4 ms·

Creating a Killer Early-Stage Pitch Deck for Angels & VCs.

55 points by dell9000 15y ago

dpapathanasiou 15y ago
Is "Killer" the new "Rock Star"? BTW, the original post title is simply: "Creating an Early Stage Pitch Deck"
callmeed 15y ago
This is cool but I have a question I rarely see explained here on HN or elsewhere: How do you actually get in front of an Angel or VC to show them your deck/demo? Assuming that one like myself (a) lives outside SV but can visit easily, (b) has past experience and moderate success bootstrapping, and (c) knows absolutely no one in the angel/VC circles ... how would you setup a 3 to 5-day visit to SV in order to pitch potential investors? Will Ryan Spoon (who wrote this post) even reply to my email? Or is this advise only for those who are 2 degrees of separation from him?
- colinyoung 15y ago
  Never hurts to try. And there are answers to those questions -- I'll try below, but I'm sure other places can answer it better. If you don't know anyone, the best way to get intros is to do an incubator program. Regardless, people there are generally very nice and most will make intros pretty easily. But to do a 3-5 day blitz is extremely difficult even for people with huge rolodexes; especially if you're raising from VCs as the followup cycle can include up to a half-dozen meetings. And not meeting in person on those can hurt you because VCs care most about team. I would say AngelList is probably your best bet for that quick of a blitz, but it's probably best to budget a week and a half or more.
- fedd 15y ago
  i live much farther than you can imagine, and they (some of them) replied me. (and +1 to angellist, magic thing)
- pbreit 15y ago
  If you can't get a warm introduction to someone like Ryan Spoon, Dave McClure, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, et. al., you need to work a little harder. If you have #4 (which you should by the time you seek semi-professional money), they will be thrilled to either talk to you or refer you to someone.
klochner 15y ago
I saw this reply shortly after it was posted: "never give out your pitch deck" http://twitter.com/#!/rafer/status/65477539711295489 http://twitter.com/#!/rafer/status/65477539711295489
- count 15y ago
  That seems rather ludicrous.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

55 points by dell9000 15y ago

Is "Killer" the new "Rock Star"? BTW, the original post title is simply: "Creating an Early Stage Pitch Deck"

This is cool but I have a question I rarely see explained here on HN or elsewhere: How do you actually get in front of an Angel or VC to show them your deck/demo? Assuming that one like myself (a) lives outside SV but can visit easily, (b) has past experience and moderate success bootstrapping, and (c) knows absolutely no one in the angel/VC circles ... how would you setup a 3 to 5-day visit to SV in order to pitch potential investors? Will Ryan Spoon (who wrote this post) even reply to my email? Or is this advise only for those who are 2 degrees of separation from him?

colinyoung 15y ago
Never hurts to try. And there are answers to those questions -- I'll try below, but I'm sure other places can answer it better. If you don't know anyone, the best way to get intros is to do an incubator program. Regardless, people there are generally very nice and most will make intros pretty easily. But to do a 3-5 day blitz is extremely difficult even for people with huge rolodexes; especially if you're raising from VCs as the followup cycle can include up to a half-dozen meetings. And not meeting in person on those can hurt you because VCs care most about team. I would say AngelList is probably your best bet for that quick of a blitz, but it's probably best to budget a week and a half or more.
fedd 15y ago
i live much farther than you can imagine, and they (some of them) replied me. (and +1 to angellist, magic thing)
pbreit 15y ago
If you can't get a warm introduction to someone like Ryan Spoon, Dave McClure, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, et. al., you need to work a little harder. If you have #4 (which you should by the time you seek semi-professional money), they will be thrilled to either talk to you or refer you to someone.

klochner 15y ago

I saw this reply shortly after it was posted: "never give out your pitch deck" http://twitter.com/#!/rafer/status/65477539711295489 http://twitter.com/#!/rafer/status/65477539711295489

count 15y ago
That seems rather ludicrous.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]