Expara accelerator program

July 2016
Expara Accelerator Program
Discussion slides

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About the lecturer
 Wharton MBA
 JP Morgan – Vice President
IB Technology, GM Internet Marketing
 Parallax Capital Mgmt – Co-founder and MD Private Equity
 Extream Ventures – Co-founder and MD
S$20 million seed fund
 Expara – Founder and MD
IDM Ventures Incubator, advisory, training
 NUS – Adjunct Associate Professor, Business School,
Entrepreneurship
 Sasin – Visiting Professor, Venture Capital

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• Go big or go home
• Investment: why and how
• Business model canvas and plan
Understanding the big
picture
• Innovation and value proposition
• Market identification and analysis
• Customer discovery workshop
• Competitive analysis and strategy
• Customer analysis and archetype
• Channel strategy
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
• Customer acquisition and
activation workshop
• Low fidelity MVP demo
Key elements for success:
product/market fit
• Team, team and team
• Legal and regulatory issues
Key elements for
success: business
• The fundraising process
• Financial plan and model
• Valuation
• Key deal terms and term sheets
• Negotiating with investors
• VC-startup negotiation
workshop
• Investor presentation materials
• Presenting to investors
• Investor presentation workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Go big or go home
 Introduction to scalable entrepreneurship
 Understanding risk and return
 Let’s fail

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What is an entrepreneur?
 A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a
business venture.
 From Old French, from entreprendre, to undertake.
 Enterprise: An undertaking, especially one of some scope,
complication, and risk.
 Enterprising: Willingness to undertake new ventures; initiative:
"Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are,
buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs" (Henry
David Thoreau).

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What is a scalable business?
 Small business: limited scope, complication and risk. Slow
growth.
 Scalable business: significant scope, complication, and risk.
Rapid growth.

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Present
to
investor
to raise
money
How to build a scalable business?
Identify
idea and
write
business
plan
The new venture creation process
Form a
start-up
company
team

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What are the qualities that make a successful
entrepreneur?
 Intelligent
 Creative problem-solving skills
 Self-starting
 Committed
 Motivated
 Risk taking

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Is entrepreneurship important to the country?
 The development of a thriving entrepreneurial sector is not just an
economic "nice-to-have." In the knowledge- and innovation-driven
globalized economy of the 21st century it is a competitive necessity.
 In one year alone, the small number of venture-backed companies in the
US generated $736 billion in revenues, created 4.3 million new jobs,
accounting for 3.3% of total jobs in the US and 7.4% of GDP.
 The more than 4,000 companies started by MIT grads employ more than
1.1 MM people and generate more than $232 B in revenue p.a.
 Innovative entrepreneurs drive long-term economic growth – creative
destruction

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Why is entrepreneurship important to you?
 What type of life do you want to have?
– An average life or an extraordinary life?
 What do you want to do with your life?
– Create something of value from nothing or just make money?
 Do you want to:
– Make a difference?
– Change the world in some way?
– Leave something of value after you are gone?

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As an entrepreneur, you can:
 Have an extraordinary life
 Create something of value from nothing
 Become rich
 Do something meaningful
 Make a difference
 Change the world in a positive way
 Leave something of value behind after you are gone

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Obstacles to entrepreneurship
 Lack of entrepreneurial skills
 Attitudes toward risk
 Cultural attitudes toward failure
 Entrepreneurial success is difficult

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This could be you - iTwin
 BMA5108 – “Cable-less cable”
remote access device based on
A-Star technology
 Selected for TechCrunch 50 2009
in Silicon Valley
 Spin-off company launched in
2010
 Raised S$2 MM Series A funding
in July 2010

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This could be you - Sparefoot
 2007 – Chuck Gordon takes
TR3002
 2008 –Co-founds Ikatoo –
Winner, IDM Prize S@S and
i.JAM recipient
 2008 – Returns to US and
resumes work on Sparefoot
 2010 – Sparefoot raises
US$3 MM VC

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This could be you: Pirate 3D

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This could be you: Asia’s Top 25 Entrepreneurs

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This could be you: Facebook
 Feb 2004: Mark Zuckerberg, 19, launches The Facebook from
his Harvard dorm room, with ~10K investment. Half of Harvard
signs up in the first month
 June 2004: Facebook receives $500K funding from Peter Thiel
 Mid 2005: Accel partners invests $12.7MM and Greylock
$27.5MM
 Oct 2007: Microsoft buys 1.6% of Facebook for $246MM
 Nov 2007: Li Ka-shing invests $60MM
 2009-10: Elevation partners invests $210MM at valuation $12 -
23B
 2011: Goldman Sachs buys shares in the secondary market at
an implied valuation of $50B
 2012: Goes IPO at valuation ~$100B (now $67B)
“The youngest
billionaire on
earth” - Forbes

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This could be you: Instagram
 2010 - Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger
focus their multi-featured HTML5 check-
in project Burbn on mobile photography
 Mar 2010 – Close $500K seed funding
round from Baseline Ventures and
Andreessen Horowitz; est. val. $5 MM
 Oct 2010 – Product launches on Apple
App Store
 Feb 2012 – Raise $7MM Series A
funding; valuation $25 MM
 Apr 2012 – Raise $50 MM at $500 MM
valuation; sold to Facebook, val $1 B
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Millions of Users

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This could be you: Google
 1995: Sergey Brin and Larry Page,
two Stanford University graduate
students develop the technology that
will become the Google search engine.
 1998: Sergey and Larry raise $1
million in funding from family, friends,
and angel investors to start Google in a
friend's Menlo Park, Calif. garage with
four employees.
 1999: Google raises $25MM from VCs
and angel investors
 2004: Google goes IPO at a valuation
of US$23.1 billion. Sells 7% to public
for $1.67 billion. Market cap Jan 2007
US$149 billion.

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This could be you: YouTube
 Feb 2005: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen,
and Jawed Karim found YouTube, Inc.
 Nov 2005: YouTube receives funding
from Sequoia Capital
 Dec 2005: YouTube service is officially
launched
 Nov 2006: Google acquires YouTube
for US$1.65 billion, 20 months after the
company was founded

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Founded by undergrads: Dell and Microsoft
 Michael Dell, who founded Dell in
1984 with $1,000 when he was 19
years old. The company now employs
approximately 41,800 people
worldwide and reported revenues of
$38.2 billion for the past four quarters.
 Bill Gates, who founded Microsoft in
1975 while still an undergraduate at
Harvard. Microsoft had revenues of
US$32.19 billion for the fiscal year
ending June 2003, and employs more
than 54,000 people in 85 countries and
regions.

