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13 0911 session 1 & 2 webinars-all slides
- 1. Cleantech Open 2013 WebinarSeries Wednesday, September 11, 2013
- 2. 2 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Welcome to the National Webinar Series • With the Cleantech Open since 2007 • Mentor Chair 2007 - 2008 • Executive Director 2008 - present MC: Rex Northen, Executive Director, Cleantech Open
- 3. 3 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Global Partner
- 4. 4 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved National Sponsors
- 5. 5 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Thank You To All Our Sponsors!
- 6. 6 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved The Summer Program – July – September 2013 Date Time (PDT) Session I – Worksheets Time (PDT) Special Topic Sessions 7/9 1:30 to 2:30pm Business Model Canvas (Review) 2:45 to 4:00pm LaunchPad Central (Review) 7/16 1:30 to 2:30pm Product/Market Fit 2:45 to 4:00pm Systems Review, PR 101 7/23 1:30 to 2:30pm Markets and Getting to Them 2:45 to 4:00pm Term Sheets 7/30 1:30 to 2:30pm Product/Technology Validation 2:45 to 4:00pm Alternative Sources of Funding - Grant Writing / Crowd Sourcing 8/6 1:30 to 2:30pm Financials Analysis & Planning 2:45 to 4:00pm Review of Worksheets to date 8/13 1:30 to 2:30pm Legal Environment, Issues and Risks 2:45 to 4:00pm Cap Tables 8/20 1:30 to 2:30pm Management Team 2:45 to 4:00pm Working with the Utilities 8/27 1:30 to 2:30pm Sustainability 2:45 to 4:00pm Tell Your Story, Sell Your Story (Communicating value to stake holders) 9/10 1:30 to 2:30pm Last Chance For Questions 2:45 to 4:00pm 9/11 1:30 to 2:30pm Investor Presentation Mentor Assessment 2:45 to 4:00pm Special Presentation from PARC Review of Mock Judging, Regional Awards, Global Forum
- 7. 7 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Webinar Agenda • Session 1: 1:30pm – 2:30pm – The Perfect Pitch • Presenter: Linda Plano, Principal, Plano & Simple • Session2: 2:45pm – 4:00pm – 2:45pm – 3:00pm: Working with PARC • Presenter: Sean Garner, Manager, Energy Systems Group, Hardware Systems Laboratory, PARC – 3:00pm – 3:15pm: Rate Your Mentor • Presenter: Paul deGive, National Curriculum Chair, Cleantech Open – 3:15pm – 4:00pm: Overview of the Next Three Months • Presenter: Rex Northen, Executive Director, Cleantech Open
- 8. 8 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Session 1: The Perfect Pitch 1:30pm – 2:30pm, PDT Speaker: Linda Plano Principal, Plano & Simple
- 9. Linda S Plano,PhD Principal, Plano & Simple Perfect Pitch
- 10. About Me • PhDStanford, BS MIT • Career entrepreneur • Experienced manager • Dedicated coach & “yenta” © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 10
- 11. Agenda for today •Introduction to “Perfect Pitch” approach • One of the 11 CTO slides at a time • Review guidelines for that CTO slide • Present fear & greed for corresponding P&S question • Provide real-world examples of do’s and don’ts • Repeat for all 11 CTO slides © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 11
- 12. Perfect Pitch Philosophy: WhyPitch? • Get the Next Meeting • Get the Next Meeting • GET THE NEXT MEETING! © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 12
- 13. Perfect Pitch Philosophy: KnowYour Audience • Pitch, Don’t Teach • Make Them Want More • Tune for “Perfect Pitch” © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 13 Talk about what the audience wants to hear, NOT what you want to talk about
- 14. 10 Simple Questions EveryPitch Should Answer © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 14 Question Business Issue CTO Slide Deck 0. Who is your audience? Elevator Pitch Title Slide Overview 1. Why should I care? Customer, market size, market pain The Problem Market Size/ Growth 2. What do you do? Secret sauce The Solution 3. Why are you better? Competitive advantage Competition 4. How will you stay better? IP status & strategy Competition 5. Is it real or is it vaporware? Tech status & strategy Technology 6. How will you make money? Business model Product Business Model 7. How much will you make? Financials Financials 8. Why you? Team Team 9. What will you do? Development plan Financials 10 How much will it cost? The Ask Financials Each slide needs to 1. Increase Greed &/or 2. Reduce Fear
- 15. Agenda for today •Introduction to “Perfect Pitch” approach • One of the 11 CTO slides at a time • Review guidelines for that CTO slide • Present fear & greed for corresponding P&S question • Provide real-world examples of do’s and don’ts • Repeat for all 11 CTO slides © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 15
- 16. TITLE SLIDE Cleantech OpenPitch Deck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 16
- 17. Title Slide: Firstimpressions count! • CTO Guidelines – Name of your firm/ contact info – Appropriate graphics (logo, etc.) – Date – Name of investor firm – Optional: How much money is being sought for this round? • Plano & Simple Guidelines – Your name and title – Clean & simple – Post-CTO: contact info & other clutter belongs on print copy – Take “Confidential” out of the footer – if you’re pitching, it’s public © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 17
- 18. TransformOne TransformOne provides anon-demand, cloud based clinical trial software that streamlines data capture, analytics and submission for pharmaceutical companies. TransformOne Confidential Your Cloud, Your Trial, Go-Live in a Short While!
- 19. Alex Yu Liu FO U N D E R & C E O
- 20. Better trial dataat lower cost Alex Yu Liu F O U N D E R & C EO Presented to the Cleantech Open on September 11, 2013 alex@planoandsimple.com 857.230.0188 Seeking seed round of $250K
- 21. OVERVIEW SLIDE Cleantech OpenPitch Deck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 21
- 22. Overview: Your elevatorpitch • CTO Guidelines – This is the elevator pitch – Define the business and the company’s raison d’être – 2 – 5 high level, sparsely stated bullets – Develop a visual “model” that will be built upon in the “problem” and “solution” slides © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 22 If you don’t get their attention here, you won’t get their check later!
- 23. It’s a pitch,not a history lesson! © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 23
- 24. Highlight the valueproposition © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 24
- 25. THE PROBLEM Cleantech OpenPitch Deck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 25
- 26. The Problem: Knowyour customer • CTO Guidelines – Identifiable problem(s) to be solved – What’s the pain that will ensure the customer will write a check? (revenues, costs, time, productivity, market reach) – Make sure its a “must have” not “nice-to-have” – Develop a visual “model” that depicts the problem – Consider depicting an historical evolution – Make the current situation look like it really hurts – Include meaningful validating quotes – Customers are best – Analysts when applicable – Problem must suggest a large market © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 26
- 27. The Problem: Knowyour customer Content • Identifiable problem(s) to be solved • What’s the pain that ensures the customer will write a check? • Make sure its a “must have” not “nice-to-have” • Customers are best • Problem must suggest a large market Style • Develop a visual “model” that depicts the problem • Consider depicting an historical evolution • Make the current situation look like it really hurts • Analysts when applicable • Include meaningful validating quotes © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 27
- 28. MARKET SIZE/ GROWTH CleantechOpen Pitch Deck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 28
- 29. Market Size/ Growth:The opportunity • Clearly define the market • Target vertical, buyer/user, application • Market size/growth • TAM/SAM/SOM/CAGR • Historical trends projected over five years • Methodology: quantitative rigor + qualitative sensitivity • Balance: exciting opportunity vs. chance of success • Correlate market slide with upcoming competition, business model and financial slides © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 29
- 30. Q1. “Why shouldI care?” • Market Size & Market Pain – Fear: No one will pay anything for this technology! – Greed: Everyone will want to buy this over and over again! • Do – Define your customer – be specific! – Develop market from bottom up • Don’t – Rely on expensive market studies – Need “only” a small share of a big market © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 30
- 31. Potential Commercial Markets Hydrogen Market $844 million (2004)1 625 billion cubic feet (2004) Steady 9.5% per year Growth between 1997 and 20022 Estimated growth 10% per year through 2006 Most growth is for high purity hydrogen 1. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Industrial Reports) 2. (Source: The Innovation Group, Chemical Profiles, Hydrogen) Courtesy Dr. S. Gopalan, Boston University
- 32. The Conference onClean Energy November 7, 2005 Hy9’s Total Market Opportunities (1) HyMaker™ industrial hydrogen generators $x.x Billion Global Market (2005) – future systems from other fuels, optional hydrogen recycle, and CO2 separation – fuel cell demonstrations (2) OEM components: purifiers & membrane reactors $y - $z Million Global Market (2005) – purifiers for small-scale electrolysis H2 generators – replacement modules for existing/new H2 purifier systems (3) Fuel cell sub-systems: portable/stationary (100W – 1000W) $xx - $yy Million (2008) & $zzz+Million (2012) Globally – methanol reformer/purifier for portable/stationary/remote FCs – reformers, membrane reactors, and/or purifiers for hydrogen from other fuels $4.8 billion worldwide market (2005) Proprietary – Do Not Post Courtesy J. Altman, President & CEO
- 33. Focus on $4.7BLighting Control Market © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 33
- 34. THE SOLUTION Cleantech OpenPitch Deck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 34
- 35. The Solution: Yoursecret sauce, part 1 Content • Compelling value proposition • What’s the benefit to the customer’s business? (revenues, costs, time, productivity, market) • Depict real differentiation (but stay out of the weeds) • Describe your business • Product or service Style • Use the same visual “model” • Make it look like it all feels better • Show where the solution fits in customer’s ecosystem • Depict technical elegance (keep out of those weeds) © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 35 If you don’t have their attention by now, you’re dead!
