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Day: January 24, 2022

Practicing—and Perfecting—Your 60-Second Pitch

by David Cohen
This post is by David Cohen from Hi, I'm David G. Cohen

I recently joined my colleague Saba Karim, Director of Startup Pipeline at Techstars, for a one-hour “pitch practice” session on Twitter Spaces hosted by Adam Soccolich (aka Twitter’s @TheBestOfAdam) and… wow!

We heard a variety of pitches from a diverse group of founders from around the world. Some came with experience from other startups. Some were first-time entrepreneurs. A few were currently in Techstars accelerators. A few others had received feedback from Saba in previous Spaces sessions and were coming back with more polished pitches. Some were stepping up to pitch in public for the first time.

As Saba, Adam and I weighed in with our comments a few consistent suggestions emerged about what to say and how to say it. Not all these suggestions will apply to every pitch you make. But, both now and as your pitch evolves, I invite you to use this checklist to choose the most relevant aspects of your story to include when you’re only given 60 seconds to sell to an investor.

What to say:

Start with the “why.”

What made you start this business? Was there a personal story or experience that helped bring home to you the problem you now wish to solve? 

Use differentiators to establish your credibility.

What is special or unique about the insight you have? Do you or the people on your team bring experience or expertise that sets your startup apart?

Validate your opportunity. 

Quantify the market you are addressing. If you have competitors, use (Read more...)

Practicing—and Perfecting—Your 60-Second Pitch

by David Cohen
This post is by David Cohen from Hi, I'm David G. Cohen

I recently joined my colleague Saba Karim, Director of Startup Pipeline at Techstars, for a one-hour “pitch practice” session on Twitter Spaces hosted by Adam Soccolich (aka Twitter’s @TheBestOfAdam) and… wow!

We heard a variety of pitches from a diverse group of founders from around the world. Some came with experience from other startups. Some were first-time entrepreneurs. A few were currently in Techstars accelerators. A few others had received feedback from Saba in previous Spaces sessions and were coming back with more polished pitches. Some were stepping up to pitch in public for the first time.

As Saba, Adam and I weighed in with our comments a few consistent suggestions emerged about what to say and how to say it. Not all these suggestions will apply to every pitch you make. But, both now and as your pitch evolves, I invite you to use this checklist to choose the most relevant aspects of your story to include when you’re only given 60 seconds to sell to an investor.

What to say:

Start with the “why.”

What made you start this business? Was there a personal story or experience that helped bring home to you the problem you now wish to solve? 

Use differentiators to establish your credibility.

What is special or unique about the insight you have? Do you or the people on your team bring experience or expertise that sets your startup apart?

Validate your opportunity. 

Quantify the market you are addressing. If you have competitors, use (Read more...)

Creating a PreSales Organization to Support the Product-Led Growth Motion

by Jaclyn Robinson

This article is part of the Crunchbase Community Contributor Series. The author is an expert in their field and a Crunchbase user. We are honored to feature and promote their contribution on the Crunchbase blog.

Please note that the author is not employed by Crunchbase and the opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect official views or opinions of Crunchbase, Inc.

Product-led growth (PLG), the process of putting the product at the center of the buying journey, has excellent benefits for organizations looking to easily set up their sales and product strategy. That said, this approach to acquiring customers is often quite lengthy, and may not work when teams do not approach it correctly. As solutions become more and more complex, it is critical that product-led organizations put the product front and center to allow potential customers the ability to self-learn about what the company offers. However, sometimes customers need a little guidance. 

In order to solve for the customer, businesses with complex solutions need to implement a light PreSales touch to bring these complex solutions to life. 

Think of PLG for complex solutions like a self-driving car. Although we’ve taken huge leaps toward fully autonomous vehicles, the technology isn’t there yet. Because of this, we still need to keep our hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road while we finalize the technology.

Now, how do self-driving cars relate to a light PreSales touch? Well, implementing it is vital to solve for those complex problems: 

10 Ways You Can Build Leadership Communities in a Hybrid World of Work

by Katie Jones
This post is by Katie Jones from Visual Capitalist

The world has never been more connected. Yet many of us feel more disconnected than ever before.

In particular, CEOs and managers can often feel isolated from their peers, and therefore crave a greater sense of community and belonging. This lack of social connection can have a detrimental impact on both them and their team—putting the future of their company at risk.

