You don’t walk over the pitcher’s mound in baseball or cry in baseball either
And you never say these five things in a VC Pitch
1) “I am a brand new market; I have no competition”
Even when you’re on the bleeding edge of innovation, someone is in the market and always watching.
Not to mention no competitor = no acquirer
2) “Our market is hundreds of billions of dollars, and we estimate that we will capture 2% of that market in our first three years”
Talk through the strategy from the bottom up and hit ‘em with that TAM, SAM, and SOM, my guy
Show you’ve done the research
3) “Though our competition’s product has these features, our product has these and several more! Because of this, we are much better than our competitors”
Mo’ Features, Mo’ Problems
Talk directly about your differentiation, and don’t be afraid to give us a side-by-side comparison of a competitive product. But, of course, it’s more beneficial for the “so what?”
A graph or a chart captures a fraction of the idea
You need details
4) “We outsourced some of our company’s essential elements”
But 99% of people are approaching it the wrong way.
Here are 5 things aspiring investors need to do to successfully launch their investing career:
1/ Buy a full zip vest
This is a must have in the VC industry. Patagonia will increase your odds of landing a role at Benchmark or A16Z. Arc'teryx is acceptable but frowned upon.
DO NOT wear a branded vest unless your dad is a partner at the firm
2/ In every conversation, make sure to ask how you can help
> "The weather is nice today, let me know how I can help"
> "Sucks you laid off the whole team, let me know how I can help"
> "No, I can't lead your seed++ extension, but let me know how else I can help"
Here are 5 things all product managers must do to unlock their full potential:
1/ Craft amazing looking pitch decks
Quality of deck? Doesn’t matter. Aesthetic of deck? Very important.
Want to convince the team to build the useless feature you proposed? Get good at making decks.
2/ Work from a pool
The pool is where all product managers do their best work. Things you can do from the pool:
- Write a product doc
- Dial into standup
- Ask the engineers for updates
- Play Marco Polo in between calls
- Brainstorm the 10 year vision
We had the honor of interviewing Elon Musk this week to learn about the daily routine of the most successful man on the planet.
Here's what he shared:
4:20am: Wake up, extreme cold shower to shock the body. (Musk's $250k custom shower cools to 37 degrees)
4:25am: Chugs 12 raw eggs for breakfast
4:30am: Heads to planet fitness for a quick workout. He told us he likes PF the best because their name contains the word 'planet'
5:00am: Create 4-6 memes for the day, Tweet out the first
5:30am: Deep work. He is currently learning about the regioregularity effect in self-organizing conjugated polymer films and high-efficiency polythiophene
6:00am: Invent new solar battery pack
6:30am: Fire off meme #2