Trajectory Startup Program Session Abu Dhabi Day 1

Copyright, DKParker, LLC 2020
Trajectory Series
Bootcamp – Session 1
Dave Parker
www.dkparker.com
@DaveParkerSEA
https://www.dkparker.com/flat6-abu-dhabi-cycle1/

Session 1 Agenda
¤ Intro
¤ Telling Your Story in 10/12 Slides
¤ Research & Competitive Analysis
¤ Markets
¤ Value Propositions
¤ Customer Development Data
¤ Awkward Co-Founder Discussions

Presentation & Resources
¤https://www.dkparker.com/flat6-abu-
dhabi-cycle1/
¤https://www.dkparker.com/exit/venture-
ready/
¤https://www.dkparker.com/trajectory-
excerpt/

About Dave
¤ 5X founder, Board Member, former SVP Programs at UP
Global (Startup Weekend + Startup America)
¤ Startup Next creator
¤ Startup Week
¤ Author – “Trajectory: Startup – Ideation to Product Market
Fit”
¤ 11 transactions – 9 sell side, 2 buy side
¤ VC/Investor

Rules of the Road
¤ Ask questions as we go – especially if I talk too fast!
¤ Meta questions please! Not just about your company
¤ Don’t Ramble – I’ll interrupt
¤ Virtually…
¤ Network – you need to build you network for the future
starting today
¤ #GiveFirst – you have complimentary skills around you

Score Yourself 1-4
Team: Why you, balanced team (talents, diversity), domain experts,
serially successful founders, great company experience
Idea: Are you solving a problem? New or existing problem, big category
(vs tool), early/late continuum, technical achievable, pain pill or vitamin
Product: do you have a product, how mature, customer first, solid design,
clear roadmap to scale
Market/Customer: big market (TAM/SOM), cash available, new or nascent
market?
Competition: How many incumbents, funding status, are you incremental
better or 10X better?
Traction: Customer validation, revenue, improving unit economics?
Timing: Why now? Are you late, early, too early?
Revenue Model/Finance: How will you monetize your idea? Do you have
a basic budget on spending, big or small economics
IP/Moat: Is your idea defensible? Can you build a moat over time?
Clear Ask: What do you need help with? Advice, funding, introduction,
help finding staff?
Total out of 40

Venture Ready
Fast NO
¤ Market
¤ Team
¤ Product
¤ Traction
Slow Yes
¤ Idea
¤ Competition
¤ Business Model/Finance
¤ Timing
¤ Intellectual Property/Moat
¤ Clear Ask

Addressing the Weaknesses
¤ Where were you weak
¤ How would you answer differently
¤ What can you change now – before final pitches?
¤ Don’t ignore the elephant in the room – investors won’t!

Creating
Value:
Product,
Team &
Market
Business Model Breakdown

Delivering
Value:
Price,
Economics,
S&M
Business Model

Capturing
Value:
Reasonable to
Exceptional
Returns –
Traction & Idea
Business Model

Creating Value:
Product
Delivering
Value: Price,
Economics,
S&M
Capturing
Value
Reasonable to
Exceptional
Returns
Defining Business Model

Creating Value:
Product
Delivering
Value:
Marketing
and Sales
Capturing Value
Reasonable to
Exceptional
Returns
Defining Business Model

Two Startup Epochs

Epochs
¤ BC
¤ Pre Internet
¤ Pre Game of Thrones
¤ Pre Product-Market Fit
¤ Risk Capital
¤ AD
¤ Post Internet
¤ Post Game of Thrones
¤ Post Product-Market Fit
¤ Growth Capital

Why Startups Fail

Launch & Survive

Judging a Startup – Bill Gross
Ultimate success – AT SCALE – Assumes good market
https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_the_single_bigge
st_reason_why_start_ups_succeed?language=en

Surfing Analogy
¤ The Wave
¤ The Board
¤ The Surfer
¤ The Trend
¤ The Product
¤ The Leader/Team
Market timing = bad waves
Small waves are bad
Bad product
Wrong person/team for the market
Are all three lined up for you?

Bring $$$

Categorizing Your Solution
Product Service
B2B Salesforce Consulting
B2C Games For profit school

What Problem/Opportunity
¤ What’s the problem
¤ Pain Pill
¤ Vitamin
¤ What’s the opportunity
¤ Solving for who?
¤ Can you create and capture value?
¤ Who will pay?

Product & Companies
¤ Products aren’t fundable – Companies are fundable
¤ Lifestyle businesses – won’t funded
¤ Local vs. Scalable businesses
Which one will you be?
¤ Services vs Product
¤ Exit multiples

Should you build it?

And than there’s this ($120M)

Pre-Mortem

If Your Startup was to Fail, Why?
¤ What’s the number one reason
¤ Product
¤ Customer Acquisition
¤ Competition
¤ Lack of funding
¤ Rank

10 or 12 Slides?