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SEA exit markets at an inflection point
Exit activity in SEA, especially in Singapore, has exploded
• Increased investment in startups since 2007 is beginning to yield results
• Number of exits increased from 5 or less pre-2011 to 60 in last three years
• Singapore alone has had 40 exits since 2007
• Value of exits increased from 51 MM in 2010 to 1.2 B in 2014

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Some recent exits
Company Country Acquiror Price Year
ZopIM Singapore Zendesk US$29.8MM 2014
Non-Stop Games Singapore King US$ 100MM 2014
sgCarMart Singapore SPH S$60 MM 2013
DS3 Singapore Gemalto S$50 MM est. 2013
Asian Food Channel Singapore Scripps Networks Undisclosed 2013
Reebonz Singapore MediaCorp and Existing investors S$250MM 2013
Yfind Singapore Ruckus Wireless Undisclosed 2013
Techsailor Singapore TO THE NEW Undisclosed 2013
travelmob Singapore HomeAway Undisclosed 2013
Catcha Digital Media Singapore Opt Inc Undisclosed 2013
GridBlaze Singapore Undisclosed Silicon Valley Startup Undisclosed 2013
Viki Singapore Rakuten US$200MM 2013
SGE Singapore Tech In Asia Undisclosed 2013
ThoughtBuzz India To The New Undisclosed 2013
AyoPay Indonesia MOL AccessPortal Undisclosed 2013
Tongue in Chic Malaysia PopDigital Undisclosed 2013
Ocision Malaysia Star Publication US$ 4.36MM 2013
Glamybox Vietnam VanityTrove Undisclosed 2013
PaymentLink Singapore Wirecard US$41.2MM 2013
Dealguru Singapore iBuy S$34.28 MM 2013
Buy Together Hong Kong iBuy S$21 MM 2013
Dealmates Malaysia iBuy S$10 MM 2013
PropertyGuru.com Singapore ImmobilienScout24 S$60 MM 2012
HungryGoWhere Singapore Singtel S$12 MM 2012
AdMax Network Singapore Komli Media Undisclosed 2012
TheMobileGamer Singapore Singtel US$1.5 MM 2012

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Go big or go home
 Let’s fail

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What is the relationship between risk and return?
 Risk and return are highly correlated
 You cannot increase return without taking more risk
Return
Risk
Potential outcomes

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Go big or go home
 Let’s fail

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Let’s fail: the importance of failure for innovation

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3 key elements for success
 Do something you love to do – something meaningful
 Create opportunities – don’t wait for them
 Don’t give up – stay the course

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What about luck?
 Luck by definition is random
 In the long run, luck should even out for most
 Luck plays an important role in initial conditions but after that much
less than you imagine
 Don’t wait to get lucky; make your own luck
 Chance favors the prepared mind

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Evolving cultural attitudes toward failure
Failure is
bad; avoid
at all costs
Traditional

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Failure is
bad; avoid
at all costs
Failure is
acceptable;
leads to
learning
Traditional Current

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Failure is
bad; avoid
at all costs
Failure is
acceptable;
leads to
learning
Failure is
desirable;
necessary for
innovation
Traditional Current Future

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Why is failure desirable?
 Willingness to fail – allows risk-taking and innovation
 Risk and return – high risk ventures means they are likely to fail
 Innovation – key to scalable ventures – innovators will fail

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Rate of tech change is increasing exponentially
1 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000 10,000,000
100,000,00
0
First Humanoids
Language
Agriculture
Abacus
Calculating machine
Telegraph
Stock Ticker
Light Bulb
Recording sound
Television
General purpose computer
Stored program computer
Integrated circuit
Mini computer
Microprocessor
Personal computer
IBM PC
Pentium
World Wide Web
Deep Blue defeats Kasparov

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The rate of innovation is increasing

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Ever-shorter product cycles = more innovation
 Phonograph - invented in 1877 by
Thomas Edison
 33 rpm/45 rpm discs - 1948 (71 years)
 Cassette tapes - 1966 (18 years)
 Compact disc - 1982 (16 years)
 MP3 files - 1991 (9 years)
 MP4 files - 1998 (7 years)

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Sometimes failure itself is innovation
 Post-It notes - failed glue
 Scotchgard - spilled on shoes
 Combat - failed additive for cattle feed

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The essence of risk is failure

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Failure is necessary to achieve success

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Why are people afraid to risk failure?
 Fear of the unknown - “Why take a chance?”
 Fear of looking stupid - “What will they think?”
 Judging too quickly - “That will never work”
 Attachment to the old - “We have always done it this way”
 Attachment to past successes - “This approach got us here”

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Do not let fear stop you
 Why are you afraid to try?
 The outcome must be important to you; otherwise no fear
 This makes you afraid to fail
 If you do not try, then you have already failed
 “You miss 100% of the shots you do not take” - Wayne Gretzky
 Fear causes you to fail at the things that are most important to you

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Why fear?
 Fear is good when it helps us stay
alive
 It is rational to be risk-averse in
life-and-death situations
 Most investment decisions are not
life-and-death situations

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Conquering your fear
 Everyone is afraid
 It is OK to be afraid
 Don’t try to eliminate your fear
 Work through your fear

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If you don’t fail, you are not trying hard enough
 Most learning and progress are achieved through failure
 The top scientists in the world fail more than average scientists
 Everyone who is now highly successful took significant risk to get
there
 We don't regret the things that we do and fail at; we regret the
things that we fail to do.
 A life lived in fear is a life half lived

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Success from failure – Apple and Steve Jobs

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Product failures – from Apple III to Apple Newton
 1980 - Apple III - 75k units sold
 1983 – Apple Lisa - 40K units sold in
1984 vs. 80K forecast
 1986 – Pixar Image Computer - <
300 units sold
 1990 – NeXT workstation – 50K
units sold
 1993 – Newton – 100MM spent on
development – 80K units sold
 Apple clones, NeXT software

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Market failure - Apple stock price – 1988 to 1998

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Competitive failure – Apple vs. Microsoft
 1980 – Apple’s share of PC
market 15%
 1996 – 4%
 2005 – 2.2%
 2011 – Microsoft Windows still
has 92% share of operating
system market

