
Raising Money Using Customer Development - bhousel
http://steveblank.com/2009/11/05/raising-money-with-customer-development/
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_pius
Great post. In particular, I liked the part about the "Hierarchy of Proof" in
pitches:

 _On the bottom, and least convincing are statements about your “idea.”

Next are hypotheses – “I think customers will care about x or y “

Better are facts from customers – “We interviewed 30 customers with 20
questions”

Even better is “Customer Validation”– “We just got $50K from a customer” or
“we got 100,000 users spending x minutes on our site”

Finally if you’re ever so lucky – “Everyone’s buying in droves and we’re here
because we need money to scale and execute”

If you’ve actually been doing Customer Development at a minimum you’re at step
3 or 4. If not, you don’t have enough data for a VC presentation. Get out of
the building, get some more customer feedback, spin your product and go back
and read the book._

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imp
Wow, these slides from IMVU's investor pitch are awesome:
<http://steveblank.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/slide1.jpg>