- 36. Q2. What doyou do*? • Technology & Secret Sauce – Fear: They’re a bunch of techies with no business sense – Greed: They have an innovative solution to an important problem • Do – Describe what, not how – Relate to the problem being solved • Don’t – Use jargon, acronyms, formulas or equations – “Dumb Down”; instead, clarify © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 36 *In language I can understand!
- 37. Pressure Volume The Technology Charged water andethanol Fuel reservoir piston 2 1 1 2 ESS Courtesy Dr. B. Ahern, Catalyzed Combustion
- 38. What Do YouWant? • Dazzle them with your technical expertise? • Dazzle them with their potential ROI if they invest with you? © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 38
- 39. piston Current Technology Courtesy Dr.B. Ahern, Catalyzed Combustion
- 40. piston CCA Technology: Cleaner,Cheaper CWF: Charged Water Fumigation Courtesy Dr. B. Ahern, Catalyzed Combustion
- 41. COMPETITION Cleantech Open PitchDeck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 41
- 42. Competition: Your sustainableadvantage • CTO Guidelines – Discuss current and potential competitors – Incumbents, Startups, In-House, Substitutes – Provide framework to demonstrate differentiation – BCG grid and/or benefits matrix – Use customer-centric attributes and dimensions – Demonstrate knowledge of the landscape, including past failures – Embrace competitor strengths – Know your weaknesses (how competition would sell against you) – Highlight secret sauce, competitive advantages, barriers to entry – Correlate with previous market slide and upcoming business model and financial slides © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 42
- 43. Q3. “Why areyou better?” • Competitive Advantage – Fear: They’re just one of a bunch of me-too companies… – Greed: This is a disruptive innovation! • Do – Focus on customer benefits, not technology features – Show the competitive landscape without clutter • Don’t – Claim you have no competition – Get overly detailed and complex © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 43
- 44. P&S Competition Template#1 © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 44 Benefit 1 Benefit 2 Benefit 3 Benefit 4 Your Company Logo Business as Usual Direct Competition Indirect Competition Emerging Competition
- 45. Power Generation Options CapExper kWe Operating Efficiency Electric Rate $/kWe-hr Wilson’s super turbine $1500-2000 50% 80 – 90% CHP $0.05 – 0.10 Utility power $750 – 2000 33% average grid 50% new gas-fired $0.07 – 0.15 IC Recip $750 – 1500 25 – 35% $0.08 – 0.17 Current Microturbines $1500 – 2000 25 – 35% $0.10 – 0.20 Wind $3000 – 5000 $0.10 – 0.20 Photovoltaics $8000 – 12,000 10 – 15% $0.25 – 0.40 Courtesy Dr. D. Wilson, Wilson TurboPower
- 46. P&S Competition Template#2 less affordable more affordable less desirable more desirable Them 3 Them 4 Them 1 Them 2 © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 46 Us
- 47. Q4. “How WillYou Stay Better?” • Intellectual Property Status and Strategy – Fear: Anyone can do this. – Greed: They can protect their advantage! • Do – Know your claims (if using patents) – Describe other barriers to entry • Don’t – Forget to mention your IP strategy – Imply that others have rights to the innovation © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 47 “All lawyers cost the same in the end.” – Sharon Ballard
- 48. I AM NOTAN ATTORNEY!!!!! CAVEAT © 2012 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 48
- 49. Which Type ofProtection? Type of protection Subject matter Benefit Drawback Patents Useful inventions Essential for licenses & acquisitions Costly & time-consuming to create & defend Trademark Brands Easy and inexpensive May be hard to defend Copyright Works of authorship Easy and inexpensive May be hard to defend Trade secret Valuable business information Easy and inexpensive Very difficult to maintain Market strategy Business model May be wildly successful May be a complete failure © 2012 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 49Caveat: I Am NOT An Attorney!!
- 50. TECHNOLOGY Cleantech Open PitchDeck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 50
- 51. Technology: Your secretsauce, part 2 • CTO Guidelines – Translate key points from business to technical domain – Show how customers and partners fit in, if possible – Concentrate on essential value proposition! – Talk to important but peripheral issues and details, avoid clutter – Address “invent vs. integrate” issues – Show that you will invent only uniquely competitive elements – Show incremental development path that reduces risk, if possible © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 51
- 52. Q5. “Is itreal or is it vaporware?” • Technology Development Stage – Fear: This is a science experiment that will never make it out of the lab – Greed: This technology is already earning revenue! • Do – Show (customer) validated data – Indicate progress toward product • Don’t – Overwhelm with data © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 52
- 53. Pitching Mistakes: Too MuchInformation • Jargon & Acronyms • Detailed Technical Descriptions • Overwhelming Amounts of Data © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 53
- 54. Pitching Mistake: TMI Us Them Critical Area ©2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 54
- 55. PRODUCT Cleantech Open PitchDeck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 55
- 56. Product How will youmake money? Part 1 • CTO Guidelines – What is the solution delivered (product, software, service, etc.) – How are you solving the Market’s Need/Pain – Where does the product or solution sit relative to the ecosystem around it © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 56
- 57. © 2011 -2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 57
- 58. © 2011 -2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 58
- 59. © 2011 -2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 59
- 60. © 2011 -2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 60
- 61. BDR Technology isCapital Efficient Pump Vessel Methanol Feedstock Catalyst Reactants Glycerin BioDiesel 61
- 62. BUSINESS MODEL Cleantech OpenPitch Deck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 62
- 63. Business Model: How willyou make money? Part 2 • CTO Guidelines – How and what do customers buy? – Discuss high level pricing (e.g., annuity or one fee) – Describe what the customer will get (today and beyond) – Who are the key players? – Profile the customer (vertical/buyer or user/application) – Profile critical partner relationships (current and future) – Profile who sells your product or service (in/out-house) – Marketing and sales plan – Explain value chain and sales cycle – Compare and contrast to industry comparables – Emphasize external validation – The Budget: “We’ve committed Y dollars to fix this problem…” © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 63
- 64. Q6. “How willyou make money?” • Fear & Greed – Do they have any idea how to build a business in this industry? – They’ve got a validated model! • Do – Have a defensible business model (competitors) – Know the decision maker & the end user • Don’t – Get overly detailed – Include your development plans © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 64
- 65. The Value Chain CustomerTechnology $$ ©2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 65
- 66.