Two Use Cases - Two Decks
Slides for Stage
¤ 10 Slides
¤ It’s a contrived event
¤ Check boxes for hitting
required elements
¤ Supporting Slides
Slides for Conf Room
¤ 12 Slides
¤ It’s about the dialog and
understanding the investor
questions
¤ Supporting Slides

10/12 Slides for Your Pitch
1. Title, Value Proposition,
Contact Info
2. Presentation Overview*
3. Problem
4. Solution
5. Market Size
6. Competitive Analysis*
7. Traction/Timing – why you,
why now?
8. Product Roadmap/Demo
How You Make Money/Key
Metrics
9. Go-To-Market
10. Secret Sauce/Moat/IP*
11. Team
12. Clear Ask/What do you
need from Flat6
*for conf room pitch. Supporting
Slides – Architecture, etc.
Blog Post

Famous Pitch Decks
¤ 30 Famous Pitch Decks
¤ Facebook, LinkedIn, etc
¤ Early to later stage
¤ Not all had great graphics
¤ Uber, AirBnB, Facebook examples

Research & Competitive Analysis

Research
¤ You are not the customer
¤ Methods of Research
¤ Blue Ocean
¤ Gartner Magic Quadrant
¤ Documentation and Analysis
¤ Google Search – what are the keywords someone would
type to find your solution
¤ Crunchbase Search – funding, timing, categories
¤ Competitive Product/Service pricing

Pattern Matching
¤ Stage
¤ Customer Type
¤ Categories

Research
¤ Create a Google Sheet with your research
¤ One tab for research, one for competitors
¤ Who has written about your market
¤ Professionals, bloggers, others
¤ Who has raised capital in this market
¤ What’s the state of the “Wave?”

Competitor List & Notes
Competitor URL Crunchbase
Link
Amount
Funded
Team Features Notes

Specific Competitors
¤ Feature List
¤ Product positioning
¤ Gaps
¤ Pricing
¤ Target customer/profile
¤ Marketing approach

Getting Data
¤ Right Mouse click
¤ Keywords, meta data
¤ Pull keywords for competitors – Google Sheet
¤ Tools
¤ https://www.semrush.com/
¤ https://topics.seomonitor.com/query
¤ Google Keyword tool
¤ Social
¤ https://www.rivaliq.com/

Getting Data – B2C
¤ Playstore/App Store
¤ One Star
¤ Four Star

Who has tried this before?
¤ What about Analyst report?
¤ Why did they fail?
¤ Use Wayback Machine to look back

Looking Back
¤ Feature List – then and now
¤ Product Positioning
¤ Pricing changes over time

Competitive Tech Stack
¤ Builtwith
¤ Mixpanel
¤ StackShare
¤ Siftery
¤ Ghostery – MarTec Stack

Updates
¤ Subscribe to Google Alerts
¤ Competitors
¤ Thought leaders
¤ Analysts
¤ RSS Reader
¤ Specific pages within competitors

A Note Regarding Biases

Questions?
Where to source your data for
your research?

Competitive Slide Examples

Lunch – 60 Minutes

Markets

Market Sizing
¤ How big is the market
¤ Cairo
¤ GCC
¤ MENA
¤ Global
¤ How do you put a BD amount to it?

Ideal Customer Profile
B2B
¤ Company type
¤ Vertical
¤ Size/Stage
¤ Buyer profile
¤ User profile
B2C
¤ Profile
¤ Demographic
¤ “Name”

Who is the Market & Customer

Total Addressable Market
¤ Also called Total Available Market
¤ Think global – launch local
¤ The Upside
¤ Calculating – bottom up, Total number of customers X
Annual Revenue for your product
¤ Direct Data
¤ Explicate data
¤ Indirect Data
¤ Implicit data
¤ Triangulation Data
¤ A combination of different data sources

Service Addressable Market
¤ Or Serviceable Available Market
¤ The part of the market that can actually be reached
¤ Sales and Marketing driven
¤ With the features you have now
¤ With the product roadmap you have
¤ Competition
¤ Not everyone that might use it, if they found it, if it was in
their language and currency

Service Obtainable Market
¤ The subset of the market you can capture
¤ A proxy for short term upside
¤ Not Aspirational

Launch Addressable Market
¤ Given you TAM, SAM and SOM – WHO is the customer?
¤ And limited features
¤ Who can you sell to today?
¤ B2B
¤ B2C
¤ Buyer profile
¤ What features will you need to launch to expand your
market and price?

