50 Global Entrepreneurs Recommend 50 Books That Forever Impacted Their Lives. From 2011 to 2013, I read 197 books, and I became more cultured, intelligent, informed and dare I say better looking.
Books have the power to change lives. ( I feel like somebody needs to queue the Reading Rainbow theme song. “Take a look, it’s in a book, Reading Rainbow!”) I’m pro entrepreneur in all I do. Let’s consider me the self-proclaimed "People’s Entrepreneur. " My mission is to help other entrepreneurs realize their dreams and maximize their potential. It’s the reason I created a Facebook group for a bunch of entrepreneurs to connect, share their wisdom, stories and ask questions. Related: 9 Brilliant Business Books You Can Read in an Afternoon One of the recent questions was, “Name one book that has had the greatest impact on your life.” 1. The Lean Startup Conference. Start Smart: Many Ways To Build Your Investor IQ. Startup Network.
Best Books For Entrepreneurs. Improve pitching ideas with our free pitch-training tool. Why Angel Investors Are Angry at Big VCs. 8 Mistakes to Avoid When Presenting to VC Firms. Over the years I have been amazed time after time, regardless of advice, how so many entrepreneurs present to a venture capital firm and repeatedly make the same mistakes.
A company has one chance to make an impression, 10 minutes to capture the audience's attention and persuade a VC that their company is truly innovative and worth their time (not to mention their capital). On average, a partner at a VC firm will review over 300 deals a year and invest in only one or two. I usually give first-time entrepreneurs the following 8 key mistakes to avoid when presenting to a VC firm: 1. Starting a presentation off by discussing the IPO or billion-dollar exit A lot of people do this because this is the ultimate end goal, but experienced VCs understand that building a company takes time and if you are unrealistic about the amount of work that it takes to build a company, you lose credibility. 2.Going over 30 minutes Venture capitalists are busy so don't waste time rambling. 5. 7.
Products Archive - Hitchly. A gallery of startup pitch decks. Selecting Your Investors. Customer Development Labs. Interviewing Customers is a Special Kind of Torture Talk to a stranger.
Fun.That stranger is immensely busy…and hates being sold things. Getting better.That stranger will likely destroy your vision for a company. Ready to get started?! When I started interviewing customers, the only thing I cared less about than talking about other people’s problems, was asking about them. “Would you use a product that does _____________?” And “How much would you pay for it?” Turns out, those aren’t the most important questions…they’re the most misleading. Let’s Fix That Despite my early misgivings, learning to interview customers has become one of my most indispensable skills. For me, interviewing customers makes customer development…fulfilling. Instead of being stressed about what the customer is going to think about my idea, instead of fumbling over my words and worrying about the perfect way to pitch my product, a customer interview isn’t about me, my product, or my words.
How Not to Interview 2. 4. 5. Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning From Billion-Dollar Startups. Editor’s note: Aileen Lee is founder of Cowboy Ventures, a seed-stage fund that backs entrepreneurs reinventing work and personal life through software.
Previously, she joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1999 and was also founding CEO of digital media company RMG Networks, backed by KPCB. Follow her on Twitter @aileenlee. Many entrepreneurs, and the venture investors who back them, seek to build billion-dollar companies. Why do investors seem to care about “billion dollar exits”? Historically, top venture funds have driven returns from their ownership in just a few companies in a given fund of many companies. So, we wondered, as we’re a year into our new fund (which doesn’t need to back billion-dollar companies to succeed, but hey, we like to learn): how likely is it for a startup to achieve a billion-dollar valuation? To answer these questions, the Cowboy Ventures team built a dataset of U.S. Learnings to date about the “Unicorn Club”: So, what does this all mean?