What I learned from looking at 30 startup videos of the recent YC batch

May 4, 2015 Mukund Mohan 4 Comments

Video is the fastest growing medium on the mobile web. Turns out even if you are a B2B company these days, the word-of-mouth affiliation you need is often easier to achieve if you have a video more than text, audio or images. Of the 114 companies in the lastest YC cohort I looked at, most had a video on their website. I focused on the ones that had done a good job of explaining their overview using video.

Not surprisingly even CIO’s and traditional B2B buyers also prefer to view videos to reading whitepapers these days.

As a startup, if you are in the consumer space, I’d wager that you want to get your overview video faster than your “text website” which might be SEO friendly. Why?

Most of the early influencers and younger audiences are using YouTube as their search engine more than Google.

So, having reviewed 30+ videos from startups that graduated from YC last cohort, what did I learn about the types and kinds of videos you need for your startup?

I am going to assume that you are just launching your app / service or about to launch it soon. What you are trying to do in less than 2 min is give potential customers and prospects a chance to understand the problem you solve, how you solve it uniquely and how they benefit from the problem solved. I have noticed these 5 types of videos that startups have used so far.

In most cases the “goldilocks” overview is less than 2 minutes and there are 7 popular formats for these videos:

1. Product tour on mobile or web: In this type of video, there is a person “showing” the app on their mobile with some upbeat background music. In many ways it is more a demo than necessarily a overview, but it serves the purpose well to get people to understand “what the product or company does”. It was hard to figure out which of these were actually using the product live versus screen captures, but slick production was the key.

2. Live action video with professional actors: As it suggest these are much more produced and directed, and will cost your more, but they tend to show “real” product users in “real” scenarios. I think these are pretty expensive if you are bootstrapped, costing upwards of $10K in most cases, but among consumer Internet (eCommerce especially) startups they seem to be pretty popular.

3. Animated Simple video: In this type of video, there are props used with simple cutouts and voice over. In most of these videos, I found that the startups used animation to to explain abstract complex, or non-intuitive problems, largely in B2B scenarios.

4. Whiteboard explanation: Fairly common as well, is two or sometimes just one person going to the whiteboard explaining what is it the startup does. In many cases, these are fairly technical products and companies, so Open Source product companies tend to use them the most.

5. PPT based slide videos. Used when the founders are not technical, bootstrapped and have strong B2B backgrounds in sales or operations. Since they are unable to put a professional looking video, these are used by folks who dont have a shipping product yet. They are not very effective, but I think they are better than text based pages.

6. Screen capture: Typical to the #2 type, these “show” product, but the screen capture videos are less professionally done. Authentic to a fault, they tend to be quickly done, rather poorly produced, but effective to “demo” the product more than give an overview.

7. Live story with founders: Rarely used, but common in Kickstarter campaigns, these are when the founder (s) are a key part of the sales pitch.

Over the next few days I will showcase a series of posts on the use of video, the types of video and some techniques I use to produce better startup showcase videos.

Entrepreneurship, Sales

How to build a wide and deep network of relationships as an entrepreneur?

May 3, 2015 Mukund Mohan 2 Comments

Initially when you are looking to hire a person in your company, you will hire “from your network”. The challenge is to have a good network that’s diverse and varied to help you bring those critical “early believers” on board.

One of the most difficult hires for most developer / technical people is hiring that first sales person.

There are many types of sales people entrepreneurs can hire – you can make out the different types of sales people by their reviewing their resume first.

There are 3 types of sales people a startup needs initially and maybe a 4th type later when they get bigger.

Startup sales people are not responsible for revenue but for payroll, so you should hire someone with the mindset that they are doing something very important and not just “sales”.

The hustler will get you any deal and will focus on getting you in the door quickly to open opportunities.

The relationship sales person will open doors to the few, but you will need to supplement her with other technical and sales resources.

The process or consultative sales person is good when you have a clearly defined sales process you need to scale.

The account manager is great when you have to expand your footprint within your existing customers.

The four types of sales people are best segmented by the depth and breadth of their relationship building efforts.

In the chart above I have tried to segment them based on my experience of working with these kinds of sales people. I dont think it is perfect, but it gives you a framework to think.

This could be a framework you use for your personal entrepreneurial journey as well, as you build your own network.