10, 100, 1000 Customers
¤ Have a plan for how you get your first customers
¤ 10 – it’s you and your co-founder
¤ 100 – still you, maybe one insides salesperson, forming a
process to scale
¤ 1000 – not you, scalable process
¤ Your LAM maps to your Go-to-Market (GTM)
¤ Customer
¤ Value Prop
¤ Pricing
¤ Marketing Spend and Sales effort

Market Conditions
¤ Nascent/New market
¤ Uber, AirBnB
¤ Large markets - >$100M or $1B
¤ Large market provide “at bat” opportunities
¤ Small markets suck
¤ Headwinds or tailwinds?
¤ Covid

Who is your customer?
¤ Product vs. Services
¤ Product is something you can deliver or ship – can you make
$$ while you sleep
¤ Services require people to deliver on the value and promise
– consulting or a restaurant
¤ Who pays the bill?
¤ A business
¤ The Consumer
¤ The product user and who pays can be different as in
Facebook or Google that make money on advertising

Why/How do they buy?
¤ Make Money vs. Save Money?
¤ Searching for product
¤ Needs to be sold

Market Size Examples

Exercise - How Big is Your Market

Dave’s Madlibs Pitch
Hi, I’m <your name here>, and my company <your Company
name here> the problem I’m solving is <insert problem here>. Our
product <insert product info here> is designed for our target
customer of <insert target customer here>. We make money by
<insert method here> and our team is the right team because
<insert why you’re awesome here>. I need help with <insert help
needed here>.

Value Proposition

Positioning
¤ Positioning is holding a place in your customer’s mind –
not as everything, what’s memorable?
¤ Who is the initial customer
¤ Think about limiting service and customer first – before
you expand
¤ You’re not precluded from selling other services or products
¤ What claim or promise will you make?

Don’t Bury the Lead
¤ Think of this like journalism
¤ What’s the headline?
¤ What’s the Lead?
¤ What’s the Story?

Testing
¤ Each pitch is a rapid A/B testing
¤ Look for 1:Many opportunities to test your value
proposition
¤ Trade shows
¤ Peers
¤ Test tag lines

Taglines
¤ The one sentence summary
¤ Pull from the Madlibs Pitch
¤ Benefits to customer – not features
¤ Simple
¤ Evolve with the company

Branding
¤ You don’t have a big budget – so you can’t afford brand
advertising
¤ Start with brand neutral and build
¤ Memorable
¤ Phonetically easy to spell
¤ Avoid double letters, etc

Exercise
¤ Write out:
¤ What makes you different?
¤ Why should people buy from you?
¤ Write your websites tagline and opening paragraph
¤ What claim/promise will you make
¤ Write your DRAFT Unique Selling Proposition
¤ Compare this to your Pitch

Customer Development

Customer Development
¤ Parallel process with Product Development
¤ “Get out of the Building”
¤ Develop for a few not Many
¤ Prioritize features based on Needs not Wants
¤ Validate with Revenue/Commitment

What is Customer Development?
¤ Four Steps of an Epiphany – Steve Blank

Customer Development Goals
¤ Acute focus on problem – not product
¤ Find out if customers care?
¤ What do they want?
¤ Determines the difference your product at launch and at
scale
¤ Feature priorities & Product Roadmap

Customer Dev Mechanics
¤ Google Forms
¤ Structured questions
¤ Progression
¤ Easy to Hard
¤ What do you really want to know?
¤ Will they pay for it? How much
¤ Why will it fail
¤ Neutral, not Guided Questions

Customer Dev Mechanics, Cont
¤ Build a list of interested parties
¤ Mail Chimp List setup
¤ Ask for permission to email
¤ Monthly updates –
¤ Format: “What we did, what we’re going to do and
where we can use your help”
¤ Regular frequency – be predictable

What Not To Do
¤ You are not the customer
¤ Don’t tolerate a small sample set – this could delay your
success by Years
¤ Avoid “Selection Bias”
¤ “Isn’t our product amazing”
¤ No rhetorical questions
¤ No blind surveys
¤ Can’t outsource

How Many Customer Interviews
¤ B2B – 25+
¤ Profile
¤ Job Title
¤ Type of Company
¤ B2C – 50+
¤ Demographic
¤ ¯_(ツ)_/¯ = bad

Fundraising Note
You have opinions
You have Data
You get money!
Investors have opinions
They have money

Hypothesis vs Fact
¤ If you are convinced you’re right you won’t be open to
radical feedback that could change the trajectory of
your business & life!
¤ Always testing what you think you know
¤ Permission to give negative feedback
¤ If this idea was to fail, why would it fail?
¤ Why is this idea stupid?