- 67. Keep It Simple! Suppliers [YourCo Logo] Decision Makers End Users Don’tForget: • Production • Sales & Marketing • Distribution • Service © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 67
- 68. One-Time Fees Marketplace (All Clients) Vendors Recurring Revenue Common Mistake: TooComplex/ Not Focused The Company Recurring Services (All Clients) Services (Premium Clients) One-Time Fees Transaction Fees (Available to All Clients) Recurring Revenue One-Time Fees Note: Not included in Financials
- 69. One-Time Fees Marketplace (All Clients) Vendors Recurring Revenue Common Mistake: TooComplex/ Not Focused The Company Recurring Services (All Clients) Services (Premium Clients) One-Time Fees Transaction Fees (Available to All Clients) Recurring Revenue One-Time Fees Note: Not included in Financials
- 70. TEAM Cleantech Open PitchDeck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 70
- 71. Team: Experience inexecution • CTO Guidelines – Credibility – Domain expertise and unique customer insight – CEO hires people with skills better than their own – A-team attracts A-hires – Strategic orchestration of team members – What’s missing – Management – Previous companies and titles – Industry recognition where meaningful – Board of Directors – Current firms – Previous operating experience © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 71
- 72. Q8. “Why areyou the right team?” • Fear & Greed – Don’t they have any relevant experience? – These guys are rock stars! • Do – Highlight your team’s experience – Leverage advisors, partners, etc. • Don’t – Focus on degrees – Ignore major holes in your team © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 72
- 73. Team Template Team Jane Doe CEO •Experience • Experience • Education George Oscar COO • Experience • Experience • Education Advisors John Doe CEO, Bigshot Corp Jill St. John, PhD Professor, Fancy University © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 73 Partner Logo Partner Logo Grant Provider Logo Partner Logo
- 74. Management Team Template JaneDoe CEO • Experience • Experience • Education George Oscar CTO • Experience • Experience • Education John Doe VP, New Business Development • Experience • Experience • Education © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 74
- 75. Extended Team Template AdvisoryBoard Michael Nesmith • Current title • Relevant experience Peter Tork • Current title • Relevant experience Davy Jones • Current title • Relevant experience Micky Dolenz • Current title • Relevant experience Partners John Doe VP, R&D, Big Manufacturing Corp Jill St. John, PhD Professor, Fancy University Jason Bourne CEO, CustomerCo Lily Smith VP Distribution, Supplier Heaven, Inc. © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 75 Big Mfg Co Logo Fancy University Logo Supplier Heaven Logo CustomerCo Logo
- 76. FINANCIALS Cleantech Open PitchDeck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 76
- 77. Financials: Your FiveYear Projections • CTO Guidelines – Thorough and thoughtful – P&L, Income Statement, Balance Sheet – Deal – Use of proceeds – Provide high level 5 year projections – Revenues and expenses by major categories – Pretax profit (loss), cash flow, capital requirements – Head count – Highlight milestone targets – First revenues – Cash-flow positive – Tangible competitive barriers (customers, IP, etc.) – $100M/yr run rate in year 5 is cliché, but expected © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 77
- 78. Q7. “How muchwill you make?” • Fear & Greed – Do they have any idea how implausible that sounds? – This company can help me make my numbers! • Do – Keep it simple: revenue, margin, breakeven – Know your industry’s Key Performance Indicators • Don’t – Make up numbers. They will know. – Make a hockey stick you can’t defend © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 78
- 79. Pitching Mistake: TooMuch $ Detail © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 79 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 ompactors Units 24 29 40 80 120 Revenue 2,463,500$ 2,178,000$ 2,800,000$ 5,600,000$ 8,400,000$ Costs 1,490,100$ 1,437,000$ 1,400,000$ 2,800,000$ 4,200,000$ Expenses 501,093$ 326,700$ 420,000$ 840,000$ 1,260,000$ EBITDA 472,307$ 964,318$ 980,000$ 1,960,000$ 2,940,000$ ompactor Units 24 29 40 80 120 ervice Revenue 12,000$ 14,500$ 20,000$ 40,000$ 60,000$ Cumulative Revenue 12,000$ 26,500$ 46,500$ 86,500$ 146,500$ ontracts Costs 3,000$ 6,625$ 11,625$ 21,625$ 36,625$ Expenses 3,000$ 6,625$ 11,625$ 21,625$ 36,625$ EBITDA 6,000$ 13,250$ 23,250$ 43,250$ 73,250$ D Systems # Tanks 4 13 16 24 36 Revenue 2,100,000$ 8,500,000$ 10,000,000$ 15,000,000$ 22,500,000$ Costs 1,147,000$ 5,586,000$ 6,000,000$ 9,000,000$ 13,500,000$ Expenses (279,447)$ 1,123,880$ 2,000,000$ 3,000,000$ 4,500,000$ EBITDA 1,232,447$ 1,790,120$ 2,000,000$ 3,000,000$ 4,500,000$ D # Tanks 4 13 16 24 36 ervice Revenue 20,000$ 65,000$ 80,000$ 120,000$ 180,000$ Cumulative Revenue 20,000$ 85,000$ 165,000$ 285,000$ 465,000$ ontracts Costs 5,000$ 21,250$ 41,250$ 71,250$ 116,250$ Expenses 5,000$ 21,250$ 41,250$ 71,250$ 116,250$ EBITDA 10,000$ 42,500$ 82,500$ 142,500$ 232,500$ otal Revenue 4,595,500$ 10,789,500$ 13,011,500$ 20,971,500$ 31,511,500$ EBITDA 1,720,753$ 2,810,188$ 3,085,750$ 5,145,750$ 7,745,750$ ZERO WASTE ENERGY SYSTEMS PROFORMA P&L 2011 - 2015
- 80. Income Statement Example ©2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 80 (,000,000) 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Revenue 4,564 10,678 12,800 20,600 30,900 COGS 2,637 7,02 7,400 11,800 17,700 Gross Profit 1,926 3,655 5,400 8,800 13,200 OpEx 222 1,451 2,420 3,840 5,760 EBITDA 1,705 2,204 2,980 4,960 7,440 EBITDA w/ recurring 1,721 2,810 3,086 5,146 7,746
- 81. Confusing, but complete ©2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 81
- 82. © 2011 -2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 82
- 83. Revenues and EBITDA 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 20112012 2013 2014 2015 Product 2 Product 1 © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 83 $1.7 $7.8 $5.2 $3.1 $2.8 EBITDA $,000,000
- 84. Q9. “What willyou do?” and Q10: “How much will it cost?” • Fear & Greed – Don’t they have a clear path to an exit? – They know what it will take to build a company and to exit! • Do – Describe your focused plan for development through liquidity – Make Your Ask! • Don’t – Focus on technology development alone – Add milestones unless they add value © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 84
- 85. P&S Development Plan& Ask Template © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 85 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 • Demo complete • 2 new patents filed • Regulatory compliance • 1st customer signed • Break even • 5 customers signed $15 M $4 M $5 M 85
- 86. Revenues and PlannedCapital Program • Current larger sales programs – Whole Foods: mid-Atlantic rollout in progress – Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: State Parks, Turnpike facilities – New York Power Authority – Anheuser-Busch: East Coast campaign underway, 15+ PaceControllers per warehouse – Verizon: Installation of 60+ PaceControllers in “negawatt” pilot – McDonald’s: Program starting with Pennsylvania franchise owners • Projected FY05 and FY06 revenues • Planned capital raise – First half of 2006 – Total capital sought: approximately $2 million Courtesy T. Mills, Pace Controls
- 87. Exit - ClearPath • Potential Acquiring Companies: – Diversified Industrial Companies with Renewable Energy Interests • General Electric – Building Control Companies • Honeywell – Automatic Meter Reading Companies • Itron – Utility Software Companies • MRO Software – Enterprise Energy Management Companies • Enerwise Global Technologies • Acquisition ( ≈ 3 - 5 yrs) – Market position – Brand – Sales channel – OEM relationships – Field-tested technology – Recurring revenue stream Courtesy D. Kopans, Fat Spaniel
- 88. Funding • $2.0m toDate - Common • $3.0m Proposed - Series A Preferred – 45% Sales & Marketing – 35% R&D – 20% G&A • Strong Funding Partner – Industry Knowledge – Contacts – Hands-on Capabilities – Follow-on Support Courtesy D. Kopans, Fat Spaniel
- 89. Key Performance Indicators •Examples – Churn rate – Mean Time Between Failure – Etc. • SMART – Specific – Measurable – Achievable – Relevant – Time-Phased © 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 89
- 90. TIPS & TOOLS CleantechOpen Pitch Deck © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 90
- 91. Cleantech Open Keys •Summarize your three strongest points • Distill to memorable sound bites • Highlight synergies with prosplective investors – Portfolio – GP background – Domain expertise • Solicit feedback • Identify and address concerns © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 91
- 92. Presentation Pointers • You –Practice, Practice, Practice – Be Enthusiastic – Have a Conversation – Make Eye Contact – Listen, Acknowledge, Respond • Presentation – Have Relevant Backups – Create Simple Slides – Use Graphics, Text and Words – Use PowerPoint Wisely! © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 92
- 93. For the 10Questions… Good Luck!! © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 93 www.PlanoAndSimple.com
- 94. Compound Annual GrowthRate (CAGR) © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 94
- 95. Test Page • 8colors to specify 8 shapes • Logo • Text © 2011 - 2013 Plano & Simple | www.PlanoAndSimple.com 95 Place Your Logo Here
- 96. Session 2 willstart at 2:45pm PDT 3:45pm MDT, 4:45pm CDT, 5:45pm EDT