The best entrepreneurs have a broad (wide) and deep network.

They use the network to hire, recruit customers and attract partners. You know these folks who can not only help you get to the 2-3 people you need to talk to quickly to validate something but also help you canvas the 20-30 folks you need to get feedback from.

Building such a network is hard and takes time. Most people have 3-5 good friends and colleagues who they hang out with often and maybe 10-20 folks they work with on and off. Others have 500+ LinkedIn connections, but wont know more than 5 of them very well.

To build a wide network you need to have the mindset to seek out new people each time you have a question or run into a challenge. That’s not normal behavior for most people.

To build a deep network you need to invest time with a few folks and really get to know them, not only by working together but also personally.

The best way I have found to build a deep network is to find projects that mutually benefit others based on common interests.

The best way to build a wide network is to find a way to help as many people as possible for any type of request.

All this takes time, which is why you have to prioritize your relationships. In the early stages of your entrepreneurial journey, depth of relationships beats breadth, so make sure that you have the 3-5 people who you can count on, and then look to build adjacent relationships to grow your network.

Mentors, SaaS, Sales

The top 5 things you need to do after you are hired as the first #salesperson at a #startup

May 2, 2015 Mukund Mohan 2 Comments

This is a follow up to the post top 5 things a founder should do after hiring the first sales person at their startup. Congratulations. You have been hired as the first salesperson at a hot startup. Here are the top 5 things you need to do before, during and after coming on board.

1. Speak to as many customers as possible to understand “Why did they buy”? Ask the founders to help connect you to existing customers before you join so you can clearly understand why customers are buying. Is it because of the relationship the founder has (most likely at early stage startups), or are they solving a real pain point? Is it obvious there is a pain? Will there be budget allocated for this pain? Help the founders document the set of steps in the sales process during this phase as well.

2. Find out what your disciplined schedule will be for the first 30 to 90 days. Besides building your pipeline of business, there should be nothing else you should be working on. Whether it is researching 20 prospects, cold-emailing 20 potential targets or engaging with 20 candidate customers on LinkedIn, figure out the basic unit of activity and the way to measure it consistently.

E.g. Your basic unit of activity might be to spend 5 min researching a prospect on LinkedIn and understanding what your subject line should be to them and 5 min to craft an email that will help you send a response, followed by reviewing all the people in your suspect list from the previous day. Follow the disciple consistently.

3. Write down 10-20 A/B test headings, subject lines and messages that you will test during your pipeline development phase. You will need to test your Subject lines, the time you email prospects, the call to action, the collateral you will use to incent prospects to engage with you. The founders may already have a message they use, but dont take that at its face value. You will need to find the top 3-5 things your prospects will care about and the top 3-5 things they are willing to do as a next step or the 3-5 things they need to be educated about during the sales process. You job is to try and have enough permutations and combinations of these pain points, calls to actions and collateral till you hit the top 3 combinations.

E.g. Try the 3 top industry news items as headlines rotating and also your top 3 benefits, then the top 3 pain points or the top 3 questions on their mind as your subject lines.

4. Align on a system (Excel works just as well, if you dont like CRM systems) you will use to track your activity with your founders. Initially you will not have an immediate term wins, so in the absence of sales, activity will have to be measured as a proxy for outcomes. Whether it is # of sales calls per day or the # of demos per week or the # of responses to emails and phone calls that you will have to track, find a way to measure it, and track it diligently.

E.g. Put a simple spreadsheet with names of companies, target people, status (1st email sent, No response, Not interested, Call back in 3 months, No budget, etc.) and use a color-coded system for follow ups.

5. Network religiously to find a way to help potential partners who will help you after you help them. Many of the folks in your existing network may be able to help, and they may have an inclination to do so since you are now at a “startup”. Use the fact that you are at one to your advantage. Most people I know love helping and engaging with entrepreneurial-minded people and want to help early stage risk-takers. Even if you dont have a prospect in your network, it does not hurt to ask.

E.g. Last week, many of the participants at our customer day, at the accelerator were not prime targets for one of our companies in the Health care segment, but many had “friends” or “ex colleagues” who were now in hospitals and they were willing to help.

