Cleo Capital initially invested $500,000 to $1 million in startups, with portfolio firms including MMHM, Camo and Stylesit, among others. Then a few favorite parts from the chat, starting with Kunst’s notes on how to build a killer pitch deck. Audience questions helped manage the conversation, so I tried to pick all of your themes.
We’ll also look for tips on how to get involved, how to find a co-founder, and join an accelerator when starters are too intense. (Lightly edited quotes for clarity.) Before we get to the main points from the conversation, here is a redundancy of the links that Kunst discussed that I promised to include in this post:
- Y Combinator’s documents hub
- LunchClub with Kunst’s invite code attached
- Kunst’s Twitter account
- Guy Kawasaki’s 10 slide deck
- Where to pitch Cleo Capital
- Stripe Atlas
- CooleyGo
The good news is that it’s easy and convenient to the deck for free. This is not 1999. You do not have to use clip art. You can go canvas. You can go to lots of websites that give you very basic, very cheap – not free – very simple decks. Use only one. It doesn’t have to change the world. But it can’t be ugly. There is no Comic Sans font unless you are a deeply fermented meme-powered company. And yet, the adversity that that joke will incur is unique. So, just don’t have a nasty deck. Should you call? Again this will be a link we will have later but I really prefer to use Guy Kawasaki’s 10-slide pitch-deck format for early-level firms. Don’t send me any videos that are videos. Don’t send me anything that is one page.
Don’t send me anything like 100-pager. [I want] 10 slides. Don’t let me download anything. Attached as PDF, use Docs and. Who you are, what the problem is, what the solution is, why you’re the right team to do it, what your traction is, it’s really, really, really easy and really easy to read and digest, how much you’re rising, [and] probably no Product slide. That’s it. This is what I need to know. I will accept the meeting or not. And I’m saying that on behalf of other vice-chancellors and angels in the world.
This advice is clear and should help you avoid some common problems. Whatever he told me not to do; I promised he would send it to her. Deleting will not be the next thing. Do what he says.