- 97. 97 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Session 2: Working With PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) 3:00pm – 3:15pm, PDT Speaker: Sean Garner Manager, Energy Systems Group, Hardware Systems Laboratory, PARC
- 98. Introduction to PARC SeanGarner, Area Manager, Energy Systems Sean.Garner@parc.com, (650) 812-4732
- 99. Focus Areas Printed &Flexible Electronics Networking & Distributed Systems Innovation Services Optoelectronics Health & WellnessBig Data Prototyping Services Cleantech Digital Design & ManufacturingEnergy
- 100. PARC | 100 WhoWe Work With
- 101. Case: SolFocus Cleantech startupfocused on solar energy Business opportunity – Two entrepreneurs had a vision for making solar electricity a reality; had a concentrator (CPV) design PARC offering – Expertise in optical system design, semiconductor materials, solid state electronics and packaging Solution – Optimized design for high-throughput manufacturing and lower cost; became design for second- generation product – Incubated company; grew from 2 to 50 employees – Highest funding rounds at time; one of better regarded solar companies during cleantech “rush” PARC | 101 Result: Deployed first commercial product in Europe within 2 years www.parc.com/solfocus
- 102. Case: Power Assure Startupproviding SaaS for data centers Business opportunity – To address data center virtualization needs as well as capture potential cloud computing opportunities PARC offering – “Model-based” energy management suite based on strong multidisciplinary expertise and cross-industry experience Solution – Partnered for $5M U.S. DOE grant (1 of 14 awarded) – Decouples virtualized software from hardware resources to respond to shifting energy demands – Balances tradeoffs in meeting data center service agreements and addressing quality for customers PARC | 102 "I was surprised at how easy it was to work together, how easy it was to put an agreement together regarding IP (being able to clearly define ahead of time what/whose IP and what is shared), and then, the openness to go in and solve problems together in that spirit." -- Brad Wurtz, CEOwww.parc.com/powerassure
- 103. PARC | 103 CurrentEnergy Portfolio Batteries Solar Adaptive Energy Management Other Energy Enablers Co-Extruded Battery Printed Integral Battery Fiber-Optic Battery Sensors Silicon Processing Organic PV Optical Enhancement Data Centers Power Systems Grid-Tied Assets Direct Carbon Fuel Cell Enhanced Geothermal Power Converters Battery manufacturing, monitoring, and control technologies to improve performance and economics. Solar architectures, materials, and processing techniques to improve efficiency. Adaptive model based control architectures to optimize complex energy system efficiency, value, and quality of service. Application of multi-disciplinary core competencies to develop new technologies for energy markets. 5 4 3 2 S PARC’s detector Fiber collimator Linear variable filter Split detector Electronics Version with integrated electronics Fiber collimator Linear variable filter Split detector Electronics
- 104. PARC | 104 CleantechOpen Sponsorship
- 105. How to WorkWith PARC • Seed/Early Stage – Accelerate time to prototype, time to funding, time to market – Access to deep expertise in many fields without the need to immediately hire a team – Access to lab space and equipment without having to make the capital investment – Possibility of being located at PARC • Growth/Expansion Stage – Break into new markets (grow exit values) and pivot at critical junctures Sean Garner, Area Manager, Energy Systems Sean.Garner@parc.com, (650) 812-4732
- 106. 106 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Session 2: Evaluating Your Mentors 2:45pm – 3:00pm, PDT Speaker: Paul deGive National Curriculum Chair, Cleantech Open
- 107. 107 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Rating Your Mentor • Survey is in Accelerator wiki: http://wiki.cleantechopen.com/rating-your-mentor/ • Important to provide your feedback • We use your feedback to improve our mentor community for next year • Your mentor may be the Regional Mentor of the Year or even better, the National Mentor of the Year
- 108. 108 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Session 2: Overview of the Next Three Months 3:15pm – 4:00pm, PDT MC: Rex Northen, Executive Director, Cleantech Open
- 109. 109 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Overview • Congratulations on getting through the first half of the 2013 Accelerator • Thank You for Attending the National Webinar Series – we hope the webinars were helpful • Short survey (5-6 questions) will be sent to all of you the week of 9/16 • Webinar, Tuesday, October 22, 1:30pm – 2:30pm – Preparing for the Global Forum – Preparing your stage time at the Global Forum
- 110. 110 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved 2013 Accelerator Calendar (US) JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC Every Tue, Jul 9-Sep 3 Webinars & Regional Business Clinics & Seminars Tue, Sep 10 Accelerator Deadline & Global Ideas Competition Deadline Tue, Sep 24 Regional Mock Judging Tue-Fri, Oct 1-18 Regional Judging Regional Awards Wed-Thu, Nov. 20-21 Global Forum (Includes: National & Global Judging, Investor Connect, Expo, Awards Gala) Feb/Mar Accelerator Launches (by Region) Mar/Apr Org Congress (by Division) Tue, Jun 11 Accelerator Participant Welcome Webinar Fri-Sun, Jun 21-23 National Academy West Coast Thu-Fri, Jun 27 & 28 National Academy East Coast Tue, May 1 Accelerator Application Deadline Wed, May 24 Accelerator Participant Announcement Apr 24 National Briefing APPLICANT RECRUITMENT (OCT ‘12 – MAY ’13) TRAINING (JUN– SEP) NETWORK BRIEFINGS (JAN ‘13 – MAY ’13)
- 111. 111 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Mock Judging – September 24 • Presentation: – You will have 10 minutes to pitch - match the format of Second Round Judging – You will be cut off at TEN (10) minutes, so practice your timing – OUR RECOMMENDATION - KEEP YOUR PRESENTATION TO ABOUT EIGHT MINUTES to allow plenty of time for questions • Check with your region for exact date(s) and location(s) • Opportunity for you to pitch a panel of judges and receive real- time feedback
- 112. 112 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Regional Awards – First Half of October • Each receives $10,000 in seed investment and in-kind services • Regional Finalists and Regional Sustainability Finalist will go to the Finals at the Global Forum • Check with your region for exact date(s) and location(s) • Mandatory activity • Judging, meeting investors, networking • Each region will select 2-5 Regional Finalists + 1 Sustainability Finalist
- 113. 113 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved 2013 Global Forum – November 19th – 21st “The Academy Awards of Cleantech” • Mandatory activity for Regional Finalists & Sustainability Finalist • Judging for finalists: – Finalists will go through 1 round of judging – category finalists selected – Category finalists will go through final round – Grand prize winner selected from category finalists • For all semifinalists and finalists – Expo – Investor Connect
- 114. 114 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved 2013 Global Forum – November 19th – 21st The San Jose Convention Center • Brand new wing of the SJCC (opening October) • Downtown San Jose - Easy access to public transportation • Hotel across the street • www.cleantechopenglobalforum.org
- 115. 115 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved 2 ½ Days of Activities, Speakers, Networking Tuesday, November 19 | 2013 | Day 1 (NOTE: Private sessions for semifinalists and alumni only) 12:30p: Registration. Networking. 01:30p: Panel (Government and Private Labs as Technology Resources) 02:15p: Investor Connect (strategic investors, VCs & angel investors meet our entrepeneurs) 05:00p: Alumni Panel 05:45p: Reception Wednesday, November 20 | 2013 | Day 2 08:30a: Registration. Expo Open. Networking. 09:30a: Keynotes and Technology Presentations 12:00p: Lunch. Expo Open. 01:00p: Keynotes 02:00p: Category Judging Sessions (Attendees are invited to view live and on-stage judging). Expo Open. 04:30p: Keynotes and Technology Presentations 06:00p: Category winners for the day announced (these are the teams that will go on to the final judging for the Grand Prize) 06:30p: Expo and Wine and Hors d’Oeuvres Reception Thursday, November 21 | 2013 | Day 3 07:30a: Registration. Expo Open. Networking. 08:15a: Keynote and Panel 10:00a: Category Judging Sessions (Attendees are invited to view live and on-stage judging). Expo Open. 12:00p: Lunch. Expo Open. 01:00p: Technology Presentations and Category Awards 02:00p: Finalist Judging Sessions (Attendees are invited to view live and on-stage judging). Expo Open. 04:50p: Keynotes and Awards Ceremony 07:00p: Expo and Wine and Hors d'Oeuvres Reception
- 116. 116 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Speakers • Senator Shaheen, US Senator, NH • Anup Jacob, Dir, Partner Deutsche Bank Masdar(DBM) • Rick Needham, Google Ventures • Bertholt Leeftink, Deputy Secretary-General – Netherlands • David Rogers, GEF • Tom Steyer, Philanthropist & Environmentalist Confirmed Guy Kawasaki Special Advisor Motorola Business Unit of Google David W. Orr Founder, The Oberlin Project Bill Ritter Jr. Former Governor of Colorado Craig Neyman VP & CFO, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Ira Ehrenpreis General Partner, Technolo gy Partners Chuck Reed Mayor, City of San Jose, CA Close to Confirmed Jim Sweeney Dir. Precourt Energy Efficiency Center – Stanford Just Confirmed
- 117. 117 Cleantech OpenConfidential Information – All Rights Reserved Good luck! Have fun! Participate! Most of all … Keep Calm and Carry On.
