Sean Percival's Blog

Are startup accelerators even worth it anymore? Well, yes and no with a lot of fuzziness in the middle. Let’s rant and break down if you should consider an accelerator, and how to find the right one for you.

Listen to the Podcast:Subscribe for New Episodes:Subscribe on YouTubeSubscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on PodimoPrevious Episodes:Podcast: Should you do a startup accelerator program? Podcast: This startup marketing advice is a complete waste of timePodcast: The most important question founders should ask themselvesRough transcript:

(Not copy edited)

Welcome to Percval’s startup rants, a solo podcast where I rant about, you guessed, all things startups while also providing help for first-time founders. This week I’m ranting on and asking myself a question I’ve been thinking about for a while.

That being are startup accelerators even worth it anymore? Well, yes and no with a lot of fuzziness in the middle. Let’s rant and break down if you should consider an accelerator, and how to find the right one for you. 

I guess let’s start with a little bit of my background on this subject as it’s a space I know very well.  I have started, managed, or developed so many accelerator programs that I have honestly lost count of how many. That number is somewhere around being involved in at least 50 different programs. I started in this area by running the flagship accelerator for 500 startups in Mountain View, California and have since worked on programs in Sweden, Vietnam, Japan, Mexico, and of course, my beloved Norway. I also wrote a book called the Accelerator Survival Guide for new accelerator managers. You can get that on Amazon or order at bookstores worldwide. 

So let’s start with the basics and why today I’m wondering if startup accelerators are even needed anymore. The reason I ask myself this is because today the general competence of founders has greatly increased. Coupled with the ease of starting a company has also dramatically improved from say 10 years ago. Back then we were all just figuring things out and there was very few people with deep experience to help. ya, ya ya, not to sound like an old man here, but today you have super efficient acquisition channels and a myriad of amazing tools you can use to build your startup. Furthermore today there is sooo much content online to help you with pretty much everything. From blogs, to newsletters, to online courses, and of course many many podcasts. So truthfully if you were motivated enough to do the research yourself you could probably answer most questions you might have about company building. 

That all being said, there is one group of founders who still can and probably will always benefit from an accelerator program. I’m talking about the first time founders. You poor but beautiful bastards. You likely dont know what you dont know. So doing an accelerator program will teach you the ropes fast, and it will also help you with something else key to startup success. Building your network of other technies and of course investors. 

Now there is one word of caution I did want to share for the first-time founders when it comes to accelerators. That is that you ideally should just do one accelerator program, or at the most 2, as opposed to doing several programs. So that means you should find and get into the best program for your business. Don’t just jump into any program you can find or any program that finds you. And these programs will find you! Since today there are so many programs they have to actively recruit most companies into the program. So don’t be too surprised, or impressed, if they outreach to you. Sure it feels like a big compliment to even be considered but let’s wrap up this rant with the why you need to be cautious. That really comes down to opportunity cost. Regardless of your own level of experience, the best way to grow your business will always be to put the time directly into growing it or working with your team to do so. Spending a month or more in a program is a massive allocation of time and since these programs can be hectic you’ll find you don’t get much time to actually work on your business during them. Sure you’ll get a lot of mentoring and maybe some investment but at what cost? I encourage you to think deeply on whether a program will really be worth it. Or if you could better advance the business by just putting in the work.  

Let’s jump into a few things to consider when it comes to these programs. To start and perhaps the largest issue I see is related to the competence and experience of the staff running these programs. When I look at most programs in Europe for example I don’t see them being run by startup founders. I see a lot of former corporate or big consulting company folks. Now now that’s not to say these people are not smart nor that they don’t provide value. They of course can and I’ve had the pleasure to work with many who fit this profile. From my experience what they lack in direct startup experience they make up for in other ways. However, I’m not going to be shy to share my feelings that as a founder, you should spend your time with other experienced founders. This is also true when it comes to selecting an accelerator program. And maybe that’s why everyone wants to get into YCombinator and why YC is often considered the best program. It is run by nothing but former founders with real operational experience. When Dave McClure at 500 Startups offered me the job running their program, I was upfront and said “but Dave, I have no experience running accelerator. I haven’t even attended one”. To which he replied, “Sure, but you’re an operator, and that’s who these founders need to learn from”. Having worked on so many programs now I can see that he was absolutely correct. Truth be told, anyone working a program can give you bad advice, but a fellow founder will give you, well, less shitty advice in general. 