Awkward Co-Founder Discussions

Everyone Has Expectations
¤ Set up a process to get the expectations out in the open
¤ Pre-Incorporation
¤ Meeting 1 of 2
¤ Why do you want to do this
¤ Capital in vs out
¤ Timing of life
¤ Passion
¤ Go to Startup Equity Calculator

Co-Founders – Part 1

Co-founders, part 2
¤ Meeting 2 of 2
¤ Print out a copy- bring it to the meeting
¤ How far off are you? What responsibilities?
¤ At Incorporation
¤ Reverse vesting schedule
¤ What happens when someone leaves?
¤ Option pool 20%
¤ Why 50/50 is the only wrong decision

Post Incorporation
¤ Milestones/Deliverables
¤ Slicing Pie
¤ Market rates
¤ Don’t over inflate
¤ Track time and contribution
¤ Regular meeting
¤ Weekly standups
¤ Make HR changes fast – they won’t get easier

Session 1 Deliverables
¤ Track your Venture Ready
Score Before/After
¤ What can you do over the next
90 days to improve
¤ Start drafting your 13 slides
¤ List your research, competition
and sources
¤ Outline your Market including
your TAM, SAM, & SOM (hint,
it’s a number)
¤ Write is your pre-mortem – if
you were to fail, why would
you fail
¤ Draft your value proposition
¤ Outline your existing and
required Customer
Development data
¤ Have your awkward co-
founder discussion

1. Title, Value Proposition,
Contact Info
2. Traction
3. Problem/Solution
4. Market – TAM, SAM, SOM
5. Timing/Competition
6. Product Roadmap/Demo
7. How You Make Money/Key
Metrics
8. Go-To-Market
9. Secret Sauce/Moat/IP
10.Team
11.Clear Ask
Supporting Slides – Roadmap,
etc.
Blog Post

THANKS!

Trajectory Series
Dave Parker
@DaveParkerSEA
www.GetTrajectory.com
@DaveParkerSEA

Session 2 Agenda
¤ How Startup Make Money – 14 Revenue Models
¤ Pricing and Metrics that Matter
¤ Go-to-Market
¤ Traction and Product / Market Fit
¤ Pitch Reviews

How Startups Make Money

Do you know?
¤ Cost to Build Known Unknown
¤ Cost to Sell Known Unknown
¤ Price Known Unknown
¤ Profit Known Unknown

How not to make money?
¤ Small transaction values are bad
¤ Small percentages are bad
¤ Not being able to capture value is bad
¤ Lumpy sales cycles are bad
¤ Long sales cycles are bad
¤ Pricing too low could kill your idea before you start

How to Monetize Your Startup:
Revenue Models

Business and Revenue Models
¤ Business Models – abstract framework of Creating,
Delivering and Capturing Value
¤ Revenue Models (part of business model) is the
framework of revenue, pricing, who pay
¤ Models Lean toward Tech and Product

1. Fee for Service
¤ Example: Consulting Services company
¤ Use: B2B & B2C
¤ Key Metrics
¤ Project Revenue
¤ Cost of delivering (usually time)
¤ Gross Margin
¤ Services are hard to scale because they require people
to deliver including Restaurant, Contractors, etc.
¤ Services include markup on cost of goods sold

2. Commerce
¤ Example: Amazon, AmazonSupply
¤ Use: B2C & B2B
¤ Key Metrics:
¤ Wholesale or cost of goods sold
¤ Average Margin %
¤ Average Basket
¤ Commerce – Physical Goods- Wholesale, cost of goods,
retail, average margin, physical good
¤ Notes: Can mature into marketplace

3. Subscription
¤ Example: Salesforce , Box, Spotify
¤ Use: B2C & B2B
¤ Key Metrics
¤ Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
¤ Conversion ratio – e.g. trial to purchase
¤ Churn
¤ Challenges: MVP won’t be enough to be Kick Ass Product
¤ Notes: Highest multiple, forecastable revenue

4. Metered Servcie
¤ Example: AWS, Splunk, Azure
¤ Use: Favors B2B
¤ Key Metrics
¤ Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
¤ Conversion ratio – e.g. trial to purchase
¤ Churn
¤ Challenges: MVP won’t be enough to be Kick Ass Product
¤ Notes: Highest multiple, forecastable revenue

5. Transaction Fees/Rental
¤ Example: 99Designs, KickStarter, Elance, Chugg
¤ Use: B2C & B2B
¤ Key Metrics
¤ Average transaction revenue
¤ Fee % per transaction
¤ Number of transactions
¤ Challenges: Margins are small (15%), need efficiency
¤ Notes: Don’t start too low

6. Productize a Service
¤ Your offerings is generally complex and requires services
to deploy
¤ Gross margin on Services >35%
¤ Product development comes with services
¤ Use: B2C & B2B
¤ Examples: Moz, service company convert to tools.
¤ Challenges – difficult to make the transition away from
services

7. Marketplaces
¤ Example: eBay, Alibaba
¤ Use: B2C & B2B
¤ Key Metrics
¤ Average Transaction Amount
¤ Number of Monthly Transactions
¤ Commission %
¤ Challenges: two sided market places require you start
with one side, value to seller & Product market fit (x2)
¤ Notes: critical mass or marketplace required