Editor's Notes
- #7 Progressive de-risking of company from concept to a venture that will achieve investment and/or sustainable revenueTraining materials, activities & workshops are integrated with these 10 steps Product-Market Fit helps each company ensure that they have identified the correct market for their product(s)/service(s) and are ready to make appropriate adjustments. 2) Technology Validation ensures that their product(s)/service(s) will credibly meet the requirements of investors and customers. 3) Business Model covers all key aspects of who and how and where money will be made, and how the product will be delivered. 4) Markets and Getting to Them covers the key, crucial steps needed to get a new product into the market (an enhanced version of ‘Go To Market Strategy’). 5) Finances & Funding focuses on producing credible financial projections. 6) Legal provides an introduction to intellectual property protection and the corporate structure required to minimize risk and provide the legal underpinnings for success (important steps often overlooked by entrepreneurs). 7) Execution and Team to Execute introduces the importance of building a strong, relevant team with the specific skills needed to hit the major milestones needed as the startup grows. 8) Sustainability introduces the importance of business practices that will improve the company’s profitability while reducing its environmental impact. 9) Presentation works on the content and skills for excellent investor/customer presentations. 10) Assessment & Review guides each entrepreneur through the importance of careful review, and provides the platform for review and refinement of the programs themselves.Physical and virtual business clinics are one-on-one sessions for each participating startup with experts from sectors such as law, marketing, design, manufacturing and finance.
- #11 First, a quick review of my experience:I have a very technical background, with a CLICKBS in Physics from MIT and a PhD in Materials Science & Engineering from Stanford. While getting my PhD, I was a research scientist in a startup company for five years. This was my first startup experience, but I have {C}also been a CEO of a software startup and I have brought an entrepreneurial mindset to every position I’ve held, whether in nonprofit organizations like the MIT Enterprise Forum, where I helped start and then ran the Ignite Clean Energy Business Competition for a few years, or as a manager in corporationsCLICKranging from a multinational Japanese corporation to a small company in Worcester where I was VP of New Biz Dev and helped to sell the company.I then spent several years as the Associate Director of the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center, a state organization with a mandate to help any inventor in any nonprofit research institution in the state to commercialize their technology. This is a terrific organization with a great deal to offer the entrepreneurs of Massachusetts and it is also where I learned toCLICKcoach a ten-minute investor pitch. Over the next several hundred coaching sessions, I refined my own process for coaching. One important lesson I learned is that the pitch is actually a very useful tool for making sure that your business plan is complete and consistent. After all, you can’t tell a great story without a solid foundation, at least not one that will hold up under investor scrutiny for long!As my network grew, I was able to be a matchmaker, or as I prefer to call it, a yenta, among entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers, and others, something that I really enjoy doing.When I left my previous position, I knew that what I wanted to do was to coach entrepreneurs and help them succeed, so I founded Plano & Simple. All told, I have coached over 500 entrepreneurs on their investor pitches, and they have gone on to raise over $250M in equity and grant funding. I’m proud of that record, but it’s only the beginning!
- #19 I am the founder of TransformOne, a software company that provides cloud based, on demand clinical trial solution that streamlines the data capture, analytics and submission for pharmaceutical companies.
- #20 I am the founder of TransformOne, a software company that provides cloud based, on demand clinical trial solution that streamlines the data capture, analytics and submission for pharmaceutical companies.
- #21 Far too much time and money is wasted on managing clinical trials every year. Everyone loses: pharma companies waste billions on overhead, patients wait longer for new drugs, correlations and discoveries are missed. All of these problems can be traced to the fact that pharma uses antiquated software from the 1990’s that requires a range of experts and applications while making the use of data very limited. At TransformOne, we are leveraging the expertise that comes with developing software that was purchased by Oracle(?) for $79 bazillion dollars to build an up-to-date software as a service platform specifically designed for managing today’s complex and expensive trials with minimal training and delivering better design and data mining.Our team has worked together for xy years developing sophisticated software for the pharma industry. We were stunned to discover just how bad today’s software is and saw a great opportunity to dramatically improve clinical trial management in just a couple years. We will be launching our beta test at the end of August with a leading pharmaceutical company. We expect to go live in early 2014, growing our client base rapidly with the goal of acquisition in a couple of years. We are seeking about $5M in two tranches to meet our aggressive goals.
- #32 The last mistake I’ll run through right now is to think that the whole market is yours…
- #45 This is the “Plano & Simple” preferred approach for showing your advantage over your competitors. I like a table because it’s easy to get a clear impression that you are best across a series of important benefits with just a glance. Everything about the table is designed to make that clear: you’re the “top” competitor in the list, your company (preferably with logo) is highlighted versus the others, your benefits are listed in 2 – 3 word phrases that can easily be addressed with a check mark or an x. Never have more than four or at most five benefits; the point is to show dominance in a few important customer benefits, not to make the audience go through a laundry list of features. Make sure they *are* benefits – do they represent your turning the light on or are they all about the switch? The nice thing about benefits is that you can convolute several features into them. Let’s say that the customer cares about cost, because they almost always do. In that case, instead of listing all the features – maybe efficiency, lifetime, ease of install, and so on – you can list “lower cost per Watt” or “lower cost per gallon” or whatever’s relevant. Another way to think about benefits is that they should be things that enhance your customers’ bottom line by bringing in more revenue, saving costs, or increasing margin. That’s why focusing on green benefits, such as “environmentally sound” is OK, especially if you’re going up against solutions that are not. But from your customers’ perspective, think how much more effective it would be if you could say “Meets Environmental Regulations”, e.g., which not only indicates that you’re greener but that you’ll save them money on fines or having to retool or whatever. Now, when you show this slide, don’t go through each and every cell in the table. Your audience is perfectly capable of seeing which areas you’re strong in and which you’re less so because that’s how you’ve designed the table! Instead, you can say something like “As you can see, we’re strong across the primary benefits that interest our customer, including… Benefit 1, which indicates how we do against the competition in terms of cost per Watt, reflects our higher efficiency, longer lifetime and low cost installation process. For Benefit 2, Competitor 2 is our strongest competitor, but here’s why we think our customers will still prefer us…” In other words, you’re continuing to tell a story, not relate a list of facts. Remember, especially if you’re at a conference or competition, but really in all cases, your audience has listened to many, many, *many* presentations, sometimes in a row and it’s very difficult to stay engaged by people who are just reading facts. Facts are critically important, but if you can present them in a compelling way, you’re going to be much more effective. In addition, by not giving out all the facts during the presentation, you’re inviting questions later, which is exactly what you want. Your pitch should be short and engaging precisely so that there *is* more time for discussion then and more reason to set up additional meetings later.A common question I get is “Doesn’t it look fake to look so much stronger than your competition?” It’s a good question – this is one area where I tripped up when pitching my own company due to not understanding the technology well enough. But there are a couple of things that I want you to keep in mind: first, if you do not appear dominant, then the investors are going to be thinking – so why should I invest in them instead of their competitors? They are also going to assume that you are painting a rosy picture, so if this is as good as you can do, that will add to their concern. Even subconsciously, they are going to be more concerned. Of course, if you go with all checks for you and all exes for your competition, they may worry that you don’t understand your competition or that you don’t know the technical roadblocks you have yet to face in getting your product to market.So, here’s my approach: play to your strengths. Select the benefits that are most important to your customer and for which you are truthfully the most dominant. If you can’t come up with at least four benefits for which that’s true, you would be well served to figure out why you think you can win in the marketplace!OK, let’s take a look at some real world examples!