The next thing to think about is if a program offers investment or not. With the massive proliferation of accelerator programs around the world there has been a big surge in programs without investment, or as they are also known, non-dilutive programs. Candidly, I don’t really see the point in doing a program without investment because nothing else, and as we have discussed, time is your most finite resource. You shouldn’t just be allocating big swaths of time to just any program that comes along. You should get something for it, and what’s better than capital for into your company typically at fair terms? Furthermore, programs that invest money into your company will generally work a lot harder to provide value and, well, accelerate you. That’s because with that investment, they have their own incentives to generate a return, both for their LP investors and themselves, in the form of carry which is how investors get paid for the investments they make. This all being said, there might be some non-dilutive programs that offer other types of value, say industry-specific programs where you might really need help. I would just caution you to guard your own time and protect it ruthlessly. Could you perhaps have more customer interviews or sales calls instead of sitting through a presentation on IP law? What do you think will be more valuable to your early-stage company, you tell me. I’ll save you from a rant on how corporates and startups don’t and shouldn’t mix because even I have seen some corporate accelerators provide a lot of value and partnerships via their accelerator programs. Depending on your industry it might make a lot of sense to give them a try.  

So the decision to do an accelerator should be a personal one. If you are super early in your founder journey and well, you know nothing, then yes do a program. You’ll learn more in a few months than you ever could on your own in a few years. You might even have some fun and build some relationships you can carry with you throughout the years. 

However, if you’re somewhat experienced or ready to get to work, then just do that. What are you waiting for and why do you need to be told by others what do? Save your precious time doing what probably benefits you and your business the most. Sure, you might make a few more mistakes along the way but from my experience, those tough learnings are better than anything that can be found in an accelerator program. 

If you’re looking to gorge upon a gorgeous gorge then look no further. Yes, I did say that when we visited here, much to my kid’s dismay. I believe that type of dad comment is what they call ‘cringe’.

In any case yes that is a big ol’ gorge found beneath the Royal Gorge Bridge. In fact, it is such a big gorge that up until 2001 the bridge held the illustrious title of the world’s tallest suspension bridge. Then the title was lost to some bridge in China but who cares about them? I seriously doubt their gorges are as gorgeous because AMERICA. Also freedom.

Whatever you do please don’t waste your time listening to this episode. Unless you want to learn about several marketing-related things that are also a complete waste of time. Don’t act like I didn’t warn you.

Listen to the Podcast:Subscribe for New Episodes:Subscribe on YouTubeSubscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on PodimoPrevious Episodes:Podcast: This startup marketing advice is a complete waste of timePodcast: The most important question founders should ask themselvesPodcast: When Investors Say “It’s too early”Rough transcript:

(Not copy edited)

Hello listeners and greetings from wonderful but also very weird Berlin. I am still traveling and getting over my last cold, so apologies again for the less than idea audio quality. I’ll soon be using some better recording equipment and starting to do some video with this podcast so be sure to subscribe to get notified of future episodes. In the spirit of moving fast I’m also doing this podcast much like a startup so testing different types of content formats and topics to see what works. Thanks to all who have given a listen or subscribed thus far. 

So this week I’ve been thinking back to marketing activities I’ve done that have proven to be a waste of time. And boy there have been so many. Although really I think that’s one of the best parts of startup growth marketing, all that experimenting and failing and learning and only occasionally finding something that works. When you do, it can be a great feeling not just of relief but that you’re at the start of something big that will put your little startup into hyper growth mode. That feeling is, unfortunately often short lived but you should still enjoy it as the startup journey is long and fraught with so many ups and downs. Well mostly downs but you get my point. 

As many first time founders start their own journey I’m often asked things like “uhhh what marketing book do you recommend to read?”. To which is usually reply “Uhhhhh well none of them” That’s because you learn early stage growth marketing by doing not reading about doing. Every business is too unique so really who cares what someone else did at some other startup? You sorta need to find your own way that works, then to complete the cycle I guess you would write you own book about it. Ahhh the circle of life. 

Although I guess it is perhaps worth mentioning that you might want to read the book Hooked by Nir Eyal on how to build habit-forming products. If you’re a total marketing noob it is good to think about things beyond just top of funnel and user acquisition. You dont really stand much chance for growth without also creating that sometimes elusive user retention. 

As a bit of a side rant I wouldn’t be so seduced by the sneakiest of growth tactics. The dark UI patterns and sometimes nasty tricks we do to make users addicted to our products. You should instead be focused on providing so much value to your users they simply can’t live without it as part of their workflow or daily life. Yes, we use email and notifications and other nudges to help but in many cases the path to growth is laid out more much easily by simply reducing the friction a user needs to go through to discover the value you provide. 

