Want to improve your pitch & presentation skills? We can help make you pitch like a rockstar!

1. Vision to Version
Work Central
Singapore, 11 May 2016
Pitch
like
a
rockstar

2. • Meet and mingle
• Greetings & introductions
• How can you improve your elevator pitch?
• How can you strengthen your vision?
• Brief introduction to V2V Labs
Event schedule

3. Let’s all stand up!
• Who has been thinking about their project for more than 2 weeks?
• Who has done some web research on their problem?
• Who has spoken to potential users?
• Who has already built a demo?
• Who has spoken with any potential investors/funders?
• Who has received payment from customers for their product?
OK, thanks! That gives us an idea of what you’ve done so far.
Let’s hear some more about you

4. THE
ONLY
WAY
TO
WIN
IS
TO
LEARN
FASTER
THAN
ANYONE
ELSE
ERIC
RIES
Author,
The
Lean
StartupGET
BETTER
REALITY
Guy
Kawasaki
Author,
Reality
Check

5. How
can
you
articulate your
vision
better?
V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

6. 1. Keep your main pitch to 60 seconds
2. Use the Start with Why approach (next slides)
3. Practice, practice, practice
4. Systematically get feedback on your idea
5. Strengthen your idea
5 simple tips

7. Start with why are you doing this when you pitch
Why is not about your motivation or interest
Investors and customers don’t care much about that
What they care about is what problem you are solving and for who
Too many entrepreneurs fall in love with their solution
You need to fall in love with a real customer problem first!
Start with why

8. (Social purpose example)
• There are many elderly people in Singapore
• It can be dangerous for them boarding the bus
• Especially when the driver isn’t aware they need extra time to board
Start with Why you are solving this problem and for who

9. (Social purpose example)
• We plan to develop a device that can alert the driver that a special
needs passenger is boarding or getting off the bus
• The driver will know to allow the passenger extra time
• This will reduce the risk of passengers falling over or missing the bus
Explain How in a way your grandma could understand

10. (Social purpose example)
• The solution we are developing uses NFC or Near Field
Communication
• It fits on the wrist of the passenger like a FitBit and has a simple
button
• A receiver on the bus near the driver alerts him with an alert tone
Explain What the solution is, keeping jargon to a minimum

11. (B2C example)
• Carla is Singaporean women who loves to shop but has little free time
• It can be hard to find that perfect little black dress
• Even online, it’s difficult and time consuming
Start with Why you are solving this problem and for who

12. (B2C example)
• Our platform aggregates content from many e-commerce websites
• It allows the user to do keyword searches for what she wants
• Carla can see little black dresses from more than 20 websites
Explain How in a way your grandma could understand

13. (B2C example)
• We have relationships with many vendors
• They allow us to catalogue their content and list prices
• The content is tagged to allow easy searching
Explain What the solution is, keeping jargon to a minimum

14. (B2B example)
• Joe is Singaporean guy who is very entrepreneurial
• He has spent more than $40,000 developing his MVP
• He hasn’t got funding, and he is running out of money
Start with Why you are solving this problem and for who

15. (B2B example)
• Our program helps people like Joe save time and money
• Joe can build a marketable prototype with us in 4 weeks for $5,500
• If he decides part way to stop, we only charge him pro rata
Explain How in a way your grandma could understand

16. (B2B example)
• We test many of your assumptions before you spend on build
• We then make sure you only build what you absolutely need to build
• We have negotiated deals with quality vendors who build at low prices
Explain What the solution is, keeping jargon to a minimum

17. 1. Why am I doing this
Articulating my vision
(Elevator Pitch Practice)
2. How am I doing this?
Give a brief non-­‐technical explanation of
your solution that even your grandma
can easily understand.
3. What am I doing
Explain who you are helping and what
problem your are solving for them.
Finally, give a brief explanation of what
the solution is, but remember to keep any
jargon to a minimum.
Feedback I’ve received on my pitch
3 DOT POINTS 3 DOT POINTS 3 DOT POINTS

18. V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

19. How
can
you
strengthen your
vision?
V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

20. Eric Ries on startups
Startup success is about doing the boring stuff well
A startup creates something new under extreme uncertainty
In the early days of any idea, it’s impossible to distinguish between brilliant
and crazy
The only way to find out is to test those ideas empirically
Will customers engage in a behaviour - is it valuable for them to do so?
How can I learn whether the vision is true with minimum effort?
Acknowledge what we don’t know & have a plan to find out those things

21. THE
ONLY
WAY
TO
WIN
IS
TO
LEARN
FASTER
THAN
ANYONE
ELSE
ERIC
RIES
Author,
The
Lean
Startup

22. Victor Alexiev: V2V lab founder
• Founder of Vision to Version (www.vision2version.com)
• Serial entrepreneur (Innovator,Newstag, Obecto, TheSocks,
Hacker.works, SoTexy, The Pilot Project…)
• Has run 15+ digital product teams in EU, Asia, and USA
• Extensive background in digital innovationmanagement
• Masters degrees in Decision Sciences (LSE), System
Dynamics Modelling(UiB) and Model-basedPolicyAnalysis (RBU)
• Originallyfrom Bulgaria, based in Singapore since 2013