Mentors, Sales

The top 5 things you need to do after you hire your first #salesperson at your #startup

May 1, 2015 Mukund Mohan 2 Comments

After the initial 5 or so customers and exhausting your personal network, and having product market fit, you are likely to look outside and hire your first sales person. Here are the top 5 things you need to do before, during and after you hire that individual.

1. Ensure you have set the right expectations for yourself, cofounders and the new sales person. If the sales process is long, dont expect the sales person to make it any faster initially. If you have no leads to start them off, dont expect them to bring a pipeline and if your customers are expecting a POC and trial before they are willing to consider purchase, dont expect the sales person to be able to close a sale before they experiment. You should also have the expectation that the sales person will take 2 times your average sales cycle to build their sales pipeline. So if your average deal takes 3 months, expect them to take 6 months to get their pipeline “filled“.

I am often surprised at how much entrepreneurs and cofounders expect from a new sales person, if they have not been able to close an opportunity themselves. They often assume that since the sales person is a “professional” they will make magic happen. That’s highly unlikely.

2. Document and help the new person understand the sales process as well as you can. A blow-by-blow account of every activity in the sales process is better than a top level set of steps.

This step is very useful to also understand what you need to provide in terms of sales tools, marketing materials and collateral, to the sales person to make them successful during the sales process. If the 2nd meeting requires a demo, have it ready. If the best way a customer is convinced is to do a POC (Proof Of Concept), then have a checklist of things the customer needs to have ready for a POC.

3. Help your sales person fill up their pipeline in the first 30-60 days. Remove all distractions that your new sales person has by ensuring that they are not responsible for “strategy”, “blogging”, “SEO”, “fund raising”, or any other thing that makes them less productive. Their sole aim should be to sell and to do that they need to build their pipeline.

The last thing you need to do is to have the sales person’s time filled with non-selling activities. They will likely want to help and get excited with all the other value added activity, but that’s the thing you dont need from them. A not so great sales person will likely bring up all these items towards the end of the quarter when they did not make their quota as excuses.

4. Go on the first 5-10 sales calls yourself to help them learn the ropes. If you have hired an inside sales person, make them a “listener” in the first 3 calls, then be an active listener in the next 3 and finally a passive listener in the next 3 calls.

It is important for you to understand if the sales process is different if a founder goes to meet prospects versus a sales person. It is also important to gauge the sales person’s ability to handle objections, prospect questions and also understand the politics of the customers’ organization. It also helps for them to hear you pitch your product, or vision or benefits.

5. Segment the right prospects based on your current customers to ensure they dont chase the difficult or slow to convert prospects. Until the first few deals happen, the sales person will be on edge and they will get frustrated if they make no progress. If they are good, they will likely leave on their own, and you will have to start all over again.

Give them hard qualification criteria on who makes the ideal customer – if that is an early adopter, then you need to define their budget, behavior, title, size, industry, and be as clear as possible. There are not too many early adopters, so I highly recommend you only give them less than 10-25 prospects (cold or warm) to start with to give them confidence and help you build conviction that they can sell this.

Angel investing, Community, eCommerce, Funding, India

Dealflow management is now harder than fundraising for #microVC in India

April 30, 2015 Mukund Mohan

In 2008 (before Angel List) there were roughly 1000 technology startups in India starting each year. of these about 50+ got funded by VC each year according to Thomson Reuters.

The percentage of services (consulting, IT enabled services, BPO, outsourcing) companies was about 29% – those that started and 33% of those that got funded.

The number of eCommerce companies was about 3% of the total.

Fast forward to 2014 and those number of companies starting at 22% of the total for services and 5% of the total for eCommerce.

The structural changes of the services companies have changed as well. We have gone from 8% of the companies in IT Services to 5% from 2008 to 2014.

While Thomson Reuters does not break out the data, anecdotal evidence suggest that there are a lot more digital marketing & design outsourcing companies now than before.

The number of eCommerce companies has been steadily increasing as a % of companies started, but has increased significantly as a % of funded companies and a % of total funding.

The only other category, which has grown (for which I dont have a breakout again) is software as a service (SaaS).

Over the last 7 years, the number of Micro Venture Capital firms has also grown. We have gone from none in 2008 to 5 in 2014, and I think we will end up at about 10 Micro Venture Capital firms (those that have less than $25 Million in capital to invest) in 2015. These include Angel Prime, Oris, India Innovation Fund, Blume Ventures, and others.

