Your salary should be basic, covering your costs and giving you a bit of spending money. This assumes you're working full time for the startup. Remember that the bigger picture is equity.
Whatever you do don't spend a month writing a 60 page document. