Years ago, I was in a meeting with Jack Gifford, the founding CEO of Maxim Integrated Products. Maxim’s revenue was around $1 billion per year at the time. Also in the meeting was “Peter”, one of the best engineering managers in the company. Peter was complaining to Gifford how hard it was to recruit great…
Square’s pitch deck is one of the more interesting investor pitch decks available online. So, the question is what lessons can you apply to your pitch deck based on the Square’s pitch deck? In today’s video, I’ll break down Square’s pitch deck presentation, slide by slide, so you can improve your investment pitch deck structure. …
There’s a right way and a wrong way to show your pitch deck financials when you pitch investors. The problem is that just about every entrepreneur presents their financial slide incorrectly. If you present your pitch deck financial slide incorrectly, the result is a lost opportunity for you, the CEO, to improve your chances of…
When I worked at Maxim Integrated Products, we used to have our planning meetings over at the Peppermill restaurant in Cupertino. I think it’s gone now, but it was a great venue for us to meet at. The Peppermill was great because, well, there weren’t a lot of people in the restaurant at 8:30AM, so…
“As you know, Brett presented to my partnership at ‘Donald Ventures’,” “Raul” said to myself and the other board members at our board meeting. “And the meeting went horribly. “None of my partners believes we should continue supporting the company,” Raul said, then he twisted the knife. “So, we are pulling our support for the…
No One Tells You About There’s one slide that you should add to your pitch deck that no one tells you about. But, when you add it to your deck, it shows potential investors that you: Are Transparent Know the market and the competition Know your strengths and weaknesses You’ll be a great CEO to…
“When you’re sick stay home. When you’re healthy come to work.” That was the sick policy I had at my company. I didn’t ask my employees to fill out any paperwork. I didn’t have a maximum amount of sick days. And, for the life of my company, our simplistic sick policy worked really well. Now,…
Before I launched my startup, I built an elaborate Excel spreadsheet to forecast how our company would grow. The spreadsheet had tabs for headcount, revenue by product, gross margin, rent, and cashflow. At the heart of the model, was the product revenue model. Since we were launching multiple products per year, this was the most…
I watched the CEO start his pitch, and, within 10 seconds, I knew he wasn’t going to get the partnership’s funding. You see, the CEO had committed one of the 10 mistakes that will kill your investor pitch. Raising angel funding or venture capital funding is hard. So, the last thing you want to do…
I was on edge. I couldn’t sleep. I hated going to the office. That’s how I felt before I took the necessary step of firing my co-founder. Unfortunately, over 50% of co-founder conflicts can not be resolved. I’ve built several businesses to greater than $100 million/year in revenue. And, I’ve helped many startup CEOs successfully…