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Steve Jobs career timeline
Success - 1977
• Apple II
Failure – 1980
• Apple III
Failure – 1983
• Lisa
Success – 1984
• Macintosh
Failure – 1985
• Ousted from Apple
Failure – 1988
• Pixar Image
Computer
Failure – 1990
• NeXT Workstation
Failure – 1993
• NeXT discontinues
HW
Success – 1995
• Toy Story; Pixar
IPO
Success – 1996
• Apple buys NeXT
Success – 1997
• Return to Apple
Success – 1998
• Apple profitable
Success 2001
• IPod
Success 2007
• Iphone
Success 2010
• iPad

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Success from failure
 Pixar animated films – 1995 (Toy Story)
– 26 Oscars, 7 Golden Globes, 3 Grammies
– Films have earned > $6.3 billion worldwide
 iPod - 2001
– 300 MM units sold
– 90% market share
 iPhone – 2007
– > 75 MM units sold
– 50% of profits from global mobile phone sales
 iPad
– > 15 MM units sold, more than all other tablets combined
– 83% market share

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Apple stock price 2004 – 2015 +7,910%

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What makes Silicon Valley different?
 A different attitude toward failure
 Many Silicon Valley VCs will only invest in entrepreneurs who have
already failed
 “I got my education on the mean streets of Silicon Valley, where I
got to see how huge mistakes are made. Knowing what doesn’t
work is perhaps more valuable than knowing what should work.
Failure is just tuition. If you are in a failing start-up, take notes.” -
successful start-up founder

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Only do things that are difficult to do
 Everything that is worth doing is difficult
 If it is easy, it is probably not worth doing
 Therefore, you should never hesitate to do something difficult
 Start-up entrepreneur is one of the most difficult jobs in the world
 The more difficult it is to do, the greater the return when you
succeed (risk/return correlation)
 Returns to successful start-up entrepreneurs are the highest in the
world

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Investment: why and how
 Why entrepreneurs raise money
 Why investors invest in startups
 How to raise venture funding

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Why should companies raise investment?
 Lifestyle or scalable?
 Paycheck or payout?
 A big piece of a small pie?
 A small piece of a big pie?
Founder
Investors
Investors
Founder

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How to fund growth?
 Internally generated
 Debt
 Hybrid
 Equity

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Cost, control, growth and risk
Internal
Debt
Equity
Source of funds
Cost Lose Control Growth $ Risk
Impact of funding
Low Somewhat High

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Financial leverage and firm value

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Companies founded with venture capital
www.nvca.org

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Industries created by venture capital
www.nvca.org

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Why invest in venture capital?
As of 31-Dec 2014 The Cambridge Associates LLC U.S. Venture Capital Index® is an end-to-end calculation based on data compiled from 1,569 U.S. venture capital funds (1,002
early stage, 175 late & expansion stage, 386 multi-stage and 6 venture debt funds), including fully liquidated partnerships, formed between 1981 and 2014.
1Pooled end-to-end return, net of fees, expenses, and carried interest. Sources: Cambridge Associates LLC, Barclays, Dow Jones Indexes, Frank Russell Company, Standard &
Poor's, Thomson Reuters Datastream, and Wilshire Associates, Inc. *Capital change only
Case Shiller Real Estate Index 4.1
Expara IDM Ventures (2) 43.03

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Impact of VC on a diversified portfolio
Private Equity and Strategic Asset Allocation. 2007 Ibbotson Associates

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Early-stage tops long-term performance

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How does early-stage out-perform?
10 years after investment. Data from Sand Hill Road Econometrics. Companies received first financing before 1 January 1999. First non-seed
round investment. Returns are gross - before fees and carry
Gross value multiples at all stages of investment

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65% of the portfolio will deliver less than 1x
Gross value multiples for losers

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Early-stage winners will have more home-runs
Gross value multiples for winners

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Early-stage has 450% more 50x and 800% more
100x than later rounds
Gross value multiples for home runs

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How does a venture capital fund work?
Fund
Investors
VC
8
$ 10 mm
2
$ 10 mm
$ 58 mm
25%
75%
Fund size 10,000,000$
Life of the fund 7
Management fee 2.5%
Investable 8,250,000$
Investment size 1,031,250$
Companies 8
Fail 4 50%
Break even 2 25%
Exit 2 25%
Investor's required ROI 35%
Fund multiple return 5.76
Fund size at exit 57,600,000$
Carry @ 20% 9,520,000
Distribution 48,080,000$
Fund return multiple 4.81
Fund ROI 35%
Required return per exit 28 times
Equity per company F/D 15%
Required value of equity at exit 28,800,000$
Required co value at exit 192,000,000$

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GVMs for all first-round investments

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How do VCs make money?
 Trade sale – sell to
another company
 IPO – sell to the
public through listing
on an exchange

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Trade sale or IPO?
www.nvca.org

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The investor’s decision tree
Innovative?
Yes
Value proposition?
Yes
Fast-growing market?
Yes
Exit
No
No
No

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Product or service: which scales better?
 Product-based start-ups
– Value proposition is delivered
via product
 Service-based start-ups
– Value proposition is delivered
via people

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Getting to gatekeepers
 It’s not what you know; it’s who you know
 Network, network, network
 Strong ties and loose ties

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Connecting to my network
 My company websites: www.expara.com
 My blog: www.douglasabrams.com
 E-mail: dka@expara.com; lanie@expara.com
 Facebook: bizadk@nus.edu.sg
 Linked-In: dka@parallaxcapital.com
 Twitter: twitter.com/douglaskabrams

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• Business model canvas and
plan
picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Key elements for success
 Develop an innovative product – Innovation
 Solve a problem for customers – Value proposition
 Identify your customers – Market identification and analysis
 Reach your customers – Marketing strategy
 Compete when others enter - Sustainable competitive advantage
 Make money – Business model and financial plan
 Team – A team or B team

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Problem Solution
Key Metrics
Cost drivers Revenue model
Innovation
and value
proposition
Sustainable
competitive
advantage
Channels
Customer
segments
Market size
Customer
archetype
High concept
Existing
solutions
Top 1-3 customer
problems
How are these
problems solved
today?
Your solutions to
customer
problems
Key numbers that
tell if you are
succeeding
What is innovative
about your
solution? Why are
you better than
existing solutions?
One sentence that
says it all
How will you
create barriers to
entry for
followers?
How will you get
your product to
customers?
Who are your
target customers?
How big is your
market and how
fast is it growing?
Characteristics of
your key
customers
How do you
generate
revenue?
What are your key
cost drivers?
Expara Business Model Canvas