As a final side rant to the side rant it seems even Nir has changed his tune as of late on this topic. His more recent book titled Indistractable talks about how to free yourself from all those terrible product marketing techniques and quote growth hacks unqoute that so many software companies use upon us. Many of which were inspired by his previous book! Yikes

Now before you get too distracted by what some VC is humblebragging about on Twitter or some mind-numbing Tiktok algorithm there are two main points I would try to help you understand as you embark on your marketing endeavors my brave founders. 

The first is that much like venture capital, marketing follows the 80/20 rule aka only 20% of what you do actually makes an impact. So what this really means is that if you put all your marketing eggs in one basket you are certain to fail. I mean I’ve been marketing startups for over a decade and even I can’t nail it with a singular strategy. Instead, you’ll need to test and experiment with many different growth strategies to actually find a few that work, and ideally, a few that complement each other or to use other silly startup phrases, create a flywheel, or a growth engine. This is why in the early stages of any startup you want to move through your growth experiments quickly. If a campaign or tactic takes months to launch and learn from you’ll likely find you have run out of your most precious resource, time. 

Oh, and since supposed marketing experts love to make up silly sayings and analogies I’m also going to give you my own to make the second point. That is that when it comes to building growth for your startup it really is like a big band concert with you being the conductor. You’re managing a wide variety of instruments and you succeed when they all play at the right time and with a pleasing melody. Unfortunately, we all know that in the early stages things are more often than not, very much out of tune. So if anything I might recommend looking at your marketing stack and focusing on the noisiest of your instruments. Start to bring that in tune and then the next instrument, and then next, and before you know it a beautiful melody of growth might emerge. 

So now that I have regaled you with silly analogies and fluffy thoughts let’s get to the meat of things. To the marketing activities that I have in general found to be a waste of time for early-stage startups. Maybe you save yourself some time by avoiding these and in future podcasts we’ll delve a bit into things you should try instead. 

First, User Personas. I’m not sure who made these up, but let’s blame academia or perhaps the big consulting firms. Generally, I see young startups make 4 very vague user personas, proudly display them to the team, and then file them away never to look at them again. In the early days your user persona is whoever will pay you. Focus on talking to them, learning from them, making them super happy, and then finding more of them. From my experience, the primarily user personal or user demographic or whatever you want to call it is never who you expect it to be. You can only learn who that is with some trial and error and of course a bit of both qualitative and quantitative data to parse through. 

Next Marketing Conferences, and spoiler alert I have a whole rant coming on how useless tech events are in general for early start startups. When it comes to marketing conferences specifically I suppose it’s no surprise that marketers like to market themselves to other marketers at marketing conferences (phew). Sure, I’ve spoken at many of these venues at least during pre-covid times, but I now think they are such a waste I don’t blame to going forward. If you’re a newbie founder or marketer I can see the appeal of hearing the CMO of blah blah blah talk, but their advice is usually not very tactical. Often is the case that these CMOs work at super well-funded startups and therefore have about a million more times the resources than you do. So that in itself should make it clear on why they really have nothing to offer to you, the early stage company with limited funding.  The truth is you need to find your own strategy. Replicating what some very senior marketer did at some super well-funded company will probably not help you. I mean aren’t we all bored of hearing the 15th version of how Dropbox grew its business? 

Moving on let’s talk about launching small one-time campaigns. Or said another way, Let’s test that new channel but not spend too much time or money on it! With that statement, you have pretty much sealed the fate of this new channel. Any new channel or tactic takes time and several iterations to validate. Throwing $100 and a few hours of your time at it will almost guarantee you don’t see results and therefore don’t pursue it further. While it’s good to kill bad ideas quickly, it’s also bad to make assumptions on very limited effort and of course limited data. Real growth can only be achieved through repeatable growth tactics and channels. Doing a bunch of small one offs will probably not get you there. 

How about all those Fancy Analytics and marketing Tools? Well how many SaaS marketing tools should a sassy SaaS startup use? You have so many to choose from and they all look so shiny! I don’t think you actually need any of them until hitting a certain amount of scale (like millions of monthly events or significant annual revenue). Up and to that point you just need Google Analytics which is you guess it free! and a lot of Google Spreadsheets which is also free! I think you’ll also find your developers hate to integrate/instrument all of these fancy marketing tools and who can blame them? Better to save their energy to work on your core product and you do some extra number crunching in spreadsheets instead. I have also find this brings you much closer to the data as you have to quite literally touch it. That can be a lot more effective in uncovering the needles in the data haystack that you can then leverage further. 

