神奇的五张幻灯片：365 Days, $10 Million

      “I have a short five-slide deck to share that provides a solid framework for understanding our business.”

      Since moving to San Francisco a little over a year ago, I have spent every day helping to build Socialcast and about.me.  During this time, I have raised more than $10 million combined over 3 funding rounds for both Socialcast and about.me.  Convincing venture capitalists to invest in two startups in less than 365 days was a challenging task, but one that quickly taught me the dos and don’ts of raising money. Here is an overview of the unique lessons I learned during the fundraising process, mostly focused on the initial meeting, which is the most crucial as you are introducing your company and vision for the first time.

       Stop using the projector for initial meetings

        Most of my initial venture partner meetings ended up in a conference room. To project my slides I would normally bring an Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA adaptor. While at the office of a well-known large fund, I realized that I had left my adaptor in another bag. Instead of looking unprepared and asking to borrow an adaptor, I decided to adjust my plan and use my laptop screen to walk through the slides. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re meeting with more than 2 people, but this meeting was one of my best and resulted in a term sheet. Why did this work? Normally, in a pitch meeting, you and the investor sit on opposite sides of the conference table. But by sharing a screen and sitting in close proximity to each other, the environment naturally becomes more comfortable and relaxed.

       首次会面尽量避免使用投影仪

      大多数VC在会议室中接待创业者。一般我会带上自己的笔记本电脑和视频转接器。有一次拜访一家著名基金公司，我忘记带视频转接器。此时，为了避免尴尬和麻烦，我决定改变策略，直接用笔记本电脑向投资人演示幻灯片，当然这种情况仅适用于与2人以下的投资人会面时。结果证明笔记本演示的效果非常不错，而我也揽得一张投资框架协议。我分析其原因在于当创业者与投资人一起聚集在笔记本面前时，彼此距离拉得更近，相对于距离较远的会议室模式，氛围更加融洽，更令人放松。

       Understanding an investor’s perspective

        Every venture partner has his or her own ideal approach to learning about your business. Some are ‘product guys’ who will want to really dig in to your product or service. Other are financed focused, while others will be initially focused on the team you have assembled. Knowing what type of founder you are is critical to finding the right investment partner. Do you want to work with someone who has the same focus as yourself? Or would you rather work with an investor who brings a different yet complementary focus to the company? You should always know the background of every investor you meet with and attempt to determine what their focus is before meeting them. You can do this by looking at their prior work experience – did they run a sales organization or a product group? Or have they been in venture their entire career? Their prior experiences can give you a fairly confident idea of their perspective and expertise on company-building.

        了解每个投资人的立场

        每个投资人在了解创业公司时都有各自的出发点：有的人更关注产品或服务，有的人更注重财务，有的人一开始则更看重团队。创业者要先对自己的出发点有非常准确的认知，才能找到合适的投资人。你更愿意与自己出发点相似的投资人合作，还是更愿意与自己互补的投资人合作呢？在会面之前，创业者应该对投资人的背景有一定了解。创业者可以通过投资人的工作经验来了解他们：他们之前是负责销售还是产品？他们整个职业生涯都是VC吗？从他们的工作经验你可以推测出每个人的思考方法和在企业建设中的专长。

        The initial slide deck

       Usually, an initial meeting lasts 30 minutes to 1 hour. The time moves fairly quickly and I have sat in on pitches where the investor is left no time to answer questions. This is typically due to the founder bringing an excess of slides, most of which at this point are unnecessary. The initial meeting exists so that you can introduce your company to the potential investor, gauge interest, and move to the next step in the process. In order to achieve this desired outcome, you must give a solid overview of the business without falling into a discussion or technical rathole. Ratholes typically happen due to an excess of slides that slow the progression and flow of the meeting. During my fund raising, I took an extreme approach to initial meetings where I only utilized 5 slides.  The worst thing you could do is open up a presentation that says page 1 of 30. If you can’t outline your business in just 5 slides, you should go back to the drawing board and simplify your messaging. After initial introductions and chit chat at the onset of the meeting, I would then typically begin my presentation with something like the following:

        “I have a short five-slide deck to share that provides a solid framework for understanding our business.”

         Opening with this simple statement frames your presentation in the mind of the investor. They now know upfront that there are only 5 slides as opposed to 30. When I began with this statement, I instantly noticed increased engagement on the part of the potential investors. Note that below are only the slides as I spoke directly about much of the vision, strategy, value, and potential of the business.

         首次会面中的幻灯片

      与投资人的首次会面通常持续30分钟至1个小时，时间非常宝贵。为了给投资人留出足够的时间提出他们关心的问题，创业者一定要确保用简洁有力的陈述向投资人展示你的公司，激发起他们的兴趣，然后才能进入下一步。演讲者应当尽量避免在介绍的过程中陷入讨论或者技术性漏洞。

       我采取了非常极端的做法，他将所有的内容囊括在5张幻灯片中。他典型的开场白是：

       “我用简短的5张幻灯片清晰地勾勒出我们的业务框架，跟各位分享一下”

       做出这样的陈述之后，我立刻注意到投资人表现得十分感兴趣。接下来就是这5张神奇的幻灯片，它们介绍了创业公司的愿景、策略、价值观和潜力。