8. Combinations
¤ Combinations business models happen for two reasons
¤ You don’t know which model is right
¤ At scale you can expand revenue sources
¤ Examples: Hardware sensors + software services to create
data analytics
¤ Challenges – most require scale or at least traction

9. Lead Generation
¤ Example: Mint.com, AllStarDirectories, NetQuote
¤ Use: B2C & B2B
¤ Key Metrics
¤ Cost to generate traffic
¤ % conversion of form data
¤ Price per lead
¤ Challenges: Highly competitive, barrier of entry is low
¤ Notes: Conversion rates average 0.06%

10. Gaming
¤ Example: King.com/Candy Crush
¤ Use: B2C Only
¤ Key Metrics:
¤ Downloads
¤ % play
¤ Average in app purchase
¤ Challenges – tends to be “hit driven business”
¤ Notes: use in first 21 days is a predictor of success

11. Advertising/Search
¤ Example: Google, Facebook
¤ Use: B2B – advertisers pay, users are free
¤ Key Metrics
¤ Traffic
¤ Click
¤ Avg. revenue/click
¤ Challenges – Scale, need >1M uniques/month to
consider the option

12. New Media
¤ Example: SnapChat, WhatsApp
¤ Use: B2C only
¤ Key Metrics:
¤ K-Factor (Viral Co-efficient)
¤ Network effect of inviting others to join
¤ Challenges – K-Factor is hard. Little revenue until scale
¤ Notes: Everyone wants to! Not happening in B2B
¤ No revenue acutally required

13. Big Data
¤ Examples: PatientsLikeMe
¤ Use: B2B
¤ Key Metrics:
¤ Per API Call
¤ Per record pricing
¤ Frequency/recency
¤ To monetize data, you need to have the data in
advance or massive cash

14. Licensing
¤ Example: Think Microsoft office license or server license –
before subscription. Content Licensing
¤ Use: B2B
¤ Key Metrics:
¤ Duration of license
¤ Upgrades & maintenance (20-25% annually)
¤ Use can be based on vertical market or geography

Revenue Models– Pick Two
1. Fee for Service
2. Commerce
3. Subscription
4. Metered Service
5. Transaction Fee/Rental
6. Productize a Service
7. Marketplace
8. Combinations
9. Lead Generation
10.Gaming
11.Advertising/Search
12.New Media
13.Big Data
14.Licensing

Break

Pricing

Your price will be wrong!
Increase it every year and
grandfather early customers for a
period of time

Art or Science?
¤ Pricing is an informed decision based on data and
proven revenue modesl
¤ Benchmarks
¤ Comparable products
¤ Don’t start too low
¤ Cost base vs Value based
¤ What is the alternate for the “Job to be Done”?

Pricing needs to cover
¤ Cost of Building
¤ Cost of Delivering and support
¤ Cost of Selling
¤ Customer Acquisition Cost
¤ Marketing expense
¤ Marketing team
¤ Sales expense
¤ Sales Team

Cost vs. Value Based
¤ Cost based is mark up over expense
¤ Pay rate vs bill rate
¤ Mark up from cost of goods
¤ Value based is what you can charge for it
¤ Can be a range
¤ Depends on product maturity

Jobs to Be Done Framework
¤ Clayton Christensen – HBS
“When we buy a product, we essentially ‘hire’ something to get a job
done. If it does the job well, when we are confronted with the same job,
we hire that same product again. And if the product does a crummy
job, we ‘fire’ it and look around for something else we might hire to
solve the problem.”
¤ What job is your customer hiring your product to do?
¤ Does it replace 20% of a staff person’s time
¤ Does it save them money, make them money

Product Pricing
¤ First Product
¤ Staged pricing – up or down over time
¤ Second Product
¤ Staged pricing – up or down over time
¤ Launch timeline based on product road map
¤ Services?
¤ Could it improve you sales cycle

A/B Testing
¤ With your hypothesis
¤ Hide the current pricing page
¤ Drive traffic to Pricing landing pages
¤ Squeeze page
¤ Test pricing
¤ Unbounce or other tool to tack
¤ Optimizes based on conversions

Promotions
¤ Freemium
¤ Time based
¤ Early adopter based
¤ Percentage discount
¤ Grandfather early users
* Prices subject to change

Common Errors
¤ Setting pricing too low
¤ Too opaque of a price will frustrate customer – especially
if it’s low
¤ Knowing the answer vs testing
¤ Positioning as “me too” just like your competitor, but less
¤ Same price for all customers
¤ ”Free for Life!”