And last, but not least of course is getting too much startup marketing advice from social media sites like LinkedIn, blogs, and cough cough podcasts from supposed experts. Oh no! It’s already too late if you’re listening to this! Better take out those earbuds and start working on your own growth experiments and optimizations. I am being a bit tongue and cheek but there’s some half truth to this as well. Today there is probably too much advice for founders online and yes I acknowledge that I’m part of the problem. Although I do try to at least tell things to you straight without ulterior motives or things to sell you. Nothing else I’d rather try to sell you some confidence that you can figure this out on your own. And hey if you don’t and totally screw up your growth marketing there’s even some value there. Because I’m sure you’ll screw up things much less in your next startup.

Until then, I wish you much success and many charts that go, up and to the right.  

Founders tend to question themselves A LOT. However, there is one question that is perhaps the most important to ask yourself both at the start of building a new company and even when you find yourself in the middle of one. What is that question? Listen to find out. 

Listen to the Podcast:Subscribe for New Episodes:Subscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on PodimoSubscribe on YouTubeRough transcript:

(Not copy edited)

Hello and welcome all the new listeners who subscribed recently. This is a short solo podcast where I rant about various startup things while also trying to provide help for early-stage startups. I release new episodes every week, roughly. Of course, once I announced this podcast, I immediately started traveling and got jetlagged and then sick. So I’m recording this from the road, without a proper mic, and with a stuffy nose. Apologies if the quality is not so great on this one. But as they say, the show must go on, and this week’s topic is relevant to my jetlagged and sleep-deprived brain as the topic is dreams. Or more specifically, building one’s dreams. Let’s jump right in. 

Perhaps it is safe to say that investors ask a lot of silly questions during a pitch meeting, but there was one investor question that always stuck with me as being more profound than the rest. The question was, “Why do you want to do this for the next 10 years of your life?”. I am hopefully remembering and attributing this question correctly to Hunter Walk, a Silicon Valley investor and former exec at YouTube. I love this question so let’s break down what it means for founders as you ponder your own answer. 

To start, it’s a really good question because it can smack a founder right in the face with the reality of just how long it takes to build a really big business. As they say, the secret to overnight success is that it just takes many, many years. A decade is perhaps a safe average when it comes to trying to estimate how long it will take a founder to launch, scale, and hopefully exit their business. Even super well-funded startups like Uber or Airbnb took this long to get to the public markets. I’ll take a wild guess and say that you probably don’t have access to the same billions of venture capital that they did, so it might even take you a little bit longer.  

While you’re thinking about how to answer that question, let me give you a little more fodder to aid your contemplation. That actually takes the form of another related question to this one and serves as a good starting point. That question is, “are you building your own dreams, or someone else’s?”. Or said differently, are you building something due to an intense personal passion, or are you simply chasing the latest trends in our industry? If the latter, it might be much harder to answer that initial 10-year question because who knows if today’s trend will be around in 10 years, let alone 24 hours. 

A great recent example of this is the hype and commotion around web3. Now, I would love to rant about how so much of web3 is just weaponized Ponzi schemes or that they have no real practical applications; however, someone whose opinion I really value, said I should try to keep my podcasts rants a bit less pessimistic. They are probably right, and besides, taking a swing at crypto or meta whatever these days is just too easy, even for me.

However, I still want to poke at this subject a little today. As I see so many former web2 guys and gals who are now today’s web3 experts and megaphones. Funny how that happens… but I worry a little bit for them as it is certainly a risk to pivot oneself completely around the buzzwords of today. I mean, I wouldn’t do it, and I make plenty of reckless life decisions. Although you know what, I can relate, as someone who built a subscription commerce company at the very peak of that trend many years back. That being said, and from my experience, you don’t want to be holding the bag, to use crypto slang, when an industry trend ultimately collapses. Of course, I could be wrong about a lot of things, so maybe your decentralized metaverse-based Dracula coin NFT  is going to change the world, I mean who’s to say really? Maybe it doesn’t matter if you personally have so much passion for that new shiny trend that you are more than ready to put a decade into figuring out how to make these dreams a big business. In these cases I can only salute you for both your conviction and your stubbornness. These are after all some of the best traits a founder can have. 

For everyone else still building your web2 or maybe even web4 dreams, let’s get back to that question at hand. “Why do you want to do this for the next 10 years of your life?” Is your answer to this question already clear? If it is then great! If not, and to help you further, I’ll share two types of good replies I’ve heard over the years. 