- #47 Here’s another popular way of representing the competitive landscape. It gives you fewer benefits to work with – where you can get four or five into the table, here you are pretty much limited to two. OTOH, it’s a lot easier to fit in more competitors, so it’s really a matter of style and which suits your needs the best.I would use logos whenever possible and you should always design the axes such that your company is in the top right. That can be challenging to do – for instance, I usually see inexpensive on the left and expensive on the right, which would mean you’d want to be in the top *left* corner… but you can almost always come up with another way to phrase it so that it makes sense to be in the top right, because that’s where people expect to see the best and you want them to even subconsciously be thinking of you as the best. So in this example, instead of using inexpensive and expensive, I used less affordable and more affordable, resulting in the orientation I wanted.
- #55 The most common pitching mistake I see in showing data is TMI, or too much information. (BTW, I hope that acronym is in common enough use for my audience that I didn’t need to spell it out. If you had a moment of confusion, keep that experience in mind when you go to use acronyms in your own presentations!) This is especially a problem if you’re pitching at a conference or competition where the audience is unlikely to be made up exclusively of people who are familiar with your industry. Here’s an example ofCLICKTMI. Even if this shows the world’s most exciting data, the slide is pretty much useless. Your audience has maybe 60 seconds to understand it, but who knows what each of these curves mean? Even if the font wasn’t way too tiny to read, which aspect of these data shows that your idea and your technology *work*? You do not have time to explain all this in an initial pitch. By all means have it as a backup slide when you have the luxury of talking through it, but for the pitch, find a way to represent your data in a way that is quick and easy to understand. For instance[CLICK]Higlight just two important curves, like your data versus your closest competitor’s and then[CLICK]Highlight the part that’s most important.This is obviously totally made up data, so I haven’t included axis labels or units – it *is* a good idea to use these, just make sure they’re legible and simple.I understand that taking this approach means that you’re not going to be able to provide the whole story. As someone with a PhD in Materials Science & Engineering, I can certainly appreciate that equations and formulas are shorthand ways of describing physical phenomena accurately and precisely. I know that using words and cartoons to illustrate them instead is woefully lacking in substance and precision. It’s just that your pitch is not the time to be presenting it all. By the way, when I get to this point of coaching, my client will often say something like, “So you want me to dumb this down.” Please don’t think of it that way. It’s disrespectful to your audience, at least some of whom are probably at least as smart as you and many of whom have a whole lot of the money you’d like to get. It’s also not true. Teaching and being complete are not the purpose of this pitch. The purpose is to get the idea across, and when you have the right graphics that make it easy for your audience to get the concept, believe me, you will have put a whole lot of thought and work into it – you’re not dumbing it down, you’re clarifying it for people who have different backgrounds than you do… and you’re getting them interested enough that they want to learn more.And don’t forget, by keeping the discussion at this high level is going to make it easier for you to avoid talking about proprietary information!
- #65 This next question is probably the one I see neglected the most often in investor pitches by early stage or inexperienced entrepreneurs. Actually, I shouldn’t say that. Just this week, I heard a pitch by a very experienced entrepreneur who got angry with a potential investor who wanted to know how the company was going to make money.This is the crux of what your investor is investing in. Your invention may be what makes it possible, but you need to think through how it’s all going to work – what *is* your business model???On the[CLICK] Fear side, they are going to be worrying about whether you actually have a clue as to what a sustainable business looks like, let alone one that can grow rapidly. On the greed side, this is a great opportunity to show that you know exactly what business model can work for your products in your industry. [CLICK]This slide is one of your best opportunities for reinforcing your business acumen, which is helpful if you want to remain as CEO after an investment. It’s also to underline that you understand your customers and your competitors really well, which means that you are improving your chances of success.The mistake you can make, then, is to either skip the business model altogether or presentCLICKAn implausible one. There is a strong tendency, especially among academics and other inventors, to believe that if you build a better mouse trap, people will beat a path to your door. Therefore, there’s no real need to think about who your customers are, how you’re going to acquire them and keep them, and exactly what you’re going to deliver to them for how much money, how often. People will just come to your house and give you money for your cool technology.That was true when mouse traps were invented, as I understand it, because mouse infestations were a major and growing problem at the time. It wasn’t because there was suddenly a new, cool technology that people couldn’t wait to try out, it was that they had a serious need for the traps and there wasn’t another solution except to hunt them down with a broom. Once there were a couple competitors and the market got saturated, it was the people who built businesses that could market, sell and distribute the traps at a competitive price who were ultimately successful. In addition to knowing your customers, you need to know what kinds of business models work in your industry. I’m always amazed at how many people don’t know exactly what it is that they are going to sell. Is it a product or a service or a license to use your technology? For instance, it’s great that you’ve engineered a new type of bacteria that can convert carbon dioxide and ammonia into any compound that you need… but are you going to be selling the bacteria to big companies like Dow Chemical and 3M to program for their own materials? Or are you going to be selecting a few materials to produce yourself and then sell the materials at a lower cost than anyone else? That’s just a start – you also need to think about how you’re going to sell to new customers, how you’re going to distribute them, and lots more. This is also not the place to get creative: if you can find a business model that’s been successful for someone doing a similar type of business, then by all means steal it! Especially if it’s based on gaining recurring revenue from the same customers.
- #66 I hope I’ve convinced you that, no matter how beneficial to the world your products are, it’s in your and the world’s best interests that you launch them using a sustainable and preferably growth-oriented business model. To make good decisions about what you are selling to whom to achieve the revenue and profit you want, you need to understand your company’s place in your industry’s value chain.In fact, I recently read a great definition for business models at QuickMBA.com: “Business models extract value from innovation”[CLICK]You created a company so that you could [CLICK]make or do something with your technology and then [CLICK]have someone give you money for it.Pretty simplistic, I know, and that’s why some technical people think that business is easy. But it hides a wealth of complexity, which is what makes business so interesting… and so hard. This diagram, I think, does a good job of illustrating the essence of the business model, but it only begins to hint at the extent of the value chain. The end user is at the end and suppliers of raw materials are usually at the beginning. Depending on what your technology is and how you want to package it, the exact path from suppliers to end users and your position along it can vary considerably.To clarify this point, let’s start with a fresh look at the [CLICK]market pull side of the equation….
- #67 So don’t go crazy! For the purposes of your business plan, knowing your value chain in this kind of detail can be helpful; for your pitch, only for questions.Another point I’d like to make on value chains is that this process can help you figure out where you’d rather be in the chain. Generally speaking the farther you move from left to right on this chart, the higher the margin you can add to the final goods because value is being added at each step of the way. So if you’re the fertilizer guy, you may be earning, let’s say, a tenth of a penny per pepp-mato, and probably less than that. When you sell to the store, you get pepp-mato $0.5 per pepp-mato, and if you own the food store, you sell them for $1.29 each or something. Granted, the expenses go up with each step to the right but it’s a lot easier to point to the value you’ve added when you are selling a pepp-mato than when you’re selling the fertilizer that initially helps it grow. Right? After all, water and pesticides have also gone into growing them, plus a ton of labor. You wouldn’t be anywhere without the high value seed that went into them. Etc., etc. Looking at this, you might decide that the pepp-mato is a nice introduction to the market, but the real value comes in producing genuine organic though genetically modified seed for all kinds of mutant vegetables (I know – my whole organic thing here is not realistic!). Then you’d be focused on mostly just [CLICK]this section and selling to a different customer[CLICK]Lots of different growers. This way, you’re focusing most of your energy directly on the technology that you’ve based the company on and you don’t have to learn how to be a vegetable inspector and packager, how to sell to low tech food distributors or grocery stores, and so on. But unless you understand the value chain at this kind of detail, it’s really difficult to tell where the sweet spot is for your business.If you’re having trouble deciding where you belong in this value chain or you want to validate your decisions, there are a few tools you can apply that may help. One is the traditional SWOT analysis, for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, which I go into in a little more detail in the homework module for this week. But I think a more robust approach is Porter’s Five Forces analysis.
- #68 You don’t have to go crazy with the model at this stage, any more than you should go into the details of technical theory in earlier slides. This is an example of a slide that shows which way the money is flowing and why. It doesn’t get into some important aspects, like how you’re going to acquire those customers, where they’re getting their parts from and so on, but it does address for this company the aspects of the model that they know that investors and customers have the most questions about.