I have talked to about 5-10 angel investors and industry veterans who are all looking to start their own Micro VC, seed fund and combination accelerator or incubator in India over the last 3-4 months.

In 2008, the average amount of time it took to raise a fund (regardless of size) was about 9 – 12 months. That number is lower for Micro VC funds, obviously, but we have no way to know how long it would have taken.

In 2011 of the 3 funds that raised, the average was about 7 months.

This year, I am hearing funds that are < $25 Million close their raise in less than 4 months.

That means the time taken to raise their fund has dropped. It is easier for fund managers to raise their capital, they can do it in shorter periods of time and they can raise more than they initially desired.

The challenge for the fund managers seems to be no longer raising capital, but efficiently deploying it.

The gold standard for VC investing has been proprietary deal flow (startups that come to the investor for funding exclusively and go to no other investors). That’s becoming harder for all VC’s now.

If the number of companies starting up has grown significantly (as from the graph above) and the % of non services companies have grown as well, then there is a real democratization of founding startups.

So the problem has now moved to sourcing, building a brand for your Micro VC firm and convincing entrepreneurs that you are the “smartest” capital available.

The best entrepreneurs have multiple sources of funding, and they have many investors of different type chasing them.

The challenge for Micro Venture firms with no brand visibility or “magnet” founders is that their deal flow is largely limited.

From our own data, I can confidently tell you the “best” deals are usually referrals, but 3 in every 5 companies we get into our program are non referrals. Speaking to Accel and Helion last week, I confirmed that 25% of their funded opportunities were cold (unsolicited).

So while the Micro VC fund manager may have a decent network, their biggest challenge is going to be that they will not be able to attract at least a quarter of deals which come because of having a good brand in the startup ecosystem.

The problem for a lot of the Micro VC’s is going to be that they have poor quality deal flow or deal flow that’s not proprietary.

While they will still go to many events, and review Angel List startups, I suspect they will have a tougher time getting good quality companies to apply.

The bottom line is that now it is as hard for the investors to get good companies as it is for the entrepreneurs to get good investors.

Which is why I love this quote –

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Funding, Learning

Why your #startup #fundraising process should be very similar to your college application process?

April 29, 2015 Mukund Mohan

There are over 4000 universities and colleges offering 4 year degree program for students graduating from high school. Of the 20+ million students that apply, 13 million get into the college undergraduate programs. Of the 13 million students enter 4 year under graduate programs each year and only 2 million graduate from the programs.

So, it is pretty obvious that while the acceptance rate of students into college is fairly high, the graduation rate from undergraduate programs is fairly low.

The graduation rate from the “top and elite” 100 colleges is much higher than the rate from the bottom 3500 colleges. So it make sense to get into a top college if you want to ensure you successfully graduate.

There are 800+ venture investors that fund companies each year in the US. Of the 30K+ companies that are looking for VC funding, about 3900 get funded. Of the 3900 companies that get funded each year, only 1200 actually have exits.

The % of companies that get funded is fairly low, while the “success rate” is reasonably decent,

The similarity of the college application process and get institutional or angel funding process is striking if you consider top entrepreneurs and top investors.

The top investors are most coveted and so are the top entrepreneurs. They are the ones with the most offers and have “competing” term sheets or startups looking to seek their attention.

Most college applications are coached by career counselors to apply to about 8-10 colleges, with a 3 level system – 3 of them are safeties, 4 are good matches and 3 are reaches.

Having been a fund raising advisor to over 102 startups over the last 3 years, I’d highly recommend you follow a similar process with different numbers to raise funds at any stage of your startup.

To raise funds for your startup use a fishing pole not a fishing net.

Here are some assumptions I make. 1) Smart money is better than just money – all things being equal you are better off raising money from an investor who can help advice you and connect you 2) Fund raising is important, but not the goal. The goal is building a great company.

That’s the best advice I can give entrepreneurs. Let us assume you are in the SaaS space and are looking to raise $1 million for your post accelerator round. There are less than 50 angel investors and micro VC fund who might be the best fit for you. There are exceptions, and you *might* get a good VC firm interested, but that’s a crap shoot.

I would recommend you start your fund raising process by building a list of the 50 VC’s.

Then put them into buckets of safeties, good matches and reaches.

