1. Keep your pitch concise and focus on the problem, solution, and business model in 2-4 minutes. 2. Customize your pitch for your audience and know their interests and pain points. 3. Practice your pitch out loud and get feedback to refine your delivery and message. Have a call to action to engage your audience.

1. How to pitchTell me and we will both know!
Michael Smith Jr.
SeedPlus

2. Things don’t have to change the world to be
important
Steve Jobs 1996
Jobs quotes > Woz quotes

3. I can be reached:
Pro-tip: adding evie to the email won’t help
SeedPlus.com
SeedVC.blog
@dreampipe (till twitter dies)
michael at SeedPlus.com

4. My background
coder (bad)
enterprise sales (good)
product marketing (okay)
product management (better than okay)
restaurant/pub owner (bad)
evangelist (good)
biz dev (better than okay)
VC (apprentice)

5. (GDP) Gross Domestic Product
(GNP) Gross National Product
(GNH) Gross National Happiness
(From Bhutan )
(GDT) Globally Desirous Thing

6. Nike Shoes
Rolex Watches
Thai Food
iPhones
American TV Shows

7. All achieved escape velocity
to become a GDT

8. The controversy
“While it might seem like common wisdom to first test (an idea) in
Singapore, and then take it regionally and to the world”, he felt
that, “with all due respect to the government, […] it doesn’t make
sense in today’s world”.
Why? (anyone know who said this?)
“Furthermore, by the time you’re done with test-bedding in
Singapore, somebody’s already tested the same (idea) in China, or in
California, reaching out to North America and so forth. You’re
better off starting in the US and China from the get-go.”

9. Food for thought:
You are as capable (even more so than some folks) to build a
company:
1. Build a company
2. Launch it onto the globe
3. Kick Ass
There is no one way to do it but let’s discuss this more

10. Important stuff for your success toolkit
Pro-tip: Taking notes is not cool

11. Karma
People
Data
Focus/Simplicity
Customer Care
Strategy

12. Karma has everybody’s address

13. At all times:
Be cognizant of how you treat others
You never know when you will cross paths again
You may eventually work with, be bought by or merge
with competition
The world is smaller than you think

14. Luck is also useful but karma is the precursor

15. People always make the difference

16. Look at character as much as tech/business skills
Groom the up and comers for greatness
Despite the hype - it’s usually a marathon and not a sprint - therefore
build a culture of longevity
Help people lead themselves (act like a coach)
Empower employees to make decisions
If you are a young/new management team - get help early on how to
build the right people culture

17. Data (customer intelligence) can no
longer be an side project

18. This fall, Harvard will offer a master’s degree in data science for the first time. Data
is gushing from everywhere today: TVs, cars, door-bells, pressure valves, and even
persimmons and pineapples (hooked up via low cost RFID tags). But most corporate
leaders don’t have time to study their own data – they have quarterly sales targets
to meet. What separates the corporate leaders from the laggards when it comes to
data, then, is the understanding that this new kind of "black gold” presents greater
potential than an R&D breakthrough thanks to the power of the models it can fuel.
Byran Schreier - Sequoia Partner

19. No matter what your product/service - data is key to your long term success
It is always better to augment decisions with data - this helps to support a
gut reaction - or helps you to confirm when your gut was wrong
Instrument everything even if you can’t deal with analysis now.
One day you will (simply store logs on S3 for later import into Redshift for
example - AWS let’s you query S3 buckets now) or use ::
https://www.holistics.io (Singapore company)
Share data internally and externally if possible
Hire people who also care about data

20. Keep it simple, stupid

23. Pro-tip: Green is good. Red is bad

24. Customer delight is the best form of virality -
Andy Rachleff (Benchmark & Wealthfront)

25. Very few companies succeed
Very few companies become a runaway success
However, apart from creating a great product one could also
focus on amazing customer service
It is imperative to create a culture of customer service in
everything you do
Takes time to bear fruit but is the best marketing ever

26. The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do -
Michael Porter (founder of The Monitor Group)
Pro-Tip: Competitive Strategy is a must read

27. Figure out what you are good at
Find the best people to help you
Make sure you know the market you are going for and ensure it
is sizeable enough to experiment with
Your “product” will evolve many times over
However working with bad people and going after too small a
market can never be fixed

28. People
MarketProduct
Strategy
Marketing
PR
Engineering
Culture
Facilities
...

29. Struggle more, hustle less...

30. Questions you might have

31. - Brilliant pitch examples
- How is it best delivered? Powerpoint? How can creative can I be?
- I got rejected - is it me? The idea? How do I know?
- Are there different types of pitches? Delivery styles?
- What is an elevator pitch? How do I make one? (The Cage example)
- How do I prepare myself for a pitch? (shower)
- Bad pitch examples? (have I made them?)
- Share a great pitch I have come across? (concrete reasons more than
examples)
- How long should a pitch be? (know your time constraints)
- When should I follow up? (not about time but actually doing it)
- Essential pitch components? (know how to sell)
- Biggest no-nos when it comes to pitching? (we don’t have all day!)