To start things off with a mic drop, one way to respond to such a question could be, “I was just so unhappy with the way this was done, I had to build a better way.” These founders get it as they are quote mission-driven unquote, and absolutely obsessed with their solution. An example of this might be the founder of Zoom, who couldn’t build what he wanted while employed at Cisco. So he left and did it all on his own and in a super crowded market as well. There was a million reasons why that would not work but his passion to build his solution superseded all those reasons. If you’re nodding and thinking this is you then be sure to mention this in your investor meetings with all the confidence you can muster. Show them that extreme unhappiness and desire to do it better, all the while you regal them with stories of how you’re turning your own dreams into a reality. 

Another good response to this question is your ability to articulate how you know something that your industry or competitors simply don’t. This one is a bit tougher to pull off. It is worth mentioning that investors also love to learn things in pitch meetings, even if they sometimes act like they already know everything. If you can teach them something new *and* really unique, you might find them generally more interested and engaged. Related to this, I often tell founders investors don’t want to fund you to learn something, such as how to get product market fit or to validate a growth channel. This is often expensive and uncertain. It is always better to go to them and show them what you have already learned and how with their money, along with those learnings, you know what to do. They probably also want to see what you have learned is big and interesting enough to keep you more than busy for 10-plus years. 

I know these example replies are a bit broad but hopefully helpful to get your own train of thoughts going. Every business is of course different, so really, there are so many different ways to answer that 10 year question. You could maybe argue there is no right or wrong way answer. In the end it will come down how you answer it, either to yourself, or to an investor, and if at least one of those parties believes you. Hopefully, both do! Either way, I might recommend thinking more about this question tonight. And if there’s no clear and believable answer, well, maybe there’s something else to think about. You might not be building the right business if you can’t scan ahead a decade and see yourself working on the same challenge.

Until next time, sweet dreams, founders. 

When you’re an early-stage startup, and especially a first-time founder, there’s going to be one saying you’ll hear more than anything while fundraising. The dreaded quote “it’s too early” unquote. It’s a bit of a generic reply that investors will give you, that of course is if you’re lucky to get any response at all. But why do investors say, or at least think this so often? Let us rant a bit on this and talk about how to deal with such replies.

Get the Investor update template mentioned in this podcast:

https://bit.ly/InvestorUpdateTemplate

Listen to the Podcast:Subscribe for New Episodes:Subscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on PodimoSubscribe on YouTubeRough transcript:

(Not copy edited)

When you’re an early-stage startup, and especially a first-time founder there’s going to be one saying you’ll hear more than anything while fundraising. The dreaded quote “it’s too early” unquote. It’s a bit of a generic reply that investors will give you, that of course is if you’re lucky to get any response at all. But why do investors say, or at least think this so often? Let us rant a bit on this, talk about how to deal with such replies. 

To start saying “its too early” is a much nicer way of saying “no”. At the same time, an investor who might not be ready to invest today wants always to keep the door open for tomorrow. Things move fast in our industry, and anything is pretty much possible. Perhaps tomorrow you close a big customer, or another investor will jump on board. When this happens, you might find that yesterday’s it’s too early” investor is more than ready today. Such is the nature of our business and the sheep-like mentality of startup fundraising.

This can all be a bit frustrating because, duh, of course it’s too early. It takes a long time to build a startup and, in some cases, many years of wheel spinning before you get some traction and move the business forward. You probably also think you have made enough progress for investors, which, may or may not be true. Regardless, you will in many cases have to keep reminding your investor pipeline of your progress and keep them updated as you made more. Because when it comes to doing early stage investing there is one thing investors are looking for more than anything, that being momentum. 

I’m thinking back to the literally 1000s of startup pitches I’ve received over my career. And yes, I’m sorry tostroke0 say I have also uttered those “it’s too early” words more times than I care to admit. However when I do there’s something I almost always also say. That being, “please 5’m me updated, feel free to add me to your investor update emails”. The founders usually politely nod and agree to do it and in almost every case they never do. In fact, among those 1000 or so pitches I can only recall 2 founders who continued to send me ongoing monthly updates. One still does to this day even though I have since moved on from not 1 but 2 funds where they originally pitched for investment. Yes, that is right, about zero point 2 percent of founders actually sent me updates after receiving a no. Why is this? Well, I think founders tend to think of a pitch meeting as a bit of a one-night stand. You either got laid, or I guess more accurately paid, or you didn’t. And if you didn’t, you slinked away to whatever dark corner you emerged from never to be seen again. Unfortunately for first-time founders that does neither of us any good. To get new investor’s money they probably want to get you to know you beyond that one hot pitch and build a real relationship. But founders are both frantic and spastic and quickly move on. Big mistake. 