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Writing a model business plan
1. Executive summary
2. Value proposition and
innovation
3. Market identification and
analysis
4. Marketing and sales strategy
5. Sustainable competitive
advantage
Overview, innovation, market
6. Company products and services
7. Team
8. Expansion plan
9. Operational plan
10. Finances – Revenue and cash
flow, valuation, funding required,
equity offered, ROI
Execution and financials

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picture
• Innovation and value
proposition
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Innovation and value proposition
 Sources of innovation
– Trend-driven: forces, trends and mega-trends
– Technological, macro, social, demographic, political
 Types of innovation
– Technology, product, process, positioning, paradigm,
operational, cost, customer experience, management, business
model, industry, attribute-driven (Blue Ocean)
 Degrees of innovation
– Incremental, disruptive

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Types of innovation
 Trend-driven: forces, trends and mega-trends
– Technological, macro, social, demographic, political
 Business model: changing market and industry structures & needs
– Market inefficiencies
 Attribute-driven
– Blue Ocean strategy

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Generating innovations
 Alternative approaches to existing innovations
– Second mover advantage
 Personal experience, hobbies and pastimes, personal
passions, annoyances
 De-commoditize a commodity
– Starbucks
 Drive an innovation down-market
– Spinbrush
 Import geographically isolated innovations, cross
regional, discipline or industry
– Red Bull, Starbucks
 Identify small companies with niche products with
broader market appeal potential
– Gyration and Nintendo

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Value propositions
• What value do we deliver to
customers?
• Which one of our customer’s
problems are we helping to solve?
• What bundles of products and
services are we offering to each
Customer Segment?
• Which customer needs are we
satisfying?
Key questions
• Newness
• Performance
• Customization
• Getting the job done
• Design
• Brand/status
• Price
• Cost reduction
• Risk reduction
• Accessibility
• Convenience/usability
Types of values

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Value proposition – how much does it hurt?
 Painkiller
 Vitamin
 Candy

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Value proposition – degrees of recognition
 Latent problem – they have a problem but don’t know it
 Passive problem – they know they have a problem but not looking
for a solution yet
 Active or urgent problem – they know they have a problem, are
actively looking for a solution but no serious work done yet to solve
 A vision – they have an idea for solving the problem and a home-
grown solution but are prepared to pay for a better solution

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Business model innovation: Diamond Rio vs iPod

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Disruptive business model or disruptive tech
 Diamond is the first mover in
portable MP3 in 1998
 Apple enters in 2003 and
captures 90% of the market
 Business model innovation –
hardware + software + service

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Disruptive models from Gillette to Google
 Gillette – razor and blade
 Southwest Airlines – budget airlines
 Dell Computer – mass customization
 Charles Schwab – on-line broker
 Amazon – ecommerce
 eBay – peer to peer marketplace
 Google – search-based advertising

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Innovation and value proposition
1. What is your product and what is innovative about it?
2. What is the painful problem you are solving for customers?
3. What are the shortfalls of the current solutions?
4. How do you solve this problem and can you quantify your benefit?
5. How does your innovation enable you to accomplish this?

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picture
• Market identification and
analysis
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Market and competitive analysis
 Identifying favorable markets
 Analyzing markets

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Choose an industry favorable to start-ups
 Increasing returns business: up-front costs are high relative to
marginal costs
 Network externalities
 Complementary technologies are important to use
 Producer learning is strong, switching costs are high

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Look for fast-growing, segmented markets
 The cost gap between new and established firms is smaller in
larger markets
 In fast-growing markets, new firms can serve new customers
rather than customers of existing firms
 Segmented market provide niches for new firms to enter and
reduce retaliation by existing firms

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Market timing – entering at the inflection point
Measure of
performance
Measure of effort invested
The technology adoption S curve

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Industry life cycles and structures
 Choose a young industry – more demand and less competition
 Enter before a dominant design has been adopted
 Labor intensive rather than capital intensive
 Advertising and branding less important
 Less concentrated industries – smaller competitors

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Market and competitive analysis
 Identifying favorable markets
 Analyzing markets

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Market identification and analysis
1. What is your market type?
2. How big is your market and how fast is it growing?
– Top-down approach
– Bottom-up approach
3. What are trends in your market are favourable for you?
– Technological, social, demographic, regulatory
4. Who are your direct and indirect competitors?

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Types of markets
 Existing markets
 Re-segmented markets/niche market
 New market
 Clone market

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Top-down market sizing
Total addressable market
Target market
Target segment
Market share

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Bottom-up market sizing

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Customer discovery workshop

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The customer discovery process
Phase 1
State Hypothesis
Draw Business
model canvas
Phase 2
Test the problem
Phase 4
Verify or pivot
Phase 3
Test the solution
Customer validation

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Phase 1: Business model hypothesis
 Market size hypothesis
 Value proposition hypothesis
– Product vision
– Product features and benefits
– Minimum viable product
 Value proposition 1: low fidelity MVP
– Do customers care about the problem?
– Write a user story

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picture
• Competitive analysis and
strategy
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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What are the elements of marketing strategy?
 Differentiation – how is your product different from competition
– Product - superior customer value – better, faster closer
– Cost leadership
 Positioning – market selection + differentiation
– Image for the product that embodies its values
 Marketing Execution – the 4 Ps
– Product, pricing, place, promotion

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Marketing strategy
1. How is your product differentiated from your competitors’ product?
Use a comparison matrix to illustrate.
2. What is your position in the market? Use a positioning map or
Blue Ocean Strategy canvas to illustrate
3. What are your price, place, product, promotion and initial sales
plans
4. What is your tagline?

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Comparison matrix
Competitor
1
Competitor
2
Competitor
3
Competitor
4
Your
company
Benefit 1     
Benefit 2     
Benefit 3     
Benefit 4     
Benefit 5     
Benefit 6     

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Positioning map
Portability
Value
Competitor 2
Your company
Competitor 1
Competitor 3
Competitor 4

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Value innovation – reduce costs & increase value
Costs
Buyer value
Value innovation
www.blueoceanstrategy.com

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Four factors model

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Blue Ocean strategy canvas

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Develop a tagline
 Clear, strong, authentic
 Describes your unique
offering to customers
 Provides focus and
differentiation

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Elements of the 4 Ps
 Product
– Name, functionality, styling, quality, safety, packaging, repairs and
support, warranty, accessories and service
 Price
– Pricing strategy, MSRP, volume discounts and wholesale pricing, cash
and early payment discounts, seasonal pricing, bundling, flexibility
 Place
– Distribution channels, market coverage, specific channel members,
inventory management, logistics
 Promotion
– Push/pull, advertising, selling and sales force, sales promotions, PR
and publicity, budget.
– How will you make your first sale?

