Justin
@justinzhang
A full day packed with insightful talks at a16z crypto CSX. Here are my notes: ──────────────────────── 📈📈📈 Fundraising: (Arianna Simpson, Guy Wuollet, @mason, @carra, @michaelblau) - "Preparing for the Pitch" by @AriannaSimpson from the last cohort: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wVKcgn2W1uw - Put team slides first. - Business model and GTM strategy are mandatory. - Understand the knowledge graph in your audience's mind and use that to explain your concept. - Relax, as it helps to relax your audience. - Demo day short pitch is like a trailer to a movie. It needs to get the audience curious enough to want a follow-up meeting. It is not meant for in-depth explanation. - Let the market set your valuation. - You can ask the investor about their typical engagement model with their portfolio companies. ⤵️
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Justin
@justinzhang
📣📣📣 Go-To-Market (GTM): (@maggiehsu) - Five GTM strategies: - Product-led: The product is great, and people start to use it. - Sales-led: A sales team guides customers through a potentially complex onboarding process. - Developer-led: Focus on engaging developers by providing SDKs, documentation, and support. - Community-based: Build a strong online and IRL community to engage and retain users. - Integration: Partner with projects that have large distribution networks to gain access to their user base. - Experiment with different strategies. - Early-stage startups should focus on establishing their minimum viable customer category (MVCC) and prioritize high-potential customer segments. ⤵️
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Justin
@justinzhang
🤝🤝🤝 Deal-Making: (@pyrs) - Six stages of a deal-making framework: - Relationship: Get to know someone and maintain the trust. - Diligence: Gather information on decision-makers, economic impact, and best alternatives. - Anchoring: Use market intelligence to set an informed negotiation starting point. - Framing: Frame conversations in alignment with the counterparty's goals. - Reciprocity: Codify the mutual benefit from the deal. - Collaboration: Close the deal and start collaborating. - Structure the agreement in a way that allows flexibility. ⤵️
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