Try your pitch first (email connections and warm introductions help) with the safeties, then try the good matches and finally go with the reaches.

That way you can tweak your pitch and model consistently and keep getting feedback as you learn more about what investors like and have problems with your company.

Entrepreneurship

Awesome quote modified: Whether you are big or small you better be innovating

April 28, 2015 Mukund Mohan 2 Comments

― Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Angel investing, Funding, Learning, Tips

The most important skill #entrepreneurs will need is to manage investors and navigate #funding landscape

April 28, 2015 Mukund Mohan 3 Comments

There are many skills we ask of entrepreneurs – sales, hiring, marketing, product management etc. Of them fund raising is probably the most detested among technology entrepreneurs and the most desired among investors. If there are 3 things most seasoned entrepreneurs will tell you that you need to focus on as the CEO is to set the vision and product direction, hire great people and make sure there’s enough money in the bank.

The fund raising landscape, though has dramatically changed over the last 7-10 years for technology startups.

Used to be that most startups went from bootstrapped (for 6 months or less) to friends and family round (for the next 6 months) to an angel round (lasting 12 months) and then, if successful to a institutional venture capitalist (lasting 18-24 months).

It is not unusual to hear of 7 or more funding rounds BEFORE the institutional venture funding round these days for the 80% of the startups that dont have “unicorn type” growth. This crushes previous investors and makes the entrepreneurs more vulnerable to the situation when there is an exit at the company and the entrepreneurs make literally no money at all.

What are the sources of capital now available to entrepreneurs and when should you chose them?

That’s largely a “it depends” type of question, but here are your options.

1. Most entrepreneurs start with a bootstrapped model. It used to be that you had to keep 6 months of capital for yourself to sustain before you started, and now that has remained 6 months or become closer to 12-18 months. If you show quick traction, expect external investment soon, else expect to be in for the long haul.

2. Friends and family are typically still a good option, but increasingly I am noticing ex colleagues who have worked at startups or large companies who trust you and have experience in the market or customer problem you are trying to solve are a good option.

3. Crowd funding sites like Kickstarter, Indegogo, Fundable and Funding Circle are a relatively recent option for hardware startups, but are increasingly becoming a good option for “validating” true customer need and initial funding for many startups as well.

4. Angel investors are still a viable option, but increasingly angel groups are becoming a better source of the next stage of capital. They provide not only the ability to get money quicker than venture investors but also provide valuable expertise, advice and connections to help rookie entrepreneurs along the process.

5. Accelerators are relatively new source of funding, advice, network and mentorship as well. From fewer than 10 that existed 7 years ago, there are over 500 of them across the world, with many focused on specific verticals and industries that have domain expertise to help you further than a generic seed fund.

6. Micro Venture Capitalists (Micro VC) or Super Angels or Seed Funds are a relatively new phenomenon as well. From fewer than 10 Micro VC’s 7 years ago, there are over 250 of these small check-size, quicker to move investment options.

7. Angel List Syndicates are the latest option available to entrepreneurs now in the US and India (via Lets Venture). These syndicates allow any investor who has expertise in an area to help syndicate their “deal” with other interested High net worth individuals. They are usually led by an experienced and very well regarded entrepreneur and the value to this individual (besides the carry, a small portion of the investment in ownership or future exit option) is the reputation it builds for that individual.

Most of these new options come with their own pros and cons, but they are relatively recent phenomenon. If you are an entrepreneur I’d highly recommend you spend time reading up on all these options before you embark on your funding path. The best sources are usually blogs written by experienced entrepreneurs who have recently gone through the process and have the knowledge and desire to share.

Entrepreneurship, Funding, India

The rise of technology Mergers and Acquisitions in India, in 2015

April 27, 2015 Mukund Mohan

Between 2010-2014 there were 150+ acquisitions (about 30 per year) reported in the technology sector in India. Of these, 100+ were acquirers from India, and 40+ were from abroad. Most of the acquisitions were in the Internet space (outside of eCommerce).

Fast forward to 2015 and there have been 21 reported acquisitions already, and it is only April. In fact one of the investors, Blume Ventures has had 3 in 3 months. When I spoke with Sanat Rao of Ispirt M&A advisory connect, they are expecting an acquisition to be announced every week for the next 2 years. That’s a 100% increase over the last 5 years.

What’s driving this is a question that often comes up.