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Competitors will enter
 How to compete with followers?
 How to compete with existing companies?
 Sustainability of technological lead
– Competitors cannot duplicate the technology
– Firm can innovate as fast or faster than competitors
 First-mover disadvantages
 Last-mover advantage

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Competitive advantage – barriers to entry
 Proprietary intellectual property
 Network effects or externalities
 Customer lock-in/switching costs

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First mover advantage?

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Creating last-mover advantage
 Reputation
 Preempting positioning
 Switching costs/Lock-in/Network effects
 Unique channel access
 Move down learning curve
 Favorable access to inputs
 Definition of standards
 Institutional barriers – IP protection
First Mover Advantages
 Pioneering costs
 Demand uncertainty
 Changes in buyer needs
 Specificity of investments
to early generations
 Technological
discontinuities
 Low-cost imitation
Disadvantages

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Strategies to create last-mover advantage
 IP strategy – patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets
 Create barriers to entry
– Network effects and externalities
– Lock-in effects

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Established company strengths and weaknesses
 Learning curve
 Reputation effect
 Cash flow
 Economies of scale
 Complementary
assets
Advantages
 Difficult to innovate
 They need to satisfy existing customers,
partners and supply chain
 Existing organizational structure is appropriate
to current tasks
 Risk aversion
Weaknesses

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Opportunities that favor new firms
 Existing firms frozen in the headlights
 Disruptive technologies and business models
 Uncertainty: existing firms’ advantages in market research are
neutralized; risk propensity
 Technologies: Discrete versus systemic technologies, based on
human capital, general purpose rather than specific
 Bad customers: Enter market that is unattractive to existing
competitors due to established cost structure

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picture
• Customer analysis and
archetype
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Customer segments
• For whom are we creating value?
• Who are our most important
customers?
Key questions
• Mass market
• Niche market
• Segmented
• Diversified
• Multi-sided platform or market
Types of customer segments

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Customer segments: who/problem
 Customer problem
– Latent
– Passive
– Active or urgent
– Vision
 Customer types
– End user
– Influencer
– Recommender
– Economic buyer
– Decision maker
 Customer archetype
 A day in the life of a customer
 Organizational/influence maps
 Consumer/web influence map

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Customer relationships
• What type of relationships does each of
our customer segments expect us to
establish and maintain with them?
• Which ones have we established?
• How are they integrated with the rest of
our business model?
• How costly are they?
Key questions
• Personal assistance
• Dedicated Personal Assistance
• Self-Service
• Automated Services
• Communities
• Co-creation
Examples

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Do you love to sell?

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Sales and distribution
 Great sales and distribution vs great product
 Best sales is hidden
 Products don’t sell themselves

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Metrics for effective distribution
 CLV: total net profit earned over the course of relationship with
customer
 CAC: cost to acquire a new customer
 CLV>CAC

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Complex sales
 Seven figure deals
 CEO must sell
 50-100% YoY growth over 10 years
 Enterprise sales must start small

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Personal sales
 10K-100K
 Sales team can sell
 Need to establish a process so sales team can move to mass

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Sales dead-zone
 Product needs a personal sales effort
 Resources are not available or too expensive
 Underserved SME markets

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Marketing and advertising
 Work for products with mass appeal but not viral – FMCG
 Can work for start-ups but
 Only when CLV-CAC make all other channels uneconomical

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Viral marketing
 Core functionality encourages users to invite their friends
 Move first to dominate most important segment of market with viral
potential
 Get the most valuable users first
 Paypal – initial focus on 20K Ebay PowerSellers

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Power law of distribution
 Select one - one distribution
channel will be more powerful than
all others combined
 Most businesses get zero
distribution channels to work
 Poor sales rather than bad product
is most common cause of failure
 Sell your company to the media
 Everyone sells

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Channels
• Through which channels do our
customer segments want to be
reached?
• How are we reaching them now?
• How are our channels integrated?
• Which ones work best?
• Which ones are most cost-efficient?
• How are we integrating them with
customer routines?
Key questions
• Awareness: How do we raise awareness
about our company’s products and
services?
• Evaluation: How do we help customers
evaluate our organization’s Value
Proposition?
• Purchase: How do we allow customers to
purchase specific products and services?
• Delivery: How do we deliver a Value
Proposition to customers?
• After sales: How do we provide post-
purchase customer support?
Channel phases

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Channel hypothesis – physical products
 Does your product fit the channel?
 Physical channel choices
– Direct sales
– Independent sales rep firms
– SI/VAR
– Distributors/resellers
– Dealers/Retailers
– Mass merchandisers
– OEMs
 Which channel should I use?

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Channel hypothesis – web/mobile
 Pick one distribution channel – use tests to choose
 Web/mobile channel choices
– Dedicated e-commerce – your website
– Two-step e-distribution - Amazon
– Aggregators - Lendingtree
– Platform app store – Apple
– Social commerce - Facebook
– Flash sales - Groupon
– Free-to-paid channel
 Multi-sided markets need unique channel plans

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Customer relationships hypothesis

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Get customers strategy
 Who is your audience and where are they?
 What content will they like?
 Make sure your content works in location
 Participate in their communities
 Create content that people want to link to

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Get customers tactics
 Earned or free
– Public relations
– Viral marketing
– SEO
– Social networking
 Paid
– Pay-per-click advertising
– Online or traditional media advertising
– Affiliate marketing
– Online lead generation; permission-based emailing

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Keep customers
 Interact, retain
 Customization
 User groups
 Blogs
 Online help
 Product tips/bulletins
 Outreach, affiliates

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Grow customers
 Get current customers to spend more
– Cross-sell
– Up-sell
– Next selling
– Unbundling
 Get customers to send more customers
– Encourage likes
– Discounts or free trials to share
– Enable email to friends to create mailing lists
– Contests or incentives for viral activities
– Highlight social networking action buttons
– Encourage bloggers to write about the product

