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How to Turn off a VC

Published on Jan 05, 2016

Talk from Secret Sauce Conference 2016

PRESENTATION OUTLINE

How to TURN off a VC

Or simply: "Don't do dumb stuff" @jasonball
Photo by MattysFlicks

This presentation was crowdsourced

Photo by Marco Gomes

NDA

  • Please sign the NDA under your chair before listening to this presentation.
  • I won't talk to you unless you do it.
  • No, really.
Photo by ilConte

ELEVATOR PITCH
We're the "Uber" of, the "Facebook" of, the "Google" of... Tinder for Dogs, etc

Photo by Lucio®

MON 10:58AM
HI JASON, PLS CAN U LET ME KNOW WHEN U R FREE 2 DISCUSS A STEALTH STARTUP I'M RUNNING? :)

Mountains from Molehills

  • Our cumulative revenue is...
  • Our gross revenue is...
  • Cumulative downloads...
  • "we are growing revenues by 200% month on month for the past 6 months"
Photo by Baron Reznik

Financials - aka Crazy talk

  • Our sales will start in 2017 with £565K growing to to £100M by year end
  • "We won't be raising any more money after this round"
  • Numbers in deck don't match back of envelope calculations
  • When they have to scale and don't know their acquisition channels but forecast huge revenues
Photo by black.zack00

Funding Round

  • When they ask me how much they should raise and don't realize that it is 100% linked to their operations
  • Put the pre-money valuation of the round you're just getting started to raise on your 1-pager. Makes me wanna yell at them.
  • (6 month old company) "a few of the angels would like to do secondary"

WED 11:57AM
OH HAI JASON, DID YOU SEE MY MESSAGE ABOUT MY STEALTH STARTUP? WEN CAN WE MEET PLS?

It's a billion dollar market and we only need 1% to become a unicorn

We don't have any competitors

Photo by puliarf

FRI 12:19PM
FWD : STEALTH STARUP (5)
HI MILES, NAGRAJ, PATRICK, JAMES, JACK
I'M RUNNING A SUPR SECRET STEALTH STARTUP. WEN CAN WE MEET?

my week

  • Monday: Travel, VC meeting, Co meeting, Dinner
  • Tuesday: Breakfast meeting, Board meeting, Travel
  • Weds: VC meeting, Board lunch, Board Meeting, Team call
  • Thurs: Investor breakfast, Board meeting, Board lunch, Co meeting, Co call
  • Friday: Email, Invoices, Expenses, Second Inbox, Presentations Prep
Photo by keoshi

pressure

  • I am fundraising for 3 weeks now - we need to close the round before Christmas, so you still have 4 days...
Photo by ThenAndAgain

YOUR TURN
@jasonball

Photo by andreas.klodt