Art Of Raising Venture Capital

Posted by On September 05, 2008 1 Comment

Guy Kawasaki, the guy behind Art of the Start, has some video clips with tips on raising venture capital for early stage startups.  He takes 15 minutes to deliver his "top 5" tips:

  1. Make sure VC is right for you.  Most deals are suitable for VC for reasons that have to do with VC and not the company. 
  2. Capture attention in 15 seconds. There’s a long story about Hot-or-Not to deliver this point.
  3. Offer a "clean deal."  Don’t give the VC an easy reason to pass (in the first meeting).  Avoid lawsuits, nepotism, IP issues, etc. 
  4. Pitch in PowerPoint.  Great quote: "not using PowerPoint is like joining a Haiku contest and then saying ‘I don’t want to be limited by 5-7-5.’"
  5. Drill a lot of holes.  Go after a bunch of investors…at the end of the day all money is green

Bonus tip: ignore all of the above if your business is lightning in a bottle and growing faster than you can scale.