Where to Start
¤ Pick your primary/secondary model
¤ Do a competitive analysis
¤ Building a pricing hypothesis
¤ A/B Test
¤ Three tiers, maximum
¤ Price high and promo the discount based on time to
close

Metrics that Matter

What to track – best practices
¤ Marketing Metrics – “Marketing Motion”
¤ Ad Spend
¤ Traffic
¤ Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
¤ Sales Metrics “Sales Motion”
¤ Outbound/Inbound
¤ MQL to SQL Conversion
¤ Business Development – Partnerships
¤ What’s in it for them?
¤ Pricing

Marketing – Finding the right
customers

Marketing – Finding Customers
¤ Messaging/Value Proposition
¤ Does it resonate with the target customer segment
¤ They are the hero of the story
¤ Is it repeatable?
¤ Strategy
¤ Outbound first
¤ Inbound second

Key Metric Terms
¤ State your hypothesis
¤ CAC
¤ LTV
¤ ARPU
¤ Churn
¤ Time to Close
¤ Customer engagement
¤ Time on Site

Organic
Search
Paid
Search
Word
of
Mouth
Sales
Calls
PR
Miracles!
Time
to
Close
Month
1
Month
2
Month
3
Month
4
$
Spen
d
#
Conv
#
Conv
#
MRR
Time

Marketing Channels
¤ Paid Search
¤ Organic Search
¤ Word of mouth
¤ Sales calls
¤ Public Relations
¤ Affiliate
¤ Email marketing
¤ Social

Marketing Qualified Leads
¤ Define qualified vs list
¤ Suspects
¤ Prospects
¤ Qualified Prospects

Sales Qualified Leads
¤ Hand off to Sales
¤ Identify steps to close
¤ Number of calls

Time to Close
¤ Lead attribution
¤ Source time
¤ Compressing or Expanding
¤ Trend by source

Tracking
¤ Data allows you to know where to double
down and where to hold back
¤ Conversion ratios

Sales – capturing value creation

How will they buy?
¤ Web Direct – place the order to buy on the web
¤ Direct – outbound sales, inside/outside
¤ Indirect/Channel – fulfills demand, doesn’t generate
¤ Retail – BestBuy, etc

Sales Model Hypothesis
Known
Market
Unknown
Market
Low
Price
Point
High
Price
Point
Known
Search
Words
Unknown
Search
words
Web Direct ✔ ✔ ✔
Direct ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Indirect ✔ ✔ ✔
Retail

Sales
¤ Model – Pick one, why?
¤ Strategy
¤ Who
¤ Tactics
¤ How
¤ Tools
¤ Sales tools

Business Development

¤ Strategic relationships
¤ Who has the list you want
¤ How do you get the partnership

¤ Strategy
¤ Who should you get as a partner
¤ How will you build the relationship?
¤ What channels
¤ Tactics
¤ Messaging/Value proposition
¤ Tools
¤ CRM

Go-to-market plan

Go-to-Market Plan
¤ Revenue Model
¤ Marketing
¤ Sales
¤ Business development plan
¤ Pricing

Before the Program
¤ What are you priority tests?
¤ Do you need product final to do that test?

Exercise - 30/60/90
¤ Write up your 30/60/90
¤ Marketing tests
¤ Channel spend hypothesis
¤ Lead source, cost
¤ Sales tests
¤ Initial Sales script
¤ Pricing
¤ High and low

Traction and PMF

Product Market Fit
Two Epoch’s of every startup
¤ Pre - Product Market Fit
¤ The only thing that matters is getting there
¤ Post – Product Market Fit
¤ A whole new set of questions – Scale, Culture and People

Pre – PMF
¤ Some Revenue
¤ Some Customers
¤ Some Marketing
¤ A lot Hypothesis

Post – PMF
¤ Predictable & Scalable Revenue
¤ Customer profiles
¤ Cohort analysis
¤ Churn
¤ Scalable marketing
¤ Hypothesis + Data

PMF Scorecard
¤ How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?
¤ The answers are the following:
¤ Very disappointed
¤ Somewhat disappointed
¤ Not disappointed
¤ I no longer use [product]

Tracking Over Time
¤ Churn Rate
¤ Net Negative Churn
¤ NPS vs CSAT
¤ Product usage level
¤ Frequency
¤ Recency
¤ Growth Rate

What is “Traction?”

Predictable/Forecastable Revenue
¤ De-risking your <time> investment
¤ Predictable revenue moves you from valuations based
on trailing 12 to future 12
¤ Target customer
¤ Sales Cycle
¤ Tools trail Strategy and Tactics

Customer Acquisition Hypothesis
¤ Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC)
¤ Lifetime value of Customer (LTV)
¤ 36 month calculation in a mature business, 12 months for you
¤ Time to close sale
¤ How does this change with product/market maturity?
¤ Churn/Retention
¤ Average Revenue/measure (User, Account, etc)
¤ Word of mouth vs. Virality

Financial Modeling Note

Templates
¤ Do this after you get in the program – not highest and
best use today
¤ Four Templates
¤ Marketplace
¤ Subscription
¤ Transaction Fee (works for commerce)
¤ Productize a service
¤ Templates in shared Google Drive

