| Hey, I'm one of the speakers at startup camp and I think I'm going to help on judging the submissions. I think your pitch needs a lot of work and I wouldn't vote for it in its current form. I read your blog post and your PDF slides (I didn't watch the video) and didn't get a clear sense for what your product does, why it's different than other similar products, or why you think it will turn into a larger business. Many of your slides talk about the right topics -- for instance, customer pain -- without saying what you specifically know about that topic in your business -- for instance, exactly what customer pain you're trying to address. The outline on Sequoia's site is great for what your pitch should address: http://www.sequoiacap.com/ideas/ I once had the humiliating experience of sending a Sequoia partner a 30-slide pitch, having him say "12 slides exactly," sending him a 20-slide pitch, having him say "12 slides exactly," sending him a 15-slide pitch, having him say "12 slides exactly," and then finally getting it right. Learn from my mistakes! 12 slides, no more than six bullets per slide, no more than one line per bullet. Writing to form makes it easier for people to evaluate you. Make it very easy on your evaluators. On each of those slides, say why you're different from everyone else. Exactly what makes you better. "We take the sales lead process from 30 minutes to five minutes." Say it succinctly and don't be at all ambiguous. "We allow co-workers to share contact information for their sales leads without data entry by scanning business cards with 99.9% accuracy" or whatever. Hope this helps and good luck. |
Definitely a big help. Like I said, we want the hardcore feedback. That's even a major part of why we want to come to startup camp. We know we've built a great product, and we know it has the tools entrepreneurs need.
Our biggest problem is putting it into words that are simple to understand and to put down onto 12 slides. I've always believed that people spend money (whether as investors or customers) on products/things that they can understand easily and relate to. That's where we need to work on things, a lot.
Thank you once again.
-jlb