Hacking the Startup Investor Pitch: What Sequoia Capital's business plan framework can teach you about building and pitching your company

by Francisco S. Homem De Mello

Sequoia Capital is one of the most famous venture capital funds in the world, and when they discuss start-up pitches, they know what they're talking about. This manual breaks down how to pitch investors according to what Sequoia Capital wants to see and hear from entrepreneurs. It serves as your essential companion to the challenging process of conceiving and translating a solid business plan into an effective pitch. Packed with references to Sequoia's website and other industry sources, such as well-known venture capitalist blogs, TED talks, Quora, and widely used books, this manual will arm you with a vast knowledge base on everything start-up. Using Sequoia Capital's framework will develop your idea to the point where it just might sell itself. So follow these simple guidelines, think hard about your business, and understand all of the angles that will help you raise funds and find the success you've worked so hard to achieve.

156 pages, Paperback

First published July 28, 2014

About the author

Francisco Souza Homem de Mello was born in Brazil, and is the founder and CEO of Qulture.Rocks, a technology company on a mission to help all companies have cultures that rock, abd that serves startups, middle-market companies, and Fortune 500 corporations (http://qulture.rocks). The company has also been part of Y-Combinator's W18 batch, and now ranks among other YC alumni such as Twitch, Stripe, Heroku and Dropbox.

At Qulture.Rocks, Francisco writes extensively about performance management and leadership, which make up the powerful intersection between performance reviews, ongoing, continuous feedback, goals and OKRs and one-on-one meetings.

The 3G Way, Francisco's most well known book, was the product of many years of intense study and thinking about some of the world's most intense and successful corporate cultures. He studied GE, Walmart, Goldman Sachs, and finally, Anheuser-Busch InBev, a company that is the result of several mergers and acquisitions by Brazil-based Cervejaria Brahma. Brahma was first acquired by partners of Banco Garantia, a Brazilian investment bank where the current owners of AB InBev, Burger King, and Heinz, started out their careers. AB InBev served as the inspiration for The 3G Way, where the author introduces the management style and techniques that evolved from Garantia and took its creators to the forefront of world capitalism. The book is on its second, revised edition, and has sold more than 50 thousand copies worldwide, making Francisco one of the top 200 authors in business and management worldwide.

Francisco is also a triathlete, with multiple Ironman, Ironman 70.3 and olympic-distance finishes. He lives in San Francisco and São Paulo, with his wife, Danielle, and dogs, Eureka and Eugenia.

Reviews

[Vivek Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sweet and simple, but I am asking for more.

[Gaurav]

i am exited to read this book,because i want to start a company