Ken Singer @ European Innovation Academy Summer Session 2013

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Instructor: Ken Singer
July 23, 2013

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• Managing Director, CET|Berkeley
• Serial entrepreneur with 15 years of
mobile startup experience
• Pitched to over 100 venture capitalists
• Founded, VC-funded, & managed
enterprise mobility startup
• Mentored, advised 50+ companies
Ken Singer, Entrepreneur

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Question: what is your goal when presenting?
Art of the pitch

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Two Player game
-> ACT->

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• Hook the audience – first 10 seconds
• Teach them something new
• Make them believe your vision
• Qualify yourself
• Be memorable
What you need to do in 3 minutes…

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Must feel inspired.
What makes people take action?

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• People make decisions emotionally
• Justify with logic
Dirty Secret of presenting…

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Principles of presenting well

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Know your audience. Respect them.

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Belief leads to confidence

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High Energy: be enthusiastic

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Natural loose posture

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Smile

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Hands

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Establishing credibility
Does the message and the
messenger align?
Passing the sniff test

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- Credibility = Game Fail
Game FAIL

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The Presentation

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The What & The HOW
The “music” and the “performance”

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The “What”: Areas to cover
• The “Problem”
• The “Solution”
• Value Proposition
• The Market & Opportunity
• Product, Distribution & Revenue Model
• Technology
• Competition
• Team
• Financials
• Funding strategy and needs
• Timeline and action plan

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The “How”
Tell a story…

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Aspects of the how
• How you Frame the story…
• Keep your specific audience
perspective in mind
• Be Provocative
• How you present yourself…
• Qualified Story Teller
• Narrative: build your case…
• Logical, consistent, relevant

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Power of storytelling

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Building a case – logical order

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Popular Narrative Arc
• Begin with a “hook”
• Convince them of the problem
• Introduce your solution
• Show them how it works
• Prove how big the opportunity is:
• Market size
• Competition can be beaten
• Show timing is right
• Give them confidence you’re the right team
• Close with the exciting next steps

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Example Presentation
Flowbit

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Tactics in story telling

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Tactics: visuals

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Word Choice

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Tactics
Power of Models and Familiarity

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Tactics
Dangers of Models and Familiarity

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Power of the demo
Power of examples

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The Bad

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The Good

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Tactics
Make people think…but not TOO hard.

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Tactics
Comfort with the Material

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Tactics
How to answer questions

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PRINCIPLES OF SPEAKING
-Simple language choice
-Annunciate
-slow down

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Principles of design
•Use powerful images
•Few words
•Use large font
•Slides must be easy to understand

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Your turn
• Use the principles outlined here to
tweek your pitch
• PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
• You should have at least 30 run-
throughs before tomorrow’s pitch