Leading in a Hybrid World of Work

This infographic from bestselling author Vince Molinaro dives into the ways you can build a strong community of leaders in your organization, enabling you to more successfully execute on strategy, drive growth, and deliver results.

leadership

>>Download Dr.Vince Molinaro’s Community Builder Ebook Today

The Critical Need for Leadership Communities

In today’s world, many leaders have been conditioned to work and lead in a way that is individualistic and hyper-competitive, which leads to problematic outcomes including:

  • Limiting innovative ideas
  • Causing overwhelm and stress
  • Limiting diversity and a sense of inclusion
  • Promoting a macho culture
  • Creating heroes and zeros in organizations

This outdated model breeds a weak leadership culture. Even though leadership expectations are higher than ever, very few companies boast a strong leadership culture. In fact, just 15% of companies have the culture they need to succeed.

What does a weak leadership look like?

Weak Leadership Cultures

When leaders demonstrate the following behaviors, organizations are at risk of developing a weak leadership culture:

  1. They lack clarity around strategic priorities.
  2. They fail to inspire the people they lead.
  3. They tolerate ineffective and (Read more...)

Analyst/Associate – Dementia Discovery Fund

by Jennifer Zemel

The Dementia Discovery Fund is looking for an ambitious and motivated Analyst / Associate with deep scientific experience and a strong entrepreneurial spirit to join the investment team in Boston. This role provides a unique opportunity to become part of a life sciences venture capital fund and has long-term potential for advancement within the Fund.FUND: The Dementia Discovery Fund (https://theddfund.com)The Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) is a £250 million venture capital fund investing in early-stage companies discovering and developing novel, disease-modifying therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases causing dementia. DDF is managed by SV Health Investors (the employer), a leading healthcare and life sciences venture capital and growth equity firm with a 27-year track record with offices in Boston and London.Since DDF’s initial closing in 2015, the Fund has built a portfolio of 18 investments in drug discovery and platform companies, predominantly located in the US and UK. Nine of these companies were created or built by the DDF and SV. The limited partners include a unique collaboration of leading global pharmaceutical companies, charitable organizations and government agencies.POSITION:
The successful candidate will assist with the sourcing and evaluation of potential investment and company creation opportunities, the technical and commercial due diligence on investment targets, as well as deal execution and project management. The successful candidate will work closely with the senior investment team and support it on all aspects of both the investment process and portfolio management. They will also collaborate with DDF’s scientific advisors and engage (Read more...)

Head of Ecosytem – Decasonic

by Jennifer Zemel

Opportunity: Head of Ecosystem
You will build an ecosystem of connections and long-term relationships within the digital assets space, finding key topics of need within the founder network, to build sustainable ways of connecting, promoting inclusion, information sharing and education. You will serve both current and future investors, as well as founders and perspective founders, forming a tightknit community of partnerships to generate value beyond investor returns, in order to strengthen the entire industry and its stakeholders. The role is highly entrepreneurial, as it will require a combination of growing awareness of blockchain innovation trends, community building techniques, investor relations experience and quantitative / qualitative capabilities. The successful candidate will have strong relationship management skills, and an ability to translate problems into clear frameworks. As a lean, entrepreneurial company, flexibility and willingness to pitch in whenever needed is critical.
  • Work alongside the investment team to assist in creating external marketing collateral for all stakeholders / components of the ecosystem.
  • Grow and establish successful partnerships between the firm and our portfolio companies, delivering superb client service and communication.
  • Own the post-investment onboarding process for new portfolio companies to ensure founders have an exceptional customer experience.
  • Help launch new initiatives that enable founders and our network of experts connect and learn, as well as partner with perspective founders to build a deal pipeline.
  • Manage follow-on funding and diligence processes.
  • Foster a thriving digital assets ecosystem by creating regular content, defining and embedding community ethos within all initiatives that create an open and (Read more...)