So what should you do instead? Well regardless if you get a no or no answer at all just start to send the investors you speak with quick monthly updates. Trust me, investors already get a lot of emails, mostly junk or cold pitches, so they’ll actually enjoy to get something with a bit more substance. Most importantly, it will help them see you progress and maybe, just maybe, they’ll jump back in and consider an investment down the road. Worst case, your startup will stay top of mind with them which is a challenge when you think about how many pitches investors are looking at each year. This is probably the easiest thing you can do to convert investors and still it’s one the least used tactics by founders. I guess it goes without saying that is you already have existing investors you should also be updating them every month! If you haven’t here is your friendly reminder and I would also add that these updates can be sent to any potential future investors as well. 

But what should these updates contain? Let’s break it down and, oh, be sure to look in the description of this podcast to find a link a free template you can use. 

To start these updates should be very very short. Don’t write a novel and don’t even prepare slides or PDFs. Text is all you need and keeping the updates inline within the email will also ensure investors are more likely to read them. I see a lot founders get stuck or just avoid investor updates because they think it needs to be a big production, when it really should not. Your investors will spend about 30 seconds reading them, so you should not spend more than 5 minutes making them. 

In terms of the structure, it just contains 3 parts. The first is the opening which should be 1-2 sentences about what happened in the last month. Again there is no reason to tell them everything, just the most important changes to the business in the last 30 days. Keep it upbeat and highlight your wins in either traction, new hires, or product updates. 

For the next part you just need 3 bullet points that are primarily your main business metrics. Things you can quantify are best and things that ideally easily show momentum. For most business that first metric should of course be revenue, but it might be something else like downloads or pipeline value. The next bullet point should be your north star metric, if you dont know what that means do a bit of googling but in short, it’s a way to quantify the value your product provides. For example with spotify their north star might be the total numbers of songs listened to per month. Your 3rd and final bullet point is a bit of a wild card and something highly specific to your business. It might even be something related to new hires, or perhaps a big new customer you’re working on. In the case of all these bullets put in parenthesis after each on the change month over month. I go a bit further and put this metric in green to signal to investors that shit is happening and it’s positive. 

Now for the final part of the update, “the ask”. Here is where you solicit for advice, an introduction or other help with the business. As your investor network hopefully has interesting connections, it’s a great way to get them engaged in the business even before they invest. An example of this might be “We are looking for a high-level contact at Facebook, please reply to this email if you can connect us”. The ask serves two purposes really. It signals what you’re doing next while also showing you’re coachable. Furthermore it’s the best way to determine if an investor is genuinely interested in your startup. If they reply, and try to help, then you know they are. If they do that and it has been awhile since you last pitched them it might be a good chance to ask for a new call and try get them onboard. 

I’ll close this episode with a rant about how sending short monthly updates is by far the easiest thing you do keep both existing and new investors happy. I’ll also shame you founders who are probably not doing this! I know your life is busy and hectic but think about just a few things you’re spending 5 minutes on that could be better used writing these updates. Perhaps you don’t need to send that tweet or attend yet another tech conference for example. I mean in the time you have spent listening to this podcast, well, you probably could of sent an update. So please take those airpods out for just a moment and get to writing. Be sure to look in the description of this podcast for a link to my monthly investor update email.

 

The post Podcast: When Investors Say “It’s too early” first appeared on Sean Percival.

I visited Italy for the first time and the wonderful area of Tuscany and Pisa. Strangely enough, I did not see that leaning tower…however, I did come across something equally interesting. That being the naturally mummified remains of St. Zita, who is one of the ‘incorruptibles’, a saint who is deemed so pure and good their body simply did not decay. She is over 700 years old and was even mentioned by Dante in his Divine Comedy.

Here she rests, and rests, and rests some more.

I bet a little face moisturizer would go a long way for her… Bonus shot from atop of the many towers of the city. You can see her resting spot in the far right corner here. The post The Incorruptible St. Zita Mummy (Lucca, Italy) first appeared on Sean Percival.

I do have a bit of a thing for very symmetrical parks. So I had to check out Treptower Park. I also love reveling in how capitalism has, and always will win.

