

Lessons from 150 startup pitches - tsondermann
http://blog.asmartbear.com/startup-lesson.html

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jkincaid
Regarding this one: "Pretending your faults don't exist."

Having seen quite a few pitches myself, one good thing you can do is point out
your major flaws/obstacles before you're asked about them (assuming they don't
clearly spell out your impending demise).

This may seem a little counterintuitive, but it lets you present the issue in
a better light and explain how you're going to fix it, instead of having the
investor feel like they've discovered a glaring weakness that you were trying
to brush under the table. I believe lawyers use a similar technique.

One caveat to this: I'm a blogger/reporter, so investors may have a different
perspective. But I'm guessing it holds true for them too.

~~~
adamesque
This ties in to an amazingly important (and rare) _personal_ characteristic:
self-awareness. Being able to honestly identify your own strengths and
weaknesses is the only way to systematically build the former and eliminate
the latter.

In my experience, few people are able to assess themselves effectively; it's
too easy to slide in one of two directions: avoidance or neurosis. But as the
saying goes: the unexamined life is not worth living.

~~~
edanm
I understand avoidance, but what do you mean by "neurosis"?

~~~
adamesque
Self-analysis can sometimes precipitate a cycle of anxiety and doubt. Some
people can leverage this constructively and use it as motivation, but for
others it's destructive.

I tend to think those people who seem crippled by self-doubt see just as
distorted a picture of themselves as people who are incapable of self-
examination, just skewed the other direction. Minimization vs maximization of
faults.

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arturadib
I was really surprised to see this post from Jason; it seems to go against
most things I've read from him in the past, including one of my favorite
startup posts:

[http://blog.asmartbear.com/your-idea-sucks-now-go-do-it-
anyw...](http://blog.asmartbear.com/your-idea-sucks-now-go-do-it-anyway.html)

I was involved in the hiring process for faculty members in academia, and our
approach has always been to invest primarily in individuals, rather than in
ideas. Ideas are disposable, and competent individuals will quickly learn how
to adjust their ideas to the circumstances.

Case in point: Jason's own product Code Historian (see blog post above).

I understand the difficulties that come with 100's of applications. The
admission criteria always end up being far from ideal. In my former academic
circle, we relied heavily on letters of recommendation; both who wrote them
and what was said about the candidate mattered. Everything else the candidate
wrote was only glanced over.

I would think something like that can be more effective than meticulously
analyzing someone's pitch.

~~~
rythie
It seems from reading that post that PayPal's and Flickr's original ideas were
ahead of their time.

Paypal's original idea is still a problem for people and it's similar to what
Square is doing now.

Flickr's original idea is lot like the social MMOs we see now like FarmVille
and many of the other Zynga games.

~~~
arturadib
I don't get it: Are you agreeing or disagreeing with what I said?

If you're right and the ideas were indeed ahead of their time, that means they
were still a bad business proposition (at the time). The founders should take
full credit for realizing this and adjusting accordingly.

~~~
rythie
I was merely commenting on the link you posted.

However, since they were ahead of their time so pivoting was the right thing
for them at that time.

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ccarpenterg
_Often you assume your customer is the same as you - sees the problem the same
way, wants to solve it your way, and wants to pay for it. But you're
explicitly not like your customers; for one thing, you have enough initiative
and insight to quit your job to start a company. It's easy to let your
idiosyncratic preconceptions prevent you from observing what the larger market
will accept._

I think that's a corporate perspective to review a startup pitch. In a startup
you're iterating and evolving your idea but you have some start point and
perhaps it's your 'idiosyncratic preconceptions'.

~~~
AlexBlom
At the very least you need to have the idea confirmed and ensure the problem
exists outside of your entrepreneurial vision.

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mrtron
Very accurate - I think this is a must read for anyone embarking on a new
startup.

I see a lot of these issues all the time, but sifting these out and
articulating them this concisely is very difficult.

I can also see these issues created the biggest challenges in previous
projects I have worked on.

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jpastika
Very well stated Jason. I think your opinion on "Pretending your faults don't
exist" is especially spot on. Programmers, myself included, can sometimes
become so attached to a feature or coding approach that any criticism,
warranted or not, becomes a personal attack. I also think it has become way to
acceptable to say "no" to customers. Rather than the constructive reasoning
behind saying no, often times arrogance or even self consciousness leads to
pretending faults do not exist. For this reason it is always helpful to have a
trusted source for non-programmer feedback.

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Scott_MacGregor
I'm looking forward to "positioning against the competition". I think this is
something a lot of startups will find useful. Many people have good ideas, but
when it comes right down to it, it's a dog-eat-dog world, and the cash flows
from the customer/users opinion of your offering weighed against the
competition. You can iterate all day long, but to take home the money you need
to be more attractive than the others out there. That takes a well thought out
plan.

