Investors have a short attention span.
They will give you the most attention at the start of your pitch.
In the first 5 minutes be crystal clear about what you actually do.
Let's dive in:
Sequoia Capital has created over $3.3 trillion dollars in value.
Steal their pitch deck framework for free:
Investors have a short attention span.
They will give you the most attention at the start of your pitch.
In the first 5 minutes be crystal clear about what you actually do.
Let's dive in:
What is your mission?
Condense into a simple powerful sentence.
Don't list features– communicate your purpose.
Include a simple graphic that describes your business model.
Nobody cares what you can do. Everybody cares what you can do for them.
What challenges do you address and solve?
• Describe the pain of your customer (bigger the better)
• Explain how this is currently addressed
• Show why the current market offerings are inadequate
Don't build a solution that's looking for a problem.
What key points will communicate the most value?
• What was your 'aha' moment?
• Why is your value proposition unique and compelling?
• Are you building a competitive moat such as network effects?
• How big can this market grow?
Timing is everything.
The best companies have a clear why now.
• Why hasn't your solution been built before?
• What industry trends make this the perfect time to act?
A famous example is Netflix: high-speed internet made streaming services possible.
Can this be a really big opportunity?
• Total addressable market (TAM) = total market demand
• Serviceable available market (SAM) = portion of TAM served by the company
• Serviceable obtainable market (SOM) = percentage of SAM which is realistically achieved
Thiel said:
"All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition."
Who are your direct and indirect competitors?
Know your market– map these out on an x/y axis.
What's your plan to win & differentiate?
I recommend pre-recoding a demo with Loom.
You get to record your screen and camera whilst giving a clear explanation.
A picture is worth 1000 words, a movie is worth a million pictures.
Bring the solution alive.
How do you make money?
Typically it falls into a few buckets:
• Advertising
• Subscription
• Transactions
Include metrics around critical areas including:
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Life time value (LTV)
Your people are the most important factor that determine whether your startup succeeds or fails.
People recruit talent, garner attention and win deals.
Highlight special talents and experiences that make the individual suited to the business.
Don't get lost in the numbers– keep it simple.
I recommend highlighting key metrics and growth charts.
Show sources and uses (what you are raising and how you will spend it).
What are the key milestones?
Using a timeline will help demonstrate your runway.
1. Company Purpose
2. Problem
3. Solution
4. Why Now
5. Market Size
6. Competition
7. Product
8. Business Model
9. Team
10. Financials
If you liked this thread, you'll love the newsletter.
Subscribe here:
https://t.co/vlGCY549bQ
https://t.co/nIK8C3AFgL
10 startup metrics every business owner must know:
— Alex Banks (@thealexbanks) June 15, 2022
Sequoia Capital has created over $3.3 trillion dollars in value.
— Alex Banks (@thealexbanks) July 25, 2022
Steal their pitch deck framework for free:
More from Alex Banks
10 threads that will teach you more about business than any business degree:
1/ Who: @naval
What: Principles to wealth creation
Tweet:
2/ Who: @sweatystartup
What: Actions to wealth creation
Tweet:
3/ Who: @RomeenSheth
What: Early career
4/ Who: @heykahn
What: Career
1/ Who: @naval
What: Principles to wealth creation
Tweet:
How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):
— Naval (@naval) May 31, 2018
2/ Who: @sweatystartup
What: Actions to wealth creation
Tweet:
How to get rich without getting lucky:
— Nick Huber (@sweatystartup) September 28, 2020
Find a way to make $100 an hour doing something simple IN YOUR TOWN.
Do it until you have $10k+ in the bank and you\u2019re too busy to sell new customers.
Hire employee for $25 / hr to do what you do so you can sell new customers.
Repeat.
3/ Who: @RomeenSheth
What: Early career
Early career years are painful.
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth) February 8, 2022
You feel like an idiot 98% of the time - lost, confused and insecure.
I wish I had a cheat sheet of principles for my first job.
So I put one together.
Here are 20 things about building a career I wish I knew sooner:
4/ Who: @heykahn
What: Career
The first years of your career are brutal.