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Revenue models
• For what value are our
customers really willing to
pay?
• For what do they
currently pay?
• How are they currently
paying?
• How would they prefer to
pay?
• How much does each
Revenue Stream
contribute to overall
revenues?
Key questions
• Asset sale
• Usage fee
• Subscription
Fees
• Lending/Renting/
Leasing
• Licensing
• Brokerage fees
• Advertising
Types
• List price
• Product feature
dependent
• Customer segment
• dependent
• Volume dependent
Fixed pricing
• Negotiation
(bargaining)
• Yield Management
• Real-time-Market
Dynamic pricing

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Key revenue model issues
 Subscription/membership
 Volume or unit-based sales
 Advertising-based
 Licensing & syndication
 Transaction fee
 Pay-per-use
 Referrals
 Affiliate/revenue sharing
 Selling data
 Back-end offers
Revenue models
 Single stream
 Multiple streams
 Interdependent
 Loss leader
Revenue streams
 Value pricing
 Competitive
 Volume
 Portfolio
 Razor/blade
 Subscription
 Leasing
 Product based
Pricing models

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Other revenue model issues
 Total cost of ownership (TCO)
 Return on investment (ROI)
 Multi-sided markets have multiple revenue models
 Distribution channel affects revenue streams
 Consider lifetime value

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Revenue diagram – Grateful Dead
From Note on Business Model Analysis for the Entrepreneur – HBS Publishing

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Cost structure
• What are the most
important costs
inherent in our
business model?
• Which Key
Resources are most
expensive?
• Which Key Activities
are most expensive?
Key questions
• Cost Driven (leanest cost
structure, low price value
proposition, maximum
automation, extensive
outsourcing)
• Value Driven (focused on
value creation, premium
value proposition)
Is your business more
• Fixed Costs (salaries, rents,
utilities)
• Variable costs
• Economies of scale
• Economies of scope
Sample characteristics

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Cost drivers
 Payroll-centered (Direct)
 Payroll-centered (Support)
 Inventory
 Space/Rent
 Marketing/advertising
Cost structures
 Fixed
 Semi-variable
 Variable
 Non-recurring
Types of cost drivers

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Costs diagram – 7-11 Japan
From Note on Business Model Analysis for the Entrepreneur – HBS Publishing

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Complete business model diagram

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Customer acquisition and activation workshop

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

165
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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Key roles in a start-up company team
Position Skills
1 CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Leadership, vision, presentation
2 CFO (Chief Finance Officer) Financial
3 COO (Chief Operating Officer) Operations and HR
4 CTO (Chief Technology Officer) Technical/product background
5 CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) Sales and marketing

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Beyond the management team
 Board of advisors
 Strategic partners
 Suppliers

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Key partnerships
• Who are our key partners?
• Who are our key suppliers?
• Which key resources are we acquiring
from partners?
• Which key activities do partners
perform
Key questions
• Optimization and economy
• Reduction of risk and uncertainty
• Acquisition of particular resources and
activities
Motivations for partnership

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Partners hypothesis
 Strategic alliances
 Cooperation with competitors
 Joint business development efforts
 Key supplier relationships
 Traffic partners (web/mobile)
 Other partners – app stores, payment providers

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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IP Strategy
 Patents
 Copyrights
 Trade Marks
 Registered Designs
 Trade secrets

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Patents
 Technical inventions
 Novelty, inventiveness & industrial application
 Registration system – national & PCT systems
 Novelty & infringement searches
 20 years, if continuously renewed
 Exclusive monopoly
 Business methods & computer programs, algorithms, ideas

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Copyrights
 Exists on creation, no registration procedures
 Searches are therefore not available
 Expression not ideas – words, music, art, film, sound, broadcast,
cable, publishing, live performance
 Life or author/ creator+ 50 years; or 50 years
 Copy, publish, perform, broadcast, cable, adapt
 Software, databases, GUI, multimedia
 International protection e.g.., Berne, TRIPs

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Trade Marks
 Registration system – national, CTM & Madrid treaties
 Capable of distinguishing & earlier marks
 Substantive examination
 Searches? – national or CTM
 10 years, renewable indefinitely
 Right to use in the course of trade
 Domain names, marketing, web partnerships

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Design registration
 National registration system
 Novelty and mass-produced articles
 Formal examination only
 15 years / 25 years protection, if continuously renewed
 Exclusive monopoly
 Computer icons
 Register or almost no protection, not even copyright

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Trade Secrets
 Formula (e.g. Coca Cola formula)
 Pattern, Plan, Customer Lists, etc
 Process, R&D Data
 Device, Apparatus, Machinery etc

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Advantage of Trade Secrets
 No fees
 No time limits
 Information not available to competitor for improvements
 No blocking patents
 Freedom to operate
 Proprietary position

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Forms of organization
 Sole proprietorship
 Partnership
 Limited Liability Partnership
 Companies
– Private Limited companies
– Public companies
– Listed public companies

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Key agreements
 Shareholder agreement
 Employment agreement
 Director’s responsibilities
 Investment agreement

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Who are the players?
 Entrepreneurs
– Lifestyle entrepreneurs - limited scope, complication and
risk. Slow growth.
– High-growth entrepreneurs (scalable business)
Significant scope, complication, and risk. Rapid growth.
 Venture investors
– Venture capitalists (VCs)
– Seed investors/incubators
– Angel investors
– Corporate VCs and investors
– Banks, government

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What roles do they play?
 Identify opportunities
 Provide funding
 Oversee finances
 Assist with growth
 Generate returns for themselves or
their investors
Venture investors
 Create opportunities
 Raise funding
 Manage finances
 Increase value
 Generate returns for investors
Entrepreneurs

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VCs invest at multiple stages
Founder’s
Capital
Seed/
Angel
Series
A, B, C
Mezzanine Pre-Exit Exit
VC hurdle rates 60-100% 40-60% 20%
OM
F,F&F
Incubators
corporations
government
Customers, suppliers,
strategic partners
VCs, Banks for VC loans
R&D Establishment GTM/Rollout Accelerated Expansion Maturity
Enablement growth

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How much funding is required?
 What are sources of funds – debt, equity, retained earnings
 How much money do you need to raise and how much equity will
the investor receive?
 You should generally be raising around $0.6MM to $1.5MM at this
stage.
 Remember that if you are raising less than $1MM, you will likely be
seeking investment from Angel investors rather than from VCs.