Ohhhh symmetry, I love you so. Nice sword comrade. Take a knee. Just a casual jaunt in the forest.The post The Soviet War Memorial at Treptower Park (Berlin, Germany) first appeared on Sean Percival.

Listen to the Podcast:

They say PowerPoint is a tool for people with no power who are struggling to make a point. There is perhaps no more poignant way to describe what founders do as they flap both their wings and their slides in the form of the startup investor presentation. 

Subscribe for new episodes:Subscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on PodimoRough transcript:

(Not copy edited)

They say PowerPoint is a tool for people with no power who are struggling to make a point. There is perhaps no more poignant way to describe what founders do as they flap both their wings and their slides in the form of the startup investor presentation.  

I’m reminded of a time when I had to do just that to the biggest investment fund around. The one and only Andreessen Horowitz. I recall sitting in their waiting room on Sand Hill road, being as nervous as any founder can be. It didn’t help that throughout the lobby there were framed pictures of atomic bombs exploding. I never quite knew what to make of that. Perhaps it was a not-so-subtle display of the power this fund yielded, or maybe it was just a gentle reminder to founders not to bomb this very important meeting. In any case, they called me back into the office, and the great startup slide shuffle was about to commence. I was ready and, frankly pretty pumped to be pitching to such a prestigious fund. The receiving partner at the fund, however was less than pumped. Truthfully they looked absolutely bored to death and were barely paying attention. They looked at their phone, scanned the room, and they searched for anything more engaging than my humble albeit well-designed slides. I had lost him, and I wasn’t even halfway through them. When we finally got the slide for the total addressable market, aka the TAM, I simply blurted out, “Sooooo, these are a bunch of numbers that I just made up and put on a slide for you!”. I was trying to bring some levity to the room, and I did that and much more. The partner busted up with laughter and said, “You know what, you are absolutely right about that, but no one ever has the balls to say that here!”. From that point on, the rest of the meeting was great! The partner was engaged, and the conversions and questions were flowing naturally. I think I spat out that silly line because internally I had given up but leaving that meeting, I thought hmmm I might actually get them into this deal, and all thanks to one bad joke. 

Although, in reality, if I could raise money on bad jokes, I’m pretty sure that much like the Andressen himself, I would also be a billionaire. I did, however start to learn something that day when it came to fundraising. That being that, your investor deck, well, I’m sorry to say, is really meaningless when comes to your fundraising success. Yes, I know it seems super important to founders who tole away endlessly to make them, but to investors, at least good ones, it really doesn’t matter. You’ll have to win them over with much more than slides.

So why we are still enduring this silly dance in this day and age? Truthfully I think it’s time to do away with investor presentations altogether. Unfortunately I just dont see that happening…

Furthermore, I think founders too often use slides as a crutch to maneuver their way back and forth awkwardly and further and further away from making an actual point. I maybe don’t blame them, as startup pitching can be stressful, and a founder is already juggling so many thoughts in their head. You might be forgiven for needing a few cheat sheets. 

So while I know I’ll never be able to convince the world to do away with investor slides altogether, let’s see if we can at least make them a little more useful and as a result, less painful for us investors to endure. 

To start, and for your investor meetings please always ask the investor if they would like you to present slides or just have a discussion. You might be surprised to see that many would just prefer a more natural conversation. This is especially true in the case when you have already sent the deck ahead of time, which is probably most of the time. If they are a good investor then they have likely already read the slides, or at least casually paroosed them. So if you just show up and start reading the slides to them again it almost guarantes the investor will be bored. They wont say anything, and they let you out on your little show, but they are probably day dreaming about their next fancy dinner or ski holiday instead of listening to your pitch.  

I have talked about this before in previous rants, but to get investment you have to win both the heart *and* the mind of the investor. In other words it is much better if they can get to know you as a person, not as a robot who can recite text from well rehearsed slides. And getting to know someone is a two way street that takes some back forth. Call it what you want, sparing, or maybe even jousting, but that’s actually the sign of a great investor meeting. All that back and forth even when it can sometimes be confrontational, is a good thing! You want the investor reallllly engaged and excited about what you’re doing. That happens after fruitful discussion and almost never from PowerPoint Bingo. Yes we get it, your startup is in the top right quadrant of the competitive matrix. Very exciting. Oh I see your TAM is very impressive and large. I mean you just like I have done probably made up a bunch of numbers but still, very impressive. You get the point. While there is much song and dance in startupland, there is no tango more elaborate than the investor deck shuffle. 

