How To Avoid Making A Bad Pitch
Posted By Scott Austin On April 9, 2009 @ 2:55 pm In Uncategorized | 1 Comment
By [1] Ty McMahan
All venture capitalists have probably experienced a bad pitch from an entrepreneur. But a couple years ago, the team at [2] Canaan Partners heard a real sleeper.
No, we mean, a real sleeper.
The chief executive and vice president of sales for a start-up company visited Canaan’s Menlo Park, Calif., office. Just as the CEO was hitting his stride, really driving home the reason Canaan should invest in his company, a deep, nasally sound vibrated across the conference table.
The VP of sales was taking a snooze.
“The CEO kept blazing through his pitch, acting like it wasn’t happening,” Canaan’s director of marketing, Gina Vakili, said. “If there’s an elephant in the room, we should all acknowledge it.”
It probably goes without saying, the company failed to attract funding from Canaan. Falling asleep in the middle of a pitch is a rare and extreme example of what not do when speaking to venture capitalists, but there are plenty of common mistakes that can be avoided.
To help entrepreneurs be prepared when they present to the firm, Canaan created the Entrepreneur Pitch Workbook, essentially a “Dummies” guide to pitching venture capitalists. (See below for a shorter, slideshow version of this guide.)...
here's the link: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/04/09/how-to-avoid-making-a-bad-pitch/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