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Equity offered – how much do you need?
 What percentage does the company want to sell?
– Often too much or too little
– This is the wrong question
 Set performance and fund-raising milestones
– How much money do you need to achieve the next milestone?
– Divide defensible firm value by funds needed to determine
percentage to sell
 Equity offered in the seed stage should usually be in the range of
15-30%

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Use the funds to fuel company growth
 How are you going to use the money you are raising?
 Show a detailed breakdown
 Minimize investment in fixed assets
 No big salaries for founders

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Exit strategy and ROI
 How will your investors make money and how much will they
make?
 The most likely exit strategies are IPOs (sell to the public) and
trade sale (sell to another company), with trade sale the first choice
in most cases.
 For VCs, ROI should be at least 10 times and preferably 30-100
times over 5 years.

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How do VCs make money?
 Trade sale – sell to
another company
 IPO – sell to the
public through listing
on an exchange

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Trade sale or IPO?
www.nvca.org

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Exit markets at an inflection point
Exit activity in SEA, especially in Singapore, exploded in 2013
• Increased investment in startups since 2007 is beginning to yield results
• Number of exits increased from 6 in 2010 to 20 in 2013
• Singapore alone has had 30 exits since 2007, 13 in 2013
• Value of exits increased from 51 MM in 2010 to 400 MM in 2013

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Recent exits in SEA
Company Country Acquiror Price Year
ZopIM Singapore Zendesk US$29.8MM 2014
Non-Stop Games Singapore King US$ 100MM 2014
sgCarMart Singapore SPH S$60 MM 2013
DS3 Singapore Gemalto S$50 MM est. 2013
Asian Food Channel Singapore Scripps Networks Undisclosed 2013
Reebonz Singapore MediaCorp and Existing investors S$250MM 2013
Yfind Singapore Ruckus Wireless Undisclosed 2013
Techsailor Singapore TO THE NEW Undisclosed 2013
travelmob Singapore HomeAway Undisclosed 2013
Catcha Digital Media Singapore Opt Inc Undisclosed 2013
GridBlaze Singapore Undisclosed Silicon Valley Startup Undisclosed 2013
Viki Singapore Rakuten US$200MM 2013
SGE Singapore Tech In Asia Undisclosed 2013
ThoughtBuzz India To The New Undisclosed 2013
AyoPay Indonesia MOL AccessPortal Undisclosed 2013
Tongue in Chic Malaysia PopDigital Undisclosed 2013
Ocision Malaysia Star Publication US$ 4.36MM 2013
Glamybox Vietnam VanityTrove Undisclosed 2013
PaymentLink Singapore Wirecard US$41.2MM 2013
Dealguru Singapore iBuy S$34.28 MM 2013
Buy Together Hong Kong iBuy S$21 MM 2013
Dealmates Malaysia iBuy S$10 MM 2013
PropertyGuru.com Singapore ImmobilienScout24 S$60 MM 2012
HungryGoWhere Singapore Singtel S$12 MM 2012
AdMax Network Singapore Komli Media Undisclosed 2012
TheMobileGamer Singapore Singtel US$1.5 MM 2012

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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In the financial section of the business plan
 Business model
 Financial projections
 Valuation
 Funding required and equity offered
 Use of Proceeds
 Exit Strategy and ROI

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Business model – how will you make money?
 Revenue sources
 Cost drivers

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Complete business model diagram

196
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Create financial projections
 3-5 years of projected balance
sheet, income statement and cash
flow statements.
 Project from bottom up and top
down
 Sales growth and market share are
key
 Project cash requirements using a
detailed budget
Yr 1 Yr 2 Yr 3 Yr 4
Gross Revenues
Operating Expenses
EBITDA
Metric: Ex: Units sold/leased
Scalability necessary for VC investment - $50MM in annual rev

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Pro-forma financial statements

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Company valuation methods
 Price to earnings (p/e)
 Dividend yield
 Multiple of book value
 Comparables
 Discounted Cash Flow (DCF)
 VC method

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Valuation – how much is your business worth?
 How much is your business worth, based on comparables and a
DCF valuation of your projected cash flows at an 80% discount
rate?
 Make sure that you can explain how you arrived at this valuation.
 For seed stage companies, this should generally be in the range of
$2-4 MM.
 Pre-money valuation - worth of the business before VC investment
 Post-money valuation – after VC investment

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VC method of valuation
 Variation on NPV/IRR method
 Founders expect to sell company for $25 MM in 4 years
 Need to raise $3MM; investors require 50% return (discount rate)
 Post-money valuation = $4.9 MM ($25MM/(1.54)
 Pre-money valuation = $1.9MM ($4.9MM-$3MM)
 Equity required = $3MM/$4.9MM = 60.75%

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How much equity does the investor receive?
 Pre-money valuation
– Amount invested by VC ÷ (Agreed pre-money value of business
+ Amount invested by VC)
– $3MM pre + 1 MM VC = 25% VC equity
 Post-money valuation
– Amount invested by VC ÷ post-money valuation
– $4MM post = 25% VC equity

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Pro-forma DCF valuation model

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
• Key deal terms and term
sheets
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Key elements of the deal
 Board of directors
 Protective provisions
 Drag-along agreement
 Conversion
Control
 Price-per-share
 Valuation
 Amount of financing
 Liquidation preference
 Vesting
 Options pool
 Anti-dilution
 Pay-to-play
Economics

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Calculate investor’s ROI including dilution

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

209
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VC vs. entrepreneur - interests
 Solve sorting problem
 Minimize agency costs/problems
 Maximize financial returns
 Maintain option to abandon
 Be able to force entrepreneur to
exit and distribute proceeds
 Maintain reputation
VC
 Get outside capital
 Maximize financial gains from
equity stake
 Retain control, minimize
constraints on behavior and
decision making
 Build successful firm
 Build reputation
 Get outside expertise and contacts
Entrepreneur
From Venture Capital Negotiations: VC versus Entrepreneur – HBS Publishing

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VC versus entrepreneur
 Entrepreneur compensation increases
when value of VC's stake increases
 Vesting of entrepreneur's stake
 Key-person agreements
 Ability to fire managers
Ways to align incentives
 Due diligence
 Repeated relationships
 Monitoring/information rights
Ways to reduce information asymmetries

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VC versus entrepreneur
 Equity stake senior to that of
entrepreneur
 Option to abandon through staging of
investments across financing rounds
 Forcing exit through decision-making
control
 Convertible debt
 Puts rights and anti-dilution provisions
Ways for VC to protect downside
 Seat on board of directors
 Covenants in agreement limiting
entrepreneur's ability to use capital in
undesirable ways
 Involvement in operations
 Super-majority rights
Ways for VC to control decision making

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Entrepreneur versus investor
 Maximize financial returns
 Maintain option to abandon
 Be able to force entrepreneur to
exit and distribute proceeds
 Maintain reputation
VC
 Get outside capital
 Maximize financial gains from
equity stake
 Retain control, minimize
constraints on behavior and
decision making
 Build successful firm
 Build reputation
 Get outside expertise and contacts
Entrepreneur

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

214
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VC-Start-up negotiation workshop

215
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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Investor presentation
materials
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Communicating with investors
 Business plan
 Executive summary
 Investor presentation
 Formal and informal presentations

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Use meaningful titles
 The title of each slide should communicate the key message for
that slide.
 For example, if you have a slide that shows projected sales, do not
make the title "Projected Sales."
 Instead, make the title something like, "Projected Sales in 2003 are
$3 Million."