The first is the build up of the investor ecosystem over the last few years. From 2008 to 2010, IVCA reports that close to $5 Billion have been invested in Indian technology companies. Compare that to $1 Billion from 2000 to 2008. That’s a 5 fold rise in 1/4th the time. While investment alone is no indicator of M&A, many of the venture investors have built good relationships with M&A teams to help companies further their cause to “find a home” if needed.

The second, is the growth of new age acquirers – FlipKart, Snapdeal, Komli Media, PayTM InMobi, Naspers and MakeMyTrip, are now the leading acquirers in India with 15 deals in the last 18 months. Flipkart has acquired LetsBuy, Chakpak, NgPay and Myntra, PayTm acquired PlusTxt and Snapdeal has acquired FreeCharge, while Naspers acquired RedBus. Some of them have stated publicly that they will spend close to a $1 Billion to acquire more companies in India.

Third, older more established companies are finally getting into the act as well, with Havells acquiring Promptech most recently. The primary motivation for them is their strong cash positions are now being put to use to move into newer markets quicker.

Fourth, raising follow on capital has become easier for the larger companies, (series D,E) from external investors such as Tiger Global, which gives them a war chest to be more aggressive and take some risky bets.

Fifth, many early stage companies are getting acquired by US companies keen to expand into the Indian market – e.g. Twitter acquired ZipDial to expand in India. Now that there’s a huge critical mass of Indian Internet users (on mobile), this makes a lot more sense for these large US companies.

Sixth, acqui-hires are becoming more attractive to US companies since they are looking for smart talent and it is easier for them to acquire a team in India and move them to the US than hire a team locally. For example Facebook acquired Little Eye Labs and Yahoo acquired BookPad.

Many may argue that we still dont have the “big” acquirers from the US that are significantly buying Indian startups yet, but given the maturity of the ecosystem, comparing India to Israel is going to be hard.

I think this is among the best times to be an Indian entrepreneur, since India is now the #3 in terms of total technology investments,

Entrepreneurship, Funding

How to present your differentiation slide on your #startup overview deck to investors?

April 26, 2015 Mukund Mohan

This is a series of posts with a focus on your overview deck to investors, presenting your market opportunity, the team , problem you are trying to solve and traction your startup has had so far.

The differentiation slide in your overview deck needs to answer the question:

“Why is what you do important enough for customers to choose you over you competitors”?

Most startups can differentiate either by going after a different customer or by building a different product or solving a different problem.

Your differentiation will stem from the insights you gathered about the problem or the customer which you uniquely believe no one else has. The problem you are trying to solve (for e.g. search on the Internet sucked 15 years ago) leads to an insight (for e.g. Larry Page believed that # of links from other pages results in a higher authority page than others), which will help you create that differentiation.

If you have no better insight than others and merely are trying to execute better, it will result in a tremendous amount of capital consumption.

Here are 5 important questions investors are thinking about when it comes to differentiation on hearing your pitch:

1. Can someone other bigger company or competitor adopt the differentiation quickly and eat your lunch?

2. Is the customer segment differentiated enough? Is there a real pain?

3. Is the product differentiated enough to have a 6-12 month lead over others?

4. Is the framing of the problem different enough to make this a large opportunity?

5. What is the one insight they have gathered that’s differentiated enough that no one else knows about?

Which is why many entrepreneurs believe patent pending algorithms are the best differentiation. That’s defensible, but not differentiated for most parts.

Unlike customers, for whom the differentiated features in your product along with customer service, support or community is what helps them make the decision, investors are looking for differentiation to fend off competitors.

How you differentiate (to your customers) may be not the same as how you communicate differentiation to your investors. In reality, offering better customer service, creating a community and positioning your product differently will all be ways to differentiate, but the communication of differentiation to your investors will have to be around the large moat you can create around your company so you can fend competition.

The best ways I have often seen differentiation presented is by creating network effects in your business (eBay, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) or by proprietary algorithms (Google, VMWare) or being a first mover (Uber, AirBnB, etc.)

If you can articulate 2 of these 3 clearly – being a fist mover and having network effects or having proprietary algorithms and having network effects, then your investors will believe you can have a sustainable business.

To raise funds for your startup use a fishing pole not a fishing net.

The personal blog of Mukund Mohan