How We Raised $1.3 Million As First-Time Founders When Jim and I quit our finance jobs to start the next big thing, we were really unprepared for our startup journey. We didn’t have startup experience, we had no real domain expertise (our startup wasn’t going to be about finance), and we didn’t know any investors in the tech community. There was very little reason for them to want to invest in our startup. Exactly three years later, we raised $1.3 million for Yipit, a daily deals aggregator, from Ron Conway and David Lee’s SV Angel, RRE, DFJ Gotham, IA Ventures, and a handful of other amazing tech investors. This post isn’t about the tactics we used once we started getting interest — I’ll share that with you later and you should check out VentureHacks. Note: We didn’t think of raising money as a goal. Below are the the key moments in our journey: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Getting Traction was HUGE As you can see, getting traction was huge for us.
Thoughts How to nail the five-minute pitch Editor’s note: Chuck Dietrich is chief executive of online presentation startup SlideRocket. Startup CEOs wear many hats. None, perhaps, is more important than that of “company pitchman.” In today’s competitive funding climate, CEOs often present at events like Under the Radar, South by Southwest, and DEMO –- where they have five minutes on stage to ‘sell’ their company to potential investors, partners, and customers. Getting these presentations right leads to financing, buzz and growth; getting them wrong doesn’t. In my role as CEO of SlideRocket, I view hundreds of presentations a week and thousands over the course of the year. So how do you make a great startup presentation? 1. Critical questions to answer during your presentation include: What is the company vision? 2. 3. The Basic Pitch Outline Following is a sample outline that I have seen many successful startup presentations follow. At pitch events, you have just five minutes to stand out from the other presenting companies.
Does Your Startup Have a Good Story? Never underestimate the importance of having a good story when pitching your startup to potential investors, clients, partners, and journalists. As Seth Godin writes in his 2005 bestseller All Marketers Are Liars, "Either you're going to tell stories that spread or you're going to become irrelevant." Godin's book addresses a shift in marketing - away from simply presenting factual information and towards telling great stories. As Godin suggests, these stories make us want to believe - in a product, in an idea, in a company. As you craft a story for your startup - whether it's to be used in marketing, in a pitch to investors, or in conversation with friends and family - here are some things to keep in mind. Your story should be short. Your story should be easy to tell. Your story should be memorable. Your story should make an argument. Your story should be strategic. Your story should be relevant. How to Tell a Good Story You startup should have a good story.
Behind the Scenes: How Fab Raised $40 million with a lot of data and not much pain Let’s face it, fundraising can be a real pain in the ass for the entrepreneur. It takes up a ton of time that can be otherwise spent managing the business. Sure, it’s a necessary evil, but it’s also typically a big distraction. It’s also a lot like dating. When we decided to raise a large round of financing for Fab in October, my biggest concern was that it would divert our management team’s time and attention away from running the business at a critical time, as we were simultaneously scrambling to prepare for our first holiday season at Fab. As our “one thing” at Fab.com is design, I put a lot of thought and consideration into how we might design our fundraising process differently from the norm, so as to optimize around time spent fundraising vs. running the business, and to quickly hone in on who we wanted to marry. The typical VC dog and pony show goes like this: VC’s approach company or Company approaches VC’s. Here’s what we did differently with Fab’s recent round. One final note.
92 Ways to Get (and Maximize) Press Coverage I love Ben Affleck's first scene in the movie "Boiler Room." I always felt that the quote above perfectly relates to companies and press coverage. The ones who don’t get coverage will quickly dismiss it as useless and a waste of time and money to pursue, while the ones who regularly get coverage just smile and hope that you keep thinking that way... Over the last 12 years, I have been featured in hundreds of major newspapers, magazines, websites and blogs (everything ranging from the NY Times, USA Today and CNN to TechCrunch, Entrepreneur and so on), and I can tell you first-hand that it has helped me and my companies in an enormous way. It's brought me: Publicity (well duh, Chris!) Even more importantly, I have helped hundreds of businesses and friends get coverage. "Incidentally, your advice on PR in the past has been invaluable with [their domain] - PR is our biggest source of traffic by miles." I had no idea this was the case. Follow all of the reporters you’re targeting.
How To Turn Personal Posts Into Good Business Blogging 5 Questions The Best Networkers Ask The 13 Best Business Lessons From "Rework" Startups: What’s in a name? Having a catchy name for your business or product is more important than ever. A memorable name will help people find your company’s website, Twitter feed or Facebook page or find related reviews or apps. Even a great product or company will lose some of its shine if customers and potential customers can’t locate it on the Internet. In the era of social media a name or logo can be the primary way a company is identified in every nook and cranny of the Internet. A trademark can be nearly anything, so long as it creates a mental connection between the public and a product or company. For example, Kodak is a term that was created by George Eastman specifically for his business. Because many Internet businesses are built upon technology created by someone else, such as Twitter clients using the Twitter API, it is not uncommon to try and share in that companies branding and naming.
How To Pick A Company Name: Tips From The Trenches The following is a guest post by Healy Jones. Healy is head of marketing at OfficeDrop, a digital filing system and document scanning service and a former venture capitalist. Pixily just changed its name to OfficeDrop – this is the story of how we went about making the change. There comes a time for a lot of companies when they decide that it’s time for a new name. Pixily to OfficeDrop We found ourselves asking, well… ourselves, this very question this past December. Reasons and Goals for Change First you should know the reasons we changed our name from Pixily. This being understood, our very first step in deciding on a new name was making sure whatever we chose overcame the issues with Pixily. a) Simple to rememberb) Easy to sayc) Highly spellable (Is spellable a word? We also set some parameters for things like length, composition, and interpretability. Brainstorming Session Now that we knew what we wanted, we had to find a way to generate some names. 1. 2. 3. Narrow it Down 1. 2. 3. 4.
57 things I’ve learned founding three companies Jason Goldberg is the founder and CEO of Fabulis, a gay social network and previously founded Jobster and Socialmedian. He originally published this essay on his personal blog, Betashop. I’ve been founding and helping run technology companies since 1999. My latest company is Fabulis.com. Here are 57 lessons I’ve learned along the way. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. Are you making or losing money with marketing automation?
Advice From Founders Who Bootstrapped Their Way to Success In my last post, I discussed why the odds of a rookie entrepreneur getting seed financing from a VC are very slim. The reality is that less than 5% of venture money goes to seed-stage startups; VCs typically invest when a company has a working product, a tested business model, and a strong management team. It’s the entrepreneurs who take the risk; not the VCs. Take Chicago-based Threadless. My Q&A with Jake: Would you have taken a VC investment if you could have, when you started? Definitely not, as I was starting a hobby and not a business. Why did you take investment and how has that experience been? We were having major operations trouble and weren’t incredibly excited about fixing it ourselves. What advice would you give fellow entrepreneurs? If you want your life to be fun as an entrepreneur, I suggest going into it with realistic expectations and to measure your success in different ways than financially. My Q&A with the team: We’re really glad we didn’t.