawbacks, problems
• How impacts customers bottom line
• Strategic problems

22
Slide 9 How You Solve This Problem

• Specifically how you solve the problem
• Your value propositionhard facts ,
• Cost savings
• Performance
• Customers/prospects
• Use as exampleswhat are they doing
• Get quotes

23
Slide 10 Competition

• Demonstrate complete understanding
• Rational, objective and measurable argument
• Who are they
• Direct/Indirect
• Potential
• How do they compare
• How are they doing
• How does the market see them

24
Slide 11 Your Competitive Advantages

• Why you will win
• Do differently
• Why they cant
• Real advantages
• Nine to twelve months time advantage

25
Slide 12 The Future

• Opportunities to leverage technology
• New products
• New Markets

26
Slide 13 Financials

• Quarterly sales and net income
• Two Years, eight quarters
• Show when breakeven
• Assumptions..How derived

27
Slide 14 Financials

• Five year sales and income
• By year
• Assumptions
• Logic behind s

28
Slide 15 Financials

• Financial Model
• Table
• s
• Gross Margin
• Sales Cost
• GA
• Research Development
• Logic behind s

29
Slide 16 Management Team

• Present team experience
• Unfilled positions and timing
• Advisory board experience

30
Slide 17 Summary

• Key four points
• Whats the problem
• Heres how we solve it
• Heres our advantage
• Heres the market we solve it for

31
Slide 18 Ask for the Money

• Heres how much we need
• 3 million

32
Two More Things You Need

• List of references
• Ten page business plan
• Use presentation as outline
• Leave behind

33
Giving The Presentation

• Practice, practice practice
• Youre a team
• Have all your facts
• Get them asking questions
• Get them on you side
• Get their feedback
• Follow up

34
Buy This Book

• Smartups
• By
• Rob Ryan
• Founder of Ascend Communications
• Founder of Start-up Boot Camp