

How to Give a VC a Hard-On [video] - peter123
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2009/03/how-to-pitch-a-vc-aka-startup-viagra-how-to-give-a-vc-a-hardon.html

======
SingAlong
Ah! nice funny presentation.

But it breaks the rule Guy Kawasaki once mentioned. Use a 30pt font so that
everyone can read it and don't stuff all information into once slide. slide-4
(especially) looks ugly because of that.

And he also gave out a formula (seems like he made that up), "find the age of
the oldest person in the room and divide that by 2, thats the minumum size of
font you can use. so unless you are presenting to 16 year olds, do not use an
8pt font".

This link might also help in making a better pitch. It's just a 2min video,
but a good one <http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1177>

~~~
davemc500hats
Guy's rule works great for the people in the room. However, it actually makes
the experience crappy for those who are reading the slides online after, or
who don't have access to audio or video.

In today's example, there were about 75 people in the room. however, the
slides have already been viewed by over 1300 people online (in <8 hours).

So, if you're designing for the room -- use Guy's advice.

However if you're designing for the vast majority of people who will read your
slides online, it's probably better to include most of the core material --
and that you'd be accused of reading bullets if given in the room.

so the challenge is to provide the material in somewhat complete form in the
presentation, and yet still try to be entertaining/educational for the live
performance.

all the above aside, i make no apologies for violating almost every rule of
good presentation form & guidelines.

but then again, it works for me... and it's distinctive & unusual, and thus
memorable. which achieves the design goal.

~~~
ojbyrne
I think that if you're designing for the people who read your slides online,
you're not serving either audience - neither the people in the room (who
undergo death by powerpoint) nor the people online - who are forced to look at
powerpoint bullet points rather than an actual written document with
sentences, paragraphs, etc.

~~~
davemc500hats
i've had collectively over 100K views by my presentations online, and ~10K
downloads. for me, it's contributed significantly to the work that i do with
startups.

note that my presos generally contain a lot of images, not ONLY a lot of text.
but my point is that sometimes more, not less, is more. at least for async
remote audience.

for people in the room, your live performance, not the slides, should be
primary.

your mileage may vary.

------
patio11
I have a love/hate relationship with this guy. He does wonderful Powerpoint
presentations. Every slide is packed with great detail. You just have to dig
through unprofessional hypersexualized fratboy nonsense to get to it.

~~~
davemc500hats
if that's a left-handed compliment, i'll take it ;)

and i resemble that remark.

------
mahmud
A whirl-wind tutorial on pitching, for sure. For the uninitiated, the company
he uses as an example "ZapMeals.com: the eBay of take-out food" is/was a
complete hoax.

[http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/06/22/supernova_startup...](http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/06/22/supernova_startups/index.html)

<http://zapmeals.com/>

------
mrtron
I just went to a conference where the CEO of SVASE explained this in great
details. He said 'Make them fall in love', not give them a hard-on, but the
message is IDENTICAL.

Te slide deck is almost exactly the structure they recommended. What I find
interesting is that these folks actually request a pitch in this structure.

I guess everyone just wants a hard-on (or to full in love).

------
tlrobinson
"We're eBay for takeout orders"

I _hate_ that. It makes it sound like you're so unoriginal that you just
picked a random market and a random existing huge successful product/company
and put them together hoping the combination will work.

~~~
pg
It's just the simplest way to start the conversation, a first approximation
you then refine. If you explain yourself too generally, nothing sticks in the
audience's head.

~~~
JMiao
<http://twitter.com/Jeff/status/1356440716>

------
mikesabat
Great powerpoint. Fun theme, interesting and relevant.

------
charlesju
My favorite part was (slightly paraphrased).

"All great companies get you laid, paid, or made"

~~~
davemc500hats
yeah, i agree... probably the high point (low point?) of the preso.

btw, that came out of a tweet a month back:
<http://twitter.com/davemcclure/statuses/1201923856>

------
ryuio
how about not playing prostitute to a VC - most dont have balls anyways.

~~~
killingmichael
I agree it's generally best to not "play prostitute" to most anyone.

However, regarding "balls": I think VCs are in the "balls business". It is a
hard/risky way of making money. (Personally, this is why I'm always looking
for reasons to say "no", versus why to say "yes"... I'm looking to be
compelled.)

Something to consider:

Entrepreneurs have their one horse. VCs have their stable of horses.

So, one view is: VCs don't "have balls" because they don't commit. Whereas the
entrepreneurs are "all in". In this view point, the "balls award" goes to the
entrepreneur because they're the ones taking the all the risk.

But: the VCs aren't in complete control of their destiny. They may be backing
many horses, but they're not ever truly riding one. For highly capable and
smart people this also takes large balls. You have less risk per venture but
not necessarily across all your ventures.

Side-note:

The point Dave is trying to make with his presentation is how to communicate
in such a way as to get above the radar while trying to keep the VCs attention
(meaning, they've stopped thinking about all the reasons to say "no" and moved
to "maybes"... )

Dave is good at this - look at his presentations compared to others. Generally
people don't talk about VCs and raising capital this way :)

------
erlanger
Arousing as it may be, I'm not showing porn to a VC.