— Zain Kahn (@heykahn) January 25, 2022
You're on your own and you have no clue what you're doing.
I wish I had a guide back then \u2015 so I made my own.
And I went from 0 to VP in 3 years.
Here are 11 principles to accelerate your career now:
I have a masters degree in finance.
But I've learned 10x more from Twitter.
10 threads that will make you a better investor:
1/ Who: @naval
What: Principles to wealth creation
Tweet:
2/ Who: @10kdiver
What: Achieving financial freedom
Tweet:
3/ Who: @trengriffin
What: Money flows as a function of the
4/ Who: @girdley
What: How to get paid when investing in a new
But I've learned 10x more from Twitter.
10 threads that will make you a better investor:
1/ Who: @naval
What: Principles to wealth creation
Tweet:
How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):
— Naval (@naval) May 31, 2018
2/ Who: @10kdiver
What: Achieving financial freedom
Tweet:
Get a cup of coffee.
— 10-K Diver (@10kdiver) January 1, 2022
Let's kickstart 2022!
To that end, here are 22 key concepts to help you appreciate and achieve Financial Independence.
3/ Who: @trengriffin
What: Money flows as a function of the
1/ Don Valentine (Sequoia founder):
— Tren Griffin (@trengriffin) February 15, 2020
"The art of storytelling is incredibly important. Learning to tell a story is critically important because that\u2019s how the money works. The money flows as a function of the story.\u201d
A venture capitalist get to see all kinds of storytellers.
4/ Who: @girdley
What: How to get paid when investing in a new
17 of the coolest ways I\u2019ve seen people get rich.
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) December 29, 2021
(1/x)
Over 3.5 billion tweets are posted each week.
But most people are reading the wrong ones.
Here are the 10 best tweets from the week guaranteed to make you smarter:
1/ Who: @KurtisHanni
Topic: Build an elite
2/ Who: @heykahn
Topic: Become an effective decision
3/ Who: @amandanat
Topic: Hot takes on life, careers and
4/ Who: @EvergreenMEP
Topic: Upgrade your
But most people are reading the wrong ones.
Here are the 10 best tweets from the week guaranteed to make you smarter:
1/ Who: @KurtisHanni
Topic: Build an elite
An introvert's guide to elite networking.
— Kurtis Hanni (@KurtisHanni) March 8, 2022
9 tips to build a network:
2/ Who: @heykahn
Topic: Become an effective decision
The world's most powerful skill:
— Zain Kahn (@heykahn) March 12, 2022
Effective decision-making.
But colleges eat up 4 years of our lives and don't even bother teaching it.
Instead, here are 10 quick lessons from psychology that will upgrade your decision-making in the next 5 minutes:
3/ Who: @amandanat
Topic: Hot takes on life, careers and
I'm having a glass of whiskey after a long day.
— Amanda Natividad (@amandanat) March 9, 2022
Some spicy takes about life, careers, and creating:
4/ Who: @EvergreenMEP
Topic: Upgrade your
I have worked with dozens of startup founders and hundreds of their leaders.
— Greg Moran \U0001f30e Evergreen Mountain Equity Partners (@EvergreenMEP) March 13, 2022
The biggest reason they don't achieve what they desire?
Founders hang on to leaders that can't scale.
Here are 6 ways to succeed faster by upgrading your leadership.
You May Also Like
I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹
I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):
The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹
Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹
References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹
I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):
The famous \u201cLucy\u201d, an early ancestor of modern humans (Australopithecus) that lived 3.2 million years ago, and was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia, displayed in the national museum in Addis Ababa \U0001f1ea\U0001f1f9 pic.twitter.com/N3oWqk1SW2
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) November 9, 2018
The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹
Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹
References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹
I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.
I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.
In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.
So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.
Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.
Ironies of Luck https://t.co/5BPWGbAxFi
— Morgan Housel (@morganhousel) March 14, 2018
"Luck is the flip side of risk. They are mirrored cousins, driven by the same thing: You are one person in a 7 billion player game, and the accidental impact of other people\u2019s actions can be more consequential than your own."
I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.
In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.
So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.
Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.