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Less is more
 Your message needs to be clear and concise
 Clean visual design – avoid chart junk and “design-itis”
 On presentation slides, less is more – slides, bullet points, text
 If you can't explain your message simply, you need to re-formulate
your message.

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

220
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How long does it take to make a first impression?
 First impressions are critical
 You make yours in the first 7
seconds of your presentation
 How long to feel someone is
trust-worthy? 0.1 second
 How can people decide so
quickly? Appearance and
body language.

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You can’t judge a book by its cover, can you?
 Appearance counts
 Attractive people are viewed as more interesting, credible,
trustworthy and persuasive
 Good looking people get better jobs, tall men perceived as
powerful

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Which one is more likely to be the CEO?
 In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent
of all men are six feet or over
 Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies,
that number is 58 percent
 3.9 percent of adult men are 6'2" or taller
 Among CEOs, 30 percent were 6'2" or
taller
 An inch of height is worth $789 a year in
salary
From Blink – Malcolm Gladwell

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You can’t judge a book by its cover: Part II

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You can’t judge a book by its cover: Part III
 You can’t judge a book by its cover;
appearance doesn’t matter
 Everyone judges books by their
cover; appearance matters a lot
 We can be seriously misled by this
approach – Susan Boyle
 So why does everyone judge a
book by its cover?

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All stereotypes are wrong, aren’t they?
 Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder –
standards of beauty are innate
 One-week old babies look longer at attractive
faces
 Beauty is not only skin-deep
 Bi-lateral symmetrical and composite
appearance are correlated with genetic and
developmental fitness
 Tall and strong men were more successful in
our ancestral environment

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Presentation dos and don'ts
 Rock back and forth - nervous
 Fidget - nervous
 Shake leg while sitting – bored,
nervous
 Too many um and uh
 Voice too soft – shy; too loud –
overbearing
 Rubbing back of the neck – bored
Don’t
 Stand up straight, open body
language – nothing crossed
 Arms at side - relaxed and proper
gesticulation – hands below chin
and within shoulder ranger
 Be aware of hands and feet
 Face smiling and inviting
 Silent pause – thoughtful and
confident
Do

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Maintain proper eye contact
 Too little eye contact – lying
 Too much eye contact – stalker stare
 Look directly at the audience for emphasis or conviction
 Sweep and click to create connections
 Handshake – strong and confident. Pump 2-3 times, then release.
Don’t use two hands

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Getting past gatekeepers
 Why are presentations important?
 Understand gatekeepers’ incentives
 Avoid raising red flags
 Attention to detail
 Get it right the first time

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Why are presentations important? You’re fired!

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What causes choking?
 Top performance under pressure
requires focus and relaxation
 Too much focus on performance
causes skill to break down
 Forget about your bad shots;
remember your good shots

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Create takeaway messages
 People remember the first or last things that you say, so start and
end the presentation strong
 Communicate your important points clearly, concisely and
memorably.
 People remember stories more easily than lists of facts, so if you
can make any of your key points in story form, that can be helpful.

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Do not read your slides
 Do not just stand and read your presentation slides.
 Makes your presentation redundant and therefore uninteresting,
since the audience can just then read the slides.
 Try to pick out one or two important points on each slide to discuss
in more detail.

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Practice and test
 Analyze the details of your presentation, then master those details
by practice, practice, practice.
 Arrive early and if you are using any technology, test it
 If you can not get in early, try to test the night before
 It is OK to be nervous before you begin

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Q&A is the most important part
 Audience has a chance to ask you about what is on their mind.
 Q&A is do or die time.
 Prepare for Q&A by studying your material in-depth
 Anticipate likely difficult questions and formulate answers
 Note questions you are asked and if you did not have a good
answer to a specific question, formulate one for next time.
 Don’t disagree - agree

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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Investor presentation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

237
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Presentation workshop

238
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picture
• Sales strategy
• Revenue model
• Cost model
activation workshop
product/market fit
Key elements for
success: business
• Valuation
workshop
• Demo Day
Financing and
fundraising

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Customer discovery process

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The customer discovery process
Phase 1
State Hypothesis
Draw Business
model canvas
Phase 2
Test the problem
Phase 4
Verify or pivot
Phase 3
Test the solution
Customer validation

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Testing the problem
• Do we really understand the customers
problem?
• Do enough people care about the
problem for the business to scale?
• Will they care enough to tell their
friends?
Key questions
• Designing experiments for customer tests
• Preparing for customer contacts and
engagements
• Testing customers understanding of the
problem and assessing its importance to
customers
• Gaining understanding of customers
• Capturing competitive and market
knowledge
Key steps

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Design tests and pass/fail experiments

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Prepare for customer contacts – physical
 Start with 50 target customers
 Develop a reference story
 Start the appointment setting process

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Build low-fidelity MVP – web/mobile
 Makes sure the problem or need is an urgent one
 Presents the problem
 Asks for a response
 Can use multiple MVPs

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Test understanding of problem and assess its
importance - physical
 Develop a problem presentation
 The problem meeting
 Understand how they solve the problem today
 Collect information on everything
 Amalgamate and score customer data

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Low fidelity MVP problem test – web/mobile
 Push – push contacts need referral sources
 Pull – pull strategies
 Pay – pay for contacts
 Drive traffic and start counting
 Consider scalability
 Use traffic measurement tools

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Gain customer understanding
 Participate in their culture
 Get to know real customers
 Internalize customer experience
 Understand how they discover new ways to spend their time

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Contact us
 Douglas Abrams
 Expara Pte. Ltd.
 dka@expara.com
 www.expara.com
 65-6323-3084, 65-9780-5381 (hp)
 Block 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #02-10/11 Singapore 139951

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