Financial Model Heuristics
¤ $0- $40 is likely OK
¤ Start with Assumptions
¤ Product 1, 2
¤ Services
¤ Release timing
¤ Scale Revenue first
¤ Customer count and timing
¤ Keep expenses in line as you grow

Q&A

Pitch Reviews

Trajectory Series
Dave Parker
@DaveParkerSEA
www.GetTrajectory.com
@DaveParkerSEA

Agenda
¤ Fundraising Fundamentals
¤ Product and Company Roadmap
¤ When, Why and How to Pivot
¤ Pitch Reviews

Fundraising Fundamentals

Fundraising 101
● Stage appropriate capital = what’s the right
money at the right time?
○ Early – Angels, early stage VCs,
○ Later – Large venture funds
● Control shifts – Board roles, deal terms
● Dilution: every round of funding you will sell 25-
35% of new shares
● Bad boards = bad enterprise value

Raising for What?
¤ 18 months of runway
¤ Not too short
¤ To hit milestones
¤ Product
¤ Customers
¤ “Use of proceeds”

Angels
● Invest in you and your passion
● Like the market or idea
● Have made money in the sector before
● Something to talk about at a cocktail party!
● Deal type
○ Convertible note with a cap
○ Pro-rata participation (keep my % going
forward)
○ Highest risk – least educated (F&F) should
be best deal

Early Stage = Risk Capital
● Know your numbers, if you don’t have your numbers
know your hypothesis (have a position)
● Seed stage VC’s are investing other people's money
○ Charter and Thesis
○ Stage, vertical market, size, geography
○ 10% (+/-) stakes plus syndicates
● VC perspective - Elusive deals need to be found
○ Revenue but Pre-product market fit
● ”Return the Fund” deals that can produce >10X

Later Stage = Growth Capital
● Post product market fit
● $10K in marketing spend = Internal rate of return (IRR) of
how many days?
● MBA’s calculate returns – cash on cash
● Strategics aren’t valuation sensitive, but will be slow
● Bigger checks – 20% stakes

Fundraising Process
● Enterprise Sales Process – landing multiple planes at the
same time
● Top of the Funnel
○ Research
■ Crunchbase (cheap) Technation UK
■ Pitchbook (expensive)
■ Angelist
■ Competitive deals (w/ Exits)
○ Create a forwardable email
■ Ask for approval
■ Follow with Intro

Target Investors
● Targets – build a list of targets, look for LinkedIn
and/or email introductions
● They have invested in your market/stage in the
past
● They have Board experience for your stage
● They can help with strategic introductions
○ Investors
○ Customers

First Impressions Matter
● Targets – build a list of targets, look for LinkedIn
and/or email introductions
● They have invested in your market/stage in the
past
● They have Board experience for your stage
● They can help with strategic introductions
○ Investors
○ Customers

Monthly Updates
¤ Using MailChimp Free Account
¤ Investors – Tagged
¤ Customers
¤ 30 day intervals
¤ What we thought
¤ What we learned
¤ What we’re doing about it
¤ Where we need help
¤ Regularly

Tools for Pitching
¤Forwardable Email
¤Executive Summary
¤Presentation
¤ ~13 Slides
¤ More is OK if you have data/traction
¤Monthly Update

Forwardable Intro Email
¤ Great blog post from Alex Iskold, Techstars NYC
¤ The associate needs to be able to repeat your
message
¤ Make it easy to get the introduction
¤ Avoid buzzword bingo

Not

Executive Summary
¤Two pages
¤ ”Don’t Bury your Lead”
¤ Your headlines and opening paragraph tell the
story (see slide 10)
¤ It’s designed to get the next meeting, not to get
a check
¤ Stay at 10k feet and out of the weeds
¤ Numbers should sync with deck and forecast!
You’ll be tempted to get out of sync – be careful!

Deck
¤Generally lead with problem/solution format
¤However:
¤ If you have traction lead with traction
¤ If you’re in a complex market, you may want to
lead with your team
¤ Have one customer story arch
¤Include contact info

Tools
● Google Sheets
● https://freebusy.io/ allows you to show your calendar
(including multiple Google Calendars) – save the back
and forth ($6/month)
○ Accept or rearrange
● Email tracker pro (chrome extension)
● Zoom Meeting – you control the variables (not free, 45
minute limit) ($15/month)
● Use tools that show professionalism, drive the meeting
schedule – don’t wait on their assistant

What’s happening with the VC?
● Most filter – sector, size, stage, growth, referral source
● Then Screen at Partner Meeting – looking for consensus
● Then invite in for presentation
● So! You need to make the presentation that the most
Junior team member has confidence repeating! Have a
lead within the firm
● No one’s writing a check from an Exec Summary or PPT!
Get the next meeting

