Aug 23
Pitching is an art form in the startup world. It’s a make or break moment as companies lay out their case for why they deserve millions in venture capital money.
Make sure you deliver real facts that show traction of the business and provide confidence to investors.
More than two generations ago, the venture capital community — VCs, business angels, incubators, and others — convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centerpieces of entrepreneurial endeavor.
But the vast majority of successful entrepreneurs never take any venture capital.
In most of the cases, the startup success relies in solving a pain or improving an inefficiency which is part of complex process or of a long supply chain.
Developing a minimum viable product (MVP) with strong collaboration of potential customers and other stakeholders might help defining the product/service boundaries and establishing profitable partnerships.
The Most Innovative Companies 2013
“Innovate or die” is the motto for the state of innovation report by the Boston Consulting Group.
Based on inquiries to industry executives, the report assesses the innovation of companies according to 5 strengths:
Developing a minimum viable product to prove a business model concept is an essential element of the lean startup approach.
Building such prototypes have two major objectives: Learning what problems should be solved and drive risk out of the business model.
Managing a large running enterprise is a much different game than running a small startup and it requires a totally different set of skills and sources of motivation.
In this article, Scott Anthony from Innosight explains 5 simple rules for corporations to manage innovation projects:
Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything
The business cycle and internal dynamics of a startup company has few similarities with those of an established business. To be responsive to fast moves of the economy, startups have to adopt the lean startup methodology to pace the development of its product lines.
In opposition to the creation of extensive business plans and the development of fully functional prototypes, this methodology prompts for the test of hypotheses by incorporating frequent customer feedback in “minimum viable products”.
10 Secrets to Successfully Pitching Investors for Big Money
Simple and effective tips on how to pitch a new venture to investors.
What Value Creation Will Look Like in the Future
While in the past value creation was a function of economies of scale, in the future it will be the consequence of addressing every ‘single’ customer needs.
To provide unique solutions, a company needs to have creativity and mass customization embedded in its DNA by:
Steve Blank on Why Big Companies Can’t Innovate
Innovation, either focused on product or the business model, can be very hard to implement at the corporate level because of the different profiles and set of skills of managers needed to run them.
Pedro Antao Alves 