23. Has run 15+ digital
product teams in the
EU, Asia, and USA

24. At
one
point
in
my
career,
I
nearly
burned
out.
I
founded
V2V
so
that
entrepreneurs
can
succeed
without
burning
too
much
energy,
time
and
money.
V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

25. Let’s
do
a
simple
testing
framework
that
can
help
you
test
&
strengthen
your
idea,
(even
before
you
spend
any
money!)
V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

26. 1. Technological complexity:
Assumptions about technical difficulty of offering the value prop
2. Behaviour:
Assumptions about how users will engage with the value proposition
3. Value proposition/framing :
Assumptions about the perceived importance of the value prop
4. Scalability : do all the other assumptions hold at scale
What do you need to test to strengthen your idea?

27. Creating your personal checklist of what you need to test
You will use the A3 printout version of the table below to document your next actions
1. Technical
complexity
2. Behaviour 1. Value prop/framing 4. Scalability

28. Let’s
look
at
a
simple
example
V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

29. What you need to test:
You will use the A3 printout version of the table below to document your next actions
1. Technical
complexity
2. Behaviour 1. Value prop/framing 4. Scalability
Assumptions about the
technical difficulty for
offering that value
proposition
It’s technically possible for
me to offer a back rub to
my colleague.
Consider also other
constraints, e.g. legal, policy
It’s appropriate under HR
policy to offer my colleague
a back rub.
Assumptions about how the
users will engage with the
defined value proposition
My colleague will accept a
back rub.
Assuumptions about the
perceived importance/value
of the value prop given its
framing
My colleague is feeling
cranky. A back rub would
improve his mood.
Which of all those
assumptions hold true at
scale?
It would be practical for me
to give all of my colleagues a
back rub.

30. Customers will
pay $200/month
LOW
impact
if your
assumption
is wrong
Prioritizing assumptions for testing
HIGH
impact
if your
assumption
is wrong
LOW cost to test
HIGH cost to test

31. Let
me
share
some
of
the
challenges
of
the
startup
journey
(and
how
V2V
Labs
helps
entrepreneurs
quickly
overcome
them)
V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

32. VS.
The plan The reality
Building digital innovation: the tough reality

33. • Entrepreneurs are optimists
• We have a loose understanding of how things work
• Consumer research findings ≠ real customer behavior
Things rarely work out as planned. Why?

34. • Never built (never go beyond concept)
• Never launched (run out of steam before the big day)
• Over-engineered (bigger than necessary)
• Mis-targeted (miss the market)
Many great products fail because they are:

35. Three distinct entrepreneurial journeys I have seen
Bootstrapping
entrepreneurs
Resourced
entrepreneurs
Large
organizations

36. Typical pitfalls
Mistime their move
and run out of ‘juice’
Burn bridges & limit their
learning opportunities
‘Boil the ocean’
(or just play it safe)

37. Want
to
build
a
high
fidelity,
market-­‐validated
digital
prototype
in
just
4
weeks?
V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

38. 1. Production innovation is about solving a problem (create access)
and increasing the ease of use (expanding access)
2. Product Innovators are not good at predicting reality – the only
way is to ‘probe’reality with tests and prototyping
3. If you solve a problem for 5 people you can scale it to many, but
you can’t solve a problem without thinking small first
4. Product Innovators need to Learn fast + Learn Early
= Learn cheap
5. Most entrepreneurs try to do too much: reducing distraction and
focusing on what you need to focus on is essential
Takeaways

39. V2V Labs is a group of Agile practitioners withEngineering,
Product Management,Design Thinking, and Marketing
backgrounds, performingan experiment in maximizinghuman
productivityin the early stages of digital innovation
Who we are

40. Our Partners
YOU?

41. How V2V helps
Next V2V starts 24MAY – still 2 vacancies!

42. How V2V helps—continued
Next V2V starts 24MAY – still 2 vacancies!

43. 4 scrum-based sprints
Next V2V starts 24MAY – still 2 vacancies!

44. 4 scrum-based sprints
Next V2V starts 24MAY – still 2 vacancies!

45. Program services:
Next V2V starts 24MAY – still 2 vacancies!
The basic 4-week program covers:

46. Contact us if you
Fail to dedicate sufficient
focus towards validating &
releasing a product
Tend to test only a few
product hypotheses
before going ‘all-in’
Need a lean and
mean product
machine!

47. • Do I need to attend full-time for the full 4 weeks?
• What if I don’t have coding skills?
• Can more than one person from my organisation attend?
Frequently asked questions

48. Q&A
Stick around if you’d like to know more!
V2V Labs: hyper-productivity in bringing ideas to reality

49. Contact details
www.vision2version.com
victor@innovator.sg