artiman ventures reviews the perfect pitch or strike out - akhil saklecha
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Artiman ventures team member Akhil Saklecha reviews the perfect pitch. This presentation shares insights on Investors and Entreprenueurs along with the 12 slide rules for the perfect pitch. To know more, go to www.artiman.comTRANSCRIPT
The Perfect Pitchor strikeout
Akhil Saklecha
Artiman Ventures
Artiman: Investors & Entrepreneurs
U.S. Investment Team
Amit ShahYatin MundkurTom DennedyAkhil SaklechaAjit SinghTim Wilson
India Team
M. J. AravindRamesh Radhakrishnan
US Operations Team
Ida Ng
EIR
Frank ThibodeauAdam De La ZerdaMahmood PanjwaniAtul SharanRob Levy
Venture Investing Experience– Collectively managing $900+M invested in 140+ seed/early–stage
companies – 88 exits with aggregate realized return of 3.3x– 11 IPO’s and 32 acquisitions
Entrepreneurial Experience– Co-founded 10 startups in the U.S. and India– 6 successful exits with aggregate value of > $1 Billion
• ZeitNet, PipeLinks, Equator, Daksh, Ross, Kaleida, Clarity, Airgo, BioImagene
Operating Experience - public and private – Cisco, Rockwell, Siemens, AMD, AT&T, Lucent, Cabletron, Digital
Island, FireEye, Airgo, Clarity Wireless, Adaptive, Compaq, Qualcomm, HP
Technology Background– Played pioneering roles in seminal industries: Server Computing,
Networking, Voice over IP, IPTV, Digital Consumer Electronics– 26 US patents
Shop talk
• VC’s are ‘shallow’ people• KISS• Start at the beginning and top-
down• Don’t get sucked into
arguments that aren’t pertinent to the company
• Financials at 3 years aren’t $10M+
• Don’t try and ‘create competition’
• Don’t bluff. We all talk to each other.
• White board
Be prepared…
• Know your data, market, customers
• Bring your own dongle• Expect your demo to fail• How much time do you have?• You’ve got less than 30
minutes…
12 Slide Rule
• Exec Summary
• The Problem• Market• The Solution• Business
Model• Technology
• IP/Regulatory• Competition• Team• Financials• Capital needs• Exec
Summary
The Breakdown
• Exec summary– Begin and end with it– It should tell the story– Current status of the company– Broad strokes– Don’t let questions distract you
The lion and the mouse
• The Problem– Go big or go home– Needs to touch a lot of people
• Market– Top Down– Bottoms Up– Is it growing?– Who and where are the
customers?
Bigger is better
• The Solution– Must Have, Deadly Sins– Disruptive– Makes sense– Can you do it?
• Business Model– How do you make money?
Breakeven?– Do you understand sales &
marketing?
Dogs pee to mark their turf. What do you do?
• IP– Patents are like gold– But is it fundamental?– Crowded areas need FTO
• Regulatory– What is needed here?– It’s all about time and money
Find the white space
• Competition– Know them well– Your uniqueness needs to be very
clear– Three’s a crowd
• Team– If you had great exits - move to
slide #1– Brands and experience– Domain knowledge and depth– More than 50% of the equation
Show me the money
• Financials– Bottoms up creation– Does it scale?– VC’s love haircuts
• So what’s the Ask?– What’s been raised? Any skin in
the game?– What are you going to do with it?– Is it realistic?
Wrap it up
• Exec summary– End where you began
• Concluding remarks– How do you get to $1B revenue– Summarize thoughts and concerns– What info can you send?– Who are the experts that you can
connect?– When is the expected follow-up?