- #73 Question 8: talk about your management team. Remember what I’ve said before about how investors invest more in the people than in the technology. What you say about your team here will either validate or undermine what you say about your plans, the business model, your technology development and so on. The fear [CLICK]is that the team doesn’t have the experience, the capabilities and/or the passion to make the company a success. If you’ve displayed signs of incompetence or resistance to mentoring earlier in the presentation, they may already be thinking about who they’d want to replace you with, assuming that the rest of the pitch is compelling.On the greed side, if you can list a few rock stars, people who have succeeded in entrepreneurship before or have stellar credentials among your target customers, that can add a lot of confidence. What’s most important to the investors is that you have[CLICK] experience. Degrees from fancy universities help, but not nearly as much as having been through this process before, even if you haven’t succeeded. If you don’t have it, you don’t have it – but always be sure to highlight it if you do.If you’re short on experience in the management team, don’t forget that there are others who make up your team. I’m not talking about your staff, important as they are. From the investor perspective, they’re mostly fungible goods at this time. Instead, I’m talking about your advisors and any partners you’ve got. People who have committed to an advisory board and provide some deep knowledge about an aspect of business that’s missing from your management team can do a lot to reduce fear. Someone who has succeeded as an entrepreneur in your field and is committed to being an advisor is also very helpful. And I always love to see partners, whether they are suppliers, manufacturers or even customers of your company. If you can show that an existing company believes in what you’re doing enough to commit money to moving the product forward, that can be a big help, provided you’re not giving away anything critical in the agreement.
- #74 Here is the P&S template for the management team. It’s unusual to get all this information into a single slide unless you have a really small management team, so I would usually spread this information out across a couple of slides, using the same formatting. This is also the only slide where I don’t mind having some visual clutter. If you’ve got credentials, here’s a good place to make it clear that there is both depth and breadth to your capabilities in house. Do not, however, read through all of it! Pick out the most important highlights and emphasize them. If they want more detail, they can get it off your website, right???When it comes to your partners, I like to use logos especially if they happen to have household names. However, as a note of caution, do not just throw up a bunch of logos of big companies that you plan to approach. If you’re talking about them as partners, be prepared to talk about them as having signed an agreement, having provided you with a letter of intent, etc. I had one recent client whose first product was one year into a two year testing process with a major utility. There was no way that the utility was going to put anything in writing about whether they were going to accept the product at the end of the two year process, so I asked the entrepreneur to get statistics from them: how many companies got accepted into the two year process? Of the ones that got in, how many eventually sold to the utility? Did they get exclusive contracts? Answers to these kinds of questions allow you to talk about even a conservative partner in a positive and knowledgeable way.
- #75 The management team slide is actually one of the few where I don’t mind a smaller font size or a lot of words. Its purpose is to instill confidence that your team has a lot of experience, so that impression is reinforced if you have a lot of things to say. I am not suggesting that you want to make it an eye chart and I absolutely do not want you to read it out loud word for word. Instead, highlight the 2 or 3 most impressive facts about each member of the team and leave the rest as implicit support of your claims of experience and expertise. If anyone on your team has participated in a number of startups previously, that’s a great item to highlight, especially if any of them had a positive outcome. If you’ve been working in the industry in which you’ve started this company for the last 20 years, that’s a really great experience to describe, particularly if you can say things like, “I’ve co-founded three startups and two were sold in under five years.” or “I was a manager in XYZ Corporation for 12 years, where I grew my division by a factor of 3 to $218M in revenues.” This is also a place to emphasize your CTO’s technical bona fides or your New Business Development guy’s extensive industry experience. You’ll notice I’ve shown two bullets of experience and one of education for each position, and placed the education bullet last. If you can put in three bullets of experience for each person, so much the better, but don’t put in five for one person and two for the next; you want your team to appear balanced in skills and experience as much as possible. Remember, they’re investing in the team, not any individual, and it’s important to them that the team members consider themselves as pulling their weight equally. This team slide is set up as a table to make it easy for everything to line up cleanly. This is particularly useful if you have a lot of text.
- #76 This slide shows how I like to display the extended part of your team, and that is your advisory board and any partners. If you’re just starting out, then you may not have any people or companies for this slide and that’s fine. But if you’ve got something to brag about, then by all means, highlight it here!You don’t need as much detail on your advisory board members as for your management team – their titles and something about their relevant experience will suffice. If you’ve got a rock star who isn’t well known outside his specific domain, you might want to spend a little more time on him or her. Which reminds me, my preference for advisory board members is always people who really care about what you’re doing and will put the time and thought and/or the referrals in that you need to get it going and help it over speed bumps. If you’ve got a rock star, someone with a household name, having her on the advisory board may give you some extra cachet, but the value you need at this stage of the game, IMO, is from people who actually put in some effort on your behalf. When you’ve got a board of directors, I’d still rather have lesser-known people who are still committed to the company than the big names who are just lending their name, but that’s personal preference. On the flip side, there is a lot to be said for names that open doors all by themselves… and they’re invaluable if you’re running a nonprofit.By the way, if you recognize the names in this advisory board, you’re probably too old to be starting a company. My only defense is that I had to look up Micky’s last name, so clearly I was still very very young when the Monkees were big!Finally, there’s your partners. You can either list your contacts there or{C}Show their logos. If you do the latter – which is certainly an eye catching way to do it – *only* show those companies for which you have actual relationships. Throwing up a bunch of logos of companies that would be interesting partners or customers adds no value and can hurt your credibility. But showing a few logos of companies or universities that are heavily involved in what you’re doing can add a lot to it.
- #79 Now that you’ve established that you know how you’re going to make money, we need to hit question 7, How much are you going to make, and how fast? These are, of course, your financial projections.On the [CLICK]Fear side of things, you can present numbers that are either too high or too low. Too low, and they don’t see a viable business, at least not one with the growth potential to give them the returns on investment they want. Too high, and they’ll think you don’t understand how to grow a business. On the greed side, you can show them exciting numbers and a viable plan to get there. One concern I get is that it’s too early to know what your financials are. For the very early stage companies that are still more in the idea or lab phase than in the company-building phase, this is not unusual and it’s OK [CLICK]to skip this question. Just be aware that it will, once again, impact their perception of you as a business person and, because the business is so undeveloped, raise the price of their money should they decide to invest in you.Really important is to not make up numbers to reach some revenue level that you think they want to see. A few pointed questions will quickly see through that level of thinking. My favorite story about this is from a student team in the Ignite Clean Energy Competition from years ago who, when I told them I’d like to see their financials, came back with a nice graph in their next pitch. I was proud of them for doing the work… but there was something odd about the curve and the way it squiggled. I asked how they had developed the financials and they kind of squirmed and said, “well, we just drew a line!” In case you’re having any thoughts along those lines, DON’T DO IT! There’s no faster way to get yourself permanently marked as dishonest, naïve or both. But it was still pretty funny.Let’s take a look at a couple examples…
- #80 This is the most common mistake I see made when presenting financials. Even if you spent five minutes on this slide, you’d still be answering questions. Of course, most of your audience won’t be asking questions because they will have pulled out their Blackberries when they see they can’t even read the slide. As when answering the “What do you do?” question, this is not the time to focus on the details. Have a backup slide for it, by all means, but here you are doing nothing to reduce fear except maybe to show that you’ve done your homework. You aren’t increasing greed, because even if they can read the numbers, who can figure out whether it makes any sense with respect to the business model in the 60 seconds you have to view the slide?
- #81 With this vastly simplified version of the income statement, it’s easy for the investor to see exactly what’s going on in the big picture – you’re growing to $31M in revenues with a gross margin of 42% and EBITDA of about 7,500,000. Depending on what your industry is, I can look at those numbers and say, “OK, they’re in the right ballpark in terms of margin and expenses.” I’ll still get into the problem with the erratic growth from one year to the next, but at least I can focus on that problem and not on all the detail. If I were to add another level of detail to this chart, it might be to add in two rows for the number of units sold each year, but probably only if it helps me to tell the story. As a side note, these are the numbers without including the recurring revenue, which as you’ll recall took up almost half the real estate in the previous slide. If I were to include those numbers, I’d get[CLICK]Somewhat larger numbers, but no real change in the big picture. So the other thing I’d probably change on this chart might be to include the recurring revenue in the calculations without calling them out separately. You may be thinking that an investor will want more detail and you’re absolutely right… but this is a great way to introduce your financials to him. I’d then supplement this with a graph…
- #84 There are a number of ways I could represent the data at this point. My choice will depend on what allows me to tell the story the best. If the story is the exciting growth in revenues, I might choose this approach, which highlights the two major products and the EBITDA for each year. You could add in the recurring revenue to this graph as well, of course, although it will be hard to see. Points to emphasize might be the relative growth of the two product lines or gross margin.One problem with using this data set is that they’re profitable right from the start. For most of you who are out raising money, you’re going to be in the red to start with. Using a graph to highlight when you get to breakeven would be really useful.