Head of Strategy, Technology & Analytics – Decasonic

by Jennifer Zemel

Responsibilities:
  • Deeply understand blockchain technology
  • Fluency in emerging trends in Web3, dApps, DeFi, blockchain gaming, DAOs, and NFTs
  • Help perform seed stage venture capital due diligence, both business and technical
  • Drive vision, strategy, business/technology/data architecture, design and roadmap to set up portfolio companies for success
  • Drive projects from abstract ideation, design through proof-of-concept, creating concrete execution plans in collaboration with our CTO in Decasonic Labs
  • Understand and develop leading indicators of product market fit
  • Seek and build partnerships across our blockchain ecosystem.
  • Define, build and track key performance metrics to measure success and identify and iterate on opportunities for growth.
  • Experience in fostering cross-functional working partnerships with business, engineering, and product teams, advocating for new technology & analytics solutions to influence cross-functional roadmaps in emerging technology companies
  • Own OKRs
  • Provide impactful insights into the fund and portfolio company’s strategic directions
  • Requires some international conference travel
Requirements: 
  • 10 + years of experience in software/systems leadership/consulting, leading large scale technology, data and/or analytics transformations from concept through implementation
  • Communication, presentation and interpersonal skills with a history of delivering executive-level discussions/presentations
  • Strategic thinker with business development, analytical and problem-solving experience, adeptness in identifying insights and communicating results to inform business decisions
  • Track record of leading external teams and influencing Founders without authority. – Demonstrates creativity, detail-orientation, and delivering results with execution rigor
  • Capacity to thrive when faced with ambiguous problems, markets and technologies – Capable of leading complex and ambiguous projects with autonomy
  • MBA and/or Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree in computer science, statistics, economics, (Read more...)

Head of Research – Decasonic Venture & Digital Assets Fund

by Jennifer Zemel

Responsibilities
You will make direct impact from the high quality work you do. This is a full time role based in NYC or Chicago, IL.
  • Develop and communicate personal OKRs that add value to the firm
  • Perform quantitative and qualitative research of key market trends, use cases, product market fit and whitespaces
  • Map key ecosystems to identify key competitive dynamics
  • Synthesize research into key insights for long term investment alpha, open sourced or internal
  • Set up databases & dashboards for relevant user adoption, on-chain metrics, and other market trends/ dynamics
  • Evaluate case studies on successes and failures in blockchain and Web3
  • Apply research into actionable investment deal sourcing in early stage venture and digital assets
  • Connect with early stage Web3 founders, with a primary focus on US, Europe, & East Asia
  • Apply insights into portfolio value add Job
Requirements
  • Undergraduate degree.
  • Technical background (economics, data science, statistics, math, CS, or EE) preferred, high GPA preferred
  • Investing or operating experience in blockchain required, ideally both
  • Prior entrepreneurship, venture capital, corporate development, or management consulting experience preferred
  • Demonstrated track record success (and failures)
  • Intangibles for success: world class aspirations, growth mindset, intensity, competitiveness, strong written and verbal presentation skills
About Decasonic
Decasonic is the venture and digital assets fund building blockchain innovation. Our mission is to transform blockchain ideas into world changing innovations at unprecedented speed. We draw on our decades of experience as both tech investors and operators to help outlier founders in blockchain accelerate product market fit and scale growth. (Read more...)

Venture Associate – Decasonic Venture & Digital Assets Fund

by Jennifer Zemel

Our Venture Associate will support the fund’s investment and operating activities across Web3. We are a small collaborate team so this individual will have significant impact to our long term growth. This is a full time role based in Chicago, IL.
Responsibilities
  • Build a strong network with outlier founders, through Web3 channels – twitter, discord, telegram, reddit, linkedin
  • Develop investment theses around market whitespaces and “killer apps”
  • Review and engage with business plans and meetings with founders
  • Source opportunities on the frontier of Web3 pre-seed and seed stage venture and digital assets, domestically and internationally
  • Lead all aspects of due diligence on new and current partnerships with founders, both investments and active network participation (technology analysis, code reviews, industry thesis, competitive landscape, business/pricing model, and financial modeling / deal structuring)
  • Assess industry dynamics to formulate growth plans
  • Maintain and innovate on VC data & software stack
  • Prepare market analyses and investment memos to drive investment decisions and for engagement with the firm’s extensive network of corporate relationships
  • Participate in post investment value add, including community building
  • Interface and activate the Decasonic ecosystem of founders, investors and other strategic partners
Requirements
  • 2-3+ years of post college work professional experience (e.g., management consulting, start-up tech, founding team tech, Web3 DAOs)
  • Critical, analytical thinker who can effectively operate with speed
  • Strong analytical ability to collect, evaluate, and present data to form effective narratives
  • Demonstrated ability to thrive in an entrepreneurial environment with limited supervision – outlier founder approach
  • Innate curiosity and skill for (Read more...)