How it works How Investors Think Traction Pitch Improvement Avoiding Douchiness Fundraising is a process

1. @brendanbaker | March 2015
Brendan Baker

2. Today
Brendan Baker
• How it works
• How Investors Think
• Traction
• Pitch Improvement
• Avoiding Douchiness
• Fundraising is a process

3. Founder
Brendan Baker
Investor
Building a narrative. How venture investing is
changing. AngelList. What it’s like to be employee 2.
De-MBAifying myself. How to communicate traction
to investors. The 4 companies I’d leave Greylock for.
How reference points have changed my life. How
seed fundraising actually works. Strong opinions on
accelerators. The pace of true creators. The magic of
rapid prototyping. Data in VC. The most interesting
companies I saw at AngelList. The strategy to
building a great early network. Who actually changes
an industry (or company) from within? Why it’s an
amazing time to start a tech company. Productive life
as a series of rounds in a game. Focus, low ego, and
other life experiments. How I got my jobs at AngelList
and Greylock. What’s in a great fundraising pitch?
How to find a great job in Silicon Valley. What a
fundraising process looks like.

5. How Investors Think.
Brendan Baker
Green is good.

6. Brendan Baker
Problem Solution Product
Roadmap
Market Distribution
Story
RaiseTeam
Model /
Business
Traction
Unit
economics
Expect the basics.

7. Credible < Notable
Brendan Baker
Friendly meeting Funded
Team
Traction
Market
Product
Team
Traction
Market
Product
+
-
+
-

8. Excitement > Hesitation
Brendan Baker

9. Derisking.
Brendan Baker
Risk
Progress
Can they build the product?
Will people use it?
Will people pay for it?
Will people come in mass?

10. Brendan Baker
Compare vs the market.

11. Brendan Baker
Finding Matches
20 / 80Don’t MatchMatch

12. Brendan Baker
Think at 30,000 Feet
Execution
Vision
How the world
will be

13. Brendan Baker
Momentum

14. Traction is your story of
momentum, told through
quantified evidence of
market demand for your
product.
Brendan Baker

15. “quantified evidence”
Brendan Baker
Profits
Revenues
Active users
Engagement
Customers/clients
Registered Users
Downloads
Partnerships
Traffic
Yes Maybe
Cohort progress
Engagement progress
Product velocity
No
Press
Testimonials
* This isn’t a set list. Use evidence that makes sense for you.

16. Brendan Baker
“They’re super early, but they build and learn fast. They’re
worth betting on.”
story
traction

17. Brendan Baker
“They’re creating a marketplace. That’s hard, but they know it.
They knew they had to build the supply side first, and they
nailed it. Now they’re tackling the demand side. Early
indications are good, and I think they know how to ramp it up.”
Launched in November 2014:
- 25,000 vendors, with avg 25 items (growing 20-30%/month)
- 110K uniques (growing 40%/month), with 3% conversion
- avg purchase of $45 (growing 5%/month)
- $120,000 revenue run rate (increasing 30%/month)
- Just signed partnership with Yahoo! And ramping up ads.
story
traction

18. Traction Techniques
Brendan Baker
• Compress the X axis
• Choose your X axis
• Bracket your progress (lower their
expectations)
• Choose your Y axis
• Absolute + growth numbers
• B2B or enterprise storytelling (rollout)
• Annotate a graph
• No testimonials or press mentions!

19. Pitch Improvement
Brendan Baker
Practice Meetings with
‘Team’, and then 2nd
choice investors
CEO (+1?) Founding Team Real pitches
with investors
WHAT
WHO

20. Pitch Improvement
Brendan Baker
Why?
Why do you care?
Why are you doing this?
Why are you creating this?
Why?

21. Pitch Improvement
Brendan Baker
Value Proposition

22. Pitch Improvement
Brendan Baker
Now Statement
Why is now the only time that this could be
created?
Why are you the only team who could create
this?

23. Pitch Improvement
Brendan Baker
Storyboarding
http://www.quora.com/Brendan-Baker/Posts/Startups-How-to-Storyboard-your-Pitch-Deck-in-10-Steps

24. Pitch Improvement
Brendan Baker
Fat and Formatting
Cut fat
• Max 3-4 bullet points
• Max a few words
• Remove ineffective images
Formatting
• All titles and body copy in same position, same color
• White space
• De-pixelate images
• Clean up diagrams

25. Pitch Improvement
Brendan Baker
Excitement and Hesitation Game
Excitement
• …
• …
• …
• …
Hesitation
• …
• …
• …
• …

26. Pitching like a non-douche
Brendan Baker
• Capture their attention
• Be concise and focused
• Use evidence (gamechanger rule)
• Show conviction (strong wording, etc)
• Make it easy (screenshots, logins, etc)
• Build momentum by QBing your team
• Reflect offline success on AL

27. Brendan Baker
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(Example only. Others may apply)
Fundraising is a Process