- #85 OK, last question because it’s a two-parter! How much time and how much money is it going to take to get to what value-added milestones on the way to getting my return on investment?[CLICK]It’s important to keep in mind that your investors don’t get a payday until there is a liquidity event, either your company gets bought by someone else or you take the company public. At that point, they can sell the stock they own in the company and reap the rewards of their investment. Up until that time, there’s usually no financial return on that investment. Funds have metrics for their investments; they know when they want their portfolio companies to reach liquidity and how much money they’re willing to invest up until that point. So it’s important to have thought about what kind of exit you want and when it could logically take place.Very often, an entrepreneur will say, well, we could get acquired and we could go public, we’ll just have to see. I think that’s a mistake. I encourage you to pitch the story that you believe is the most success oriented. Look, chances are your exit is five years out and no one knows what next year will bring, let alone five years from now. The purpose to this exercise, as much as anything else, is to show that you know how you are going to execute on all that you’ve laid out in your pitch, that you understand what milestones are important in your business and that you have at least moderately realistic ideas of the time and money necessary to achieve them. This will also help to show that, should circumstances change – as they certainly will – you will know what you have to change and probably how in order to adapt.Today, there are very few public offerings so most companies exit via acquisition. Unless you have unusual circumstances, that’s probably the route you want to take. Do some research and see how other companies in your field have exited recently. Who is buying technology as fast as they can? Why is your company like the ones they’ve already bought?By the way, this is not the time or place to suggest a valuation for your company. This point was brought home to me by an investor who told a client, “Don’t tell me my business! It’s my job to assess your valuation. You worry about your business.” It’s also a problem because, by doing so, you’ve essentially begun negotiations by telling them what you expect.So, in addition to a timeframe to an exit what *is* important to show?[CLICK]My best advice is to focus, focus and then focus some more. Execution is very, very difficult, and everything costs twice as much and takes three times as long or vice versa as you expect. If you try to tackle a number of products or markets at the same time, you are likely reducing your chances for success while increasing your costs. Make sure you are addressing milestones that really add value, by which I mean that by completing them, your company is worth more money. Building a new lab is not a value-adding milestone, no matter how important it is to your success. Using that lab to complete a demonstration project for a customer or to help generate new patents is a real value-add. The way that I represent the answer to these questions has the added benefit of including the ask in the process…
- #86 This is my preferred visual for showing your development plan. I like to think of this one as your business plan on a single slide. The time frame shown is typically five years. You’ll notice that I’ve used a series of arrows to highlight the time period over which specific tasks need to be completed in order to achieve value-added milestones. You need to pick these milestones judiciously for two reasons: first, since we’re trying to illustrate focus, throwing in lots of milestones would make it seem as though you are trying to do too much with too little. Second, you should be talking about *value added* milestones. Obviously, you’re not going to set a milestone unless you think it adds value, but what I’m talking about here is milestones that make your company actually worth more. For instance, completing a research project does not necessarily add value, nor does hiring a new CEO or building a new warehouse. Each of these may be critical to the success of the company but none of them makes the company inherently worth more. Milestones that do add value are things like getting patents, launching a product, passing regulatory or other tests, signing customers and so on. Each of these reduce the risk of the company by some amount and therefore make it more valuable. By identifying these value-added milestones, you are showing the investor that, for their $4M series A investment, they will be getting, say, a working demonstration of the technology and 2 patents added to the portfolio. They can see that the next round is expected to be for $5M and will progress the company in terms of regulatory compliance and, even more exciting, that the first customer is expected to be signed by then. Assuming you’ve met these milestones – or whatever they’ve been modified to during the three years that will have elapsed by then, the final round you are projecting is for $15M. That money will get the company to break even and the next five major customers signed. (Obviously this is for a company that sells something big, like jet engines, to a small group of customers.) The small diamond highlights the point at which you hit breakeven – this is a new idea, I’m not sure yet whether it’s adding enough value to be left in, but breakeven is so important in the company’s success that I do like the idea of highlighting it… and that will free up another bullet for a significant milestone you might not otherwise have room for! Overall, based on the progress you’ll make enabled by $24M in investment, you anticipate an acquisition at the end of 2015 (that’s the big diamond). So there you have it, your complete, high level business plan on a single page showing what you’ll accomplish by when for how much money and what the time frame is for acquisition or IPO. Clearly this is too simplistic to be your whole business plan, but as an easy, clean reminder of all the other things you’ve presented in this pitch coupled with your ask, it’s hard to beat. One nuance I’d like you to be aware of is the fact that the block arrows go up from left to right. We’re all used to making Gantt charts that start at the top left and go down and to the right from there. There’s nothing really wrong with that, but think about it this way: investors like charts and graphs that go *up* to the right. You want everything you show to support your case on both a face value and subliminal basis, so I recommend taking this approach.There’s also a temptation to just copy and paste your Microsoft Project or other detailed Gantt chart to show the work you are doing in all the aspects of your business. Don’t do this, for the same reason that you don’t put all your line items in your income statement or all the equations in your technology presentation or the detailed value chain in your business model: you want to show focus and you want to make it easy for someone seeing the slides for the first time and probably for no more than 30 – 60 seconds to grasp the gist of what you are trying to convey. Remember that it is far better for your audience to get a few ideas clearly than to overwhelm them with detail. Believe me, they will ask you the questions to figure out whether you’ve done your homework… and I’m perfectly fine with you having the detailed information in your back-up slides. In fact, one set of slides that I encourage you to prepare for backup would be the ones that answer the question of “What will you do if you can raise only half the money? What about if you can raise double? What changes?” You should always pitch the business that you believe in, but showing that you’ve thought about the alternative possibilities will only make you look better.
- #90 I mentioned earlier that your gross margin is a performance indicator to investors. It’s not really what’s called a Key Performance indicator, but your gross margins need to be similar to those of your competitors in your industry, or it will clearly indicate that you’re doing something very different, bad or good.Examples of KPIs are [CLICK]churn rate – for instance, if you’re a wireless phone company, you want to keep close tabs on how long you’re keeping a customer. Getting a new customer is much more expensive, usually, than keeping one, so you need to keep your churn rate below a certain level to meet your goals.When you’ve got product out in the market, you may need to track how long they’re lasting, or if you’re doing a lot of manufacturing, you may need to be tracking how long between failures on the production line, so Mean Time Between Failure might be important.There are KPIs that are commonly used in a given industry. It’s a good idea to have KPIs that are specific to your business as well, numbers you can track to be sure that the business is running as it should. One benefit of doing your financial projections is that they may help you to identify what some of yours need to be. When you’re developing your company’s KPI’s, as with most goals, it’s a good idea to make them[CLICK]“SMART” – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-phased. If they don’t meet all of these targets, they’re not going to be as effective for monitoring your business as they should be.
- #95 We’re also advancing a diverse set of competencies – hardware and software; physical, computational, and social sciences – through all of those engagements, because our open innovation business model allows us to apply capabilities and deep expertise from one domain to different industries and application spaces. [Note: different fields of use] This is just an overview of some of our current offerings and competencies.
- #101 Due to the confidentiality of our client relationships and work, this is just a partial list of the companies and organizations we are working with (or have worked with). This includes Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies; startups we have enabled and in some cases spun out; and government agencies or partners.
- #105 Decided to become a national sponsor of the cleantech open and house them in our building.
- #106 Here’s where PARC adds value:strong background intellectual property – not just in terms of portfolio coverage, but as IP “reduced to practice” for commercial contexts; deep, diverse, complex expertise – not just concepts, but demos and industrial prototypes suitable for scalable architectures (software) or for manufacturing at volume and scale (hardware); resources – not just infrastructure (fabrication facilities, clean room, etc.), but services that enable companies to start new offerings quickly, test hypotheses in a capital-efficient manner, and access world-leading researchers who can and have helped address the roadblocks encountered when turning novel visions into concrete realities or moving from lab (or university) concepts to commercial scale; andnetworks – beyond the typical ecosystem most startups already have access to, PARC’s business model of working with several, diverse clients enables startups the ability to leverage government funding, connect to large companies’ future roadmaps not on their radars, and much more. …all of which accelerates time to market, significantly – at reduced risk – and in a capital-efficient manner!
- #118 Our definition – how CTO looks at itOptional slide