So I guess I’m still just trying to persuade you not to deck, but we all know that won’t happen. It has become too ingrained into the fundraising process and won’t be decoupled so easily. So let’s switch from a rant to trying to provide some help and guidance. 

First, let’s talk about two different types of decks, the email deck and the in-person deck. For the email deck this is the teaser, the nipple pinch, or the alluring wink to get someone’s attention And hopefully a meeting. It should at the most be 5 slides with very little text. As you are delivering the deck via email think that you have about 10 seconds to get an investor interested. That is especially true if they have no prior experience with you. In that case maybe you only have 3 seconds. Can an investor get through 30 slides in 3 seconds? Or course not. Regardless of how well you designed them. 

For content, it’s just the facts and no forward-looking fairtales. It should be totally focused on what you have done, what you have learned, and not what you might do in the future. For when you have traction this should be the primary focus. That means don’t slap in endless product shots or mock-ups, you simply don’t have the space nor the time. As a small side rant, if you only have mock-ups and no traction, should you even be fundraising? Listen to my other podcast titled ‘cold emailing investors’ for more rants on that.

Exclude all the fluff in the email deck such as those tam slides and other startup mental gymnastics you founders do.. 

When it comes to the call to action or the ask it should not be for money! Ya no shit you are looking for money! That is sorta implied both by your investor presentation and of course the faint hint of desperation in your voice. Think about what else would make for a strong closing and all to action. Do you want their advice? Do you want to bring them along for the journey? Do you have learning or new tech so they must get a closer look at? Whatever it is, close strong and give them a reason to call you in. For those with traction don’t be shy to reiterate it again here at the end. That can sometimes be enough to perk an investors interest. 

Now to the larger or in-person deck. Oy, there are so many things wrong with how these are done I don’t even know where to start. I don’t want to start going slide by slide and discussing their merit and best practices. There are already so many blogs and templates and other things to help you here. Instead, I want to talk about what I think is the most important thing with any deck with regard to their use in a pitch meeting. Mainly that your investor presentation is not a sales presentation! The investor is not going to become a paying customer! So there is no need to oversell the problem and solution and there is certainly no need to overwhelm them with product shots and every single tiny feature you have built. Basically, if you are saying the same exact things in your sales meeting as you are to investors, you’re in trouble. 

Instead, and in addition to talking up your traction and momentum, talk about Why your customers love what you do for them and why they pay you for it, or why they will pay you more for it over time. Don’t tell them all the features; tell investors all value you are providing and while that value is unique in the market.  

Of course, fundraising is never that easy, especially when pitching to the big funds as I did with Andresseen Horowtiz. Curious what happened after my meeting? Well, it took them about a week to reply and then it was a big fat NO. I reached out to an advisor who had set up the meeting to let them know Andressen was out. To which he replied, “Ya, I already knew, they let me know right after the meeting.”  

That hurt a little, although should we be surprised that either my good slides or my bad jokes didn’t get me over the finish line? Of course not. I however learned from my own advisors backchanneling that in this business fundraising is still a lot about who you know. For those of your first-time founders without a network, well, then it will probably be more about what you know that others don’t. Articulate that well in your investor meetings and with our without slides you should do just fine. 

The post Podcast: The Investor Presentation Shuffle first appeared on Sean Percival.

I was recently in Prague and there was one touristy thing I have wanted to see there for some time now. That being the astronomical clock or the Prague Orloj. It’s an absurd feat of time-keeping engineering. It is even more impressive when you think about the fact that the clock is over 600 years old and still functioning. Making it the oldest functioning clock of its kind in the world.

The clock has too many features to list out here, but here’s a nice video breaking it down:

The post The Astronomical Clock (Prague, Czech Republic) first appeared on Sean Percival.

‘Always late but worth the wait’ is sometimes my motto in life. To that point, I’ve now started a new podcast long after everyone else has. I’ve actually wanted to do this for a while, so I took the summer break to finally do just that.

It’s called Percival’s Startup Rants, and it’s a solo podcast where I…..wait for it….rant about startups. More specifically, I’ll be sharing advice mainly for first-time founders and early-stage startups. You poor bastards, you need all the help you can get.

I may change the show name, but in the spirit of shipping fast, that’s what it is called now. The first few episodes are now available on several platforms with new episodes every week(ish). Appreciate your subscriptions, ratings, and feedback.

Introduction Episode:Subscribe for New Episodes:Subscribe on SpotifySubscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on Podimo

The post New Podcast: Percival’s Startup Rants first appeared on Sean Percival.