MARTIN OMANDER: Hi.
Welcome to Root Access, the show for startups on Google
Developers Live.
I'm Martin Omander and I'm joined by Don Dodge, Googler
and longtime investor and startup evangelist.
Today we're going to talk about getting funded.
So Don, I hear a lot of startups asking me, what
should a good pitch to investors contain?
DON DODGE: Several things.
The first thing that investors are interested in is the team,
the team that's going to build it.
So they want to know about you, where you came from, what
experience you have, and sort of what domain experience you
have to make this company successful.
So they want to know about you, and they want to know
about your co-founders.
Co-founder is important.
Very, very, very, few companies get funded with a
single founder, so they want to know what is the team, you
and your co-founders.
Also, advisers.
So do you have advisers with domain experience in this
industry who can give you good advice, who have been
successful at this before and are willing to help you?
So team and advisers number one.
Product, number two.
So what is it you're building?
Who is the user?
Who is the customer?
How will they use it?
So some use cases about how a customer or user will use your
product, what problem does it solve, or what does it make it
easier to do.
The third thing is the revenue model.
So you don't need to have revenue and you don't need to
have all of the answers, but you at least need to have
thought about, what are the revenue models I could
employee here?
How would they work?
Who would pay?
How much would they pay?
How does that compare to some competitors?
Which leads to the fourth thing-- competition.
What does the market look like?
How big is the market?
How big could it be?
Who are the competitors?
What are their weaknesses?
What are you doing better?
The fourth thing-- fifth thing-- is the milestones that
you'll achieve.
So you tell them, I need a million dollars and it will
last me 12 to 18 months, and in this time frame, I'll
accomplish these milestones.
And there should be two or three milestones, interim
milestones, so that they can measure the success.
So those are the basic components of a pitch.
You can put other things in, but those are the sort of five
things that investors are interested in.
MARTIN OMANDER: I see.
So team, including advisers, product, including use cases,
revenue model, market and competitors, demo, how much
money you're asking for, and milestones--
DON DODGE: That's right.
MARTIN OMANDER: --could hit.
I think it's a good point, especially around use cases.
I sometimes hear about we're going to simplify X, and then
it's kind of hard to understand what the startup's
really doing.
DON DODGE: Yes.
It's important for investors to understand what is it that
you're doing, because they don't live this every day.
So you're passionate about your idea, but they don't live
this every day, so they don't know what the use cases are or
what the problems might be that you're solving.
So use cases help explain that in a way that everyone can
understand.
MARTIN OMANDER: I think in the book called "Made to Stick"
about presentations, they call it the curse of knowledge.
You are the expert.
You know far more than the others in the room and that
means that you think they know as much and then you don't
tell them enough.
DON DODGE: Or that they care as much.
And they don't.
MARTIN OMANDER: Yes.
And they don't.
DON DODGE: Passion is important in a pitch.
It's more than words on paper.
It's investors are looking in your eye and seeing if you
have passion about this idea--
not only that you understand it and that you have
experience, but do you have passion
about making this happen.
MARTIN OMANDER: Right.
DON DODGE: Important component.
MARTIN OMANDER: Because then even if your first idea
doesn't completely work out, you can reuse some of what
you've done and pivot a little bit and keep going with the
same team and same passion and do something similar.
DON DODGE: Exactly.
That's why investors say they invest in teams, because they
know that the idea will pivot and change slightly as you go
along and learn more.
But it's important that the team be strong and passionate
and listen to ideas and advice.
MARTIN OMANDER: And maybe it's easier to judge passion then
to judge particular ideas as well.
DON DODGE: It is for investors, yes.
MARTIN OMANDER: For investors, right.
OK, so I hear a lot of startup founders from very early
startups saying that, I need to polish it a little better,
my product.
I don't want to release it, get in the hands of users,
give them a poor experience.
I want it to be just right before I release it.
When should a startup get off their butts and get
their app out there?
DON DODGE: As soon as possible.
Remember, software is never done.
You're always improving software.
So Google is 14 years old, and we're improving the
software every day.
So don't think that you need to continuously polish it
before you give it to users or customers.
You've heard the MVP--
minimum viable product.
What that means is as soon as you have something that's
demonstrable of the idea--
it doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles and
work-- but get it into the hands of some beta customers,
some beta users, so that you can get feedback.
That feedback will guide your priorities and how you develop
the product going forward.
It's never done, and you might never be totally satisfied
with it, but get it out there and start getting feedback.
It's OK that your first 50 users or 100 users don't get
the optimal experience.
You're going to have thousands or tens of thousands of users,
so learn from those initial users, get the feedback as
quickly as you can.
MARTIN OMANDER: Launch early, launch often.
Is that it?
DON DODGE: Exactly.
MARTIN OMANDER: All right.
Very good.
Thank you, Don.
That's all for today.
Please leave your comments and questions under this YouTube
video, and we'll get back to them in future episodes.
Thanks for joining us and see you at the
same time next week.
Bye.