Small Business Update

GIST KITSAP/BUSINESS—Few tasks are more exciting than recruiting great people for a hot startup, and few factors are more critical to success than great people. It’s not enough that candidates are qualified to work for your startup; they must also believe in your product because working for a startup is closer to a religion than […]

SEATTLE/BUSINESS—If there’s a crud in your company that you haven’t or can’t clean up immediately, disclose it to investors early in the fund-raising process. The later you reveal it, the harder it is to inform, and the more it will harm your credibility. For example, Garage Technology Ventures once invested in a company that disclosed

KITSAP/BUSINESS—Familiarity breeds content. When you are totally familiar and comfortable with your pitch, you’ll be able to give it most effectively. There are no shortcuts to achieving familiarity—you have to pitch a lot of times. PRACTICE MAKES PITCH PERFECT. More practice would eventually help you improve your pitch. Twenty-five repetitions are what it takes for

KITSAP/BUSINESS—Many entrepreneurs believe that investors invest in teams, so they should demonstrate teamwork in their pitches. Using this reasoning line, four or five employees attend the rise, and each has a speaking role. The logic that everyone should have a speaking role is terrific for a school play. Parents and grandparents see their precious jewels

KITSAP/BUSINESS—If you obey the 10/20/30 Rule, your pitches will be better than those of 90 percent of entrepreneurs. To come even closer to perfect on, master these fine points: NEVER. READ. YOUR. SLIDES. Never read your slides. The text on slides is your anchor point. The words out of your mouth are explanatory and embellished.

KITSAP/BUSINESS—Do you have Méniere’s disease? The medical term used for the combination of tinnitus, hearing loss, and vertigo. There is no cure, but there are many theories about its cause, side effects, medication, and treatment. Some people believe that Méniére’s is the outcome of listening to numerous crappy pitches. Pareto’s Principle is that 80 percent

KITSAP/BUSINESS—VERY GREAT COMPANY is unique, but there are a few things that every business must get right at the beginning. We stress this so often because a startup witnessed up at its foundation cannot be fixed. Beginnings are special. They are qualitatively different from all that comes afterward. This was true 13.8 billion years ago,

GIST Forget, “I think. Therefore I am,” For entrepreneurs, the operative phrase is “I pitch. Therefore I am.” Pitching isn’t only for raising cash—it’s for achieving agreement, and agreement can yield many good results, including sales, partnerships, and new recruitment. Question: How on earth can you know if a businessman is pitching? Answer: Look in his eyes!!

You can’t find secrets without looking for them. Andrew Wiles demonstrated this when he proved Fermat’s Last Theorem after 358 years of fruitless inquiry by other mathematicians — the kind of sustained failure that might have suggested an inherently impossible task. Pierre de Fermat had conjectured in 1637 that no integers a, b, and c

KITSAP/BUSINESS—Why would professional VCs, of all people, fail to see the power law? For one thing, it only becomes apparent over time, and even technology investors too often live in the present. Imagine a firm invests in 10 companies with the potential to become monopolies—already an unusually disciplined portfolio. Those companies will look very similar