Due Diligence Process
• Deal Memo – internal memo used to validate
why they are leading the round – it will likely be
shared with other investors or future investors
• Document review post
• Data room
• Corporate Hygiene
• Customer calls – you likely have a few
customers, don’t over burden them with
random call.
• Meet with other investor

Your Due Diligence
● Ask to talk to their portfolio company CEOs – ask for a
couple of companies they passed on investing as well
● Have a structured list of questions
○ Have they been a good investor
○ Give me an example of a time when they were
helpful
○ Give me an example of a time they weren’t helpful
○ Have they done the things they said they would do
when they invested
● Not all money is good money

Tactics for dealing with VCs
● You want to create momentum or a sense of
momentum
● Create a reason to close – not a reason to wait!
○ Good news next month is a reason to wait
○ New features shipping next month is a reason to way
○ Booked revenue is a reason to close = increased
valuation
● Not all VCs are arrogant assholes (but many are)
○ Pattern matching – break the mold!

Final Do’s and Don’ts
Do
● Keep your eye on the ball
– don’t miss your numbers
● Manage the process
● Qualify your investor
● Create optionality
● If there’s an ELEPHANT
room, call it out
Don’ts
● Get < 6 Month of capital
● Hide the ball on any bad
news
● Be too transparent
● Let the investor miss a
deadline – escrow
example

Conclusions
● Broad funnel gives you the most choices
● They will be talking to other investors
● How you interact in the process will indicate
the future
● What do you need in addition to capital?
○ Go to market help
○ Product help
○ Know your blind spots
● Time kills ALL deals

Product

Product Vision
¤ Product vision is important
¤ Long term features
¤ Startup with PROBLEM not product – pivot product/
features around the problem
¤ It won’t be what you ship first
¤ What the world looks like before your product
¤ What the world looks like after your product

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
¤ Narrow and list features
¤ PowerPoint/Keynote first as your demo
¤ What screens do you need to show (e.g. do you need to
really show registration – answer no)
¤ Have them rank the features
¤ Prioritize the build based on the feedback
¤ More Customer Development Interviews!

Product Roadmap
¤ What Features, When
¤ Quarterly targets based on
¤ Budget
¤ Available developers

Cost to Build

Estimating Costs
¤ Write specification
¤ Required for launch
¤ Design & Flow
¤ Post project on Fiverr.com
¤ PPT/Keynote first with design
¤ Test design and flow
¤ Revise specification

MVP Mechanics
¤ MVP Series
¤ Blog 1 – Launching a product
¤ Blog 2 – Writing a spec
¤ Blog 3 – picking a vendor
¤ Blog 4 – Contracts, Monitoring Progress
¤ Cost to market and sell – Next Month!

Company Roadmap

Company Roadmap
¤ Quarterly Targets
¤ Product
¤ Milestones
¤ People
¤ Hires
¤ # and who
¤ Customers
¤ Onboarded
¤ Revenue
¤ Cash out date
This is a
Supporting Slide

Roadmap Cont.
¤ Roadmap is NOT dependent on fundraising
¤ If you raise capital, you move things forward in the roadmap
¤ E.G. items from Q4 move to Q2 next year
¤ Where will you be in 18 and 36 months
¤ Does it map to your financial model
¤ Maps to use of proceeds

Quarterly Roadmap – 18 Months

Highlight Key Milestones
¤ This is a bit of an eye chart, so highlight key milestones
¤ Product ship dates
¤ First revenue
¤ Key hires

Pivoting

What is a Pivot?
¤ When a startup shifts business strategy to accommodate
industry, market, or customer
¤ The process of direct and indirect feedback changing
your business model
¤ Iterations vs. Pivots
¤ Iterations are course corrections
¤ Pivots are painful – we were in the tire business, we’re now in
apps
¤ Odeo and Slack

When & Why
¤ When – 90-180 days
¤ Get out of your head and get in front of the customer
¤ 50-100 customer interviews
¤ Build an email list
¤ Solid effort in Customer Development and no positive
signals
¤ Didn’t find a pain point
¤ Didn’t find payment
¤ Some exceptions – Enterprise is hard and slow… New Media
model is about growth not cash

How to Pivot
¤ Are you staying in the same TAM?
¤ Is the product wrong?
¤ Is the brand wrong?
¤ Focus on problem first, solution second!

Post Pivot
Pain
Level
Willingness to Pay

¤ Pivoting –
¤ What’s your timeline
¤ What should you accomplish in 6 months
¤ Build your product and company roadmap
¤ Three year visual for Flat6
¤ 18 Month, category milestones for your financial model
¤ Fundraising
¤ List building
¤ Monthly Update email
¤ Forwardable Email

Supporting Slides

Fundraising Process
● Asking for advice vs cash
○ Who do you know that would like out type
of deal
○ What other things would you like to see us
complete before we talk again
● Deals that get closed are pulled by the
investor, not pushed by you
● Find your lead investors – keep the others
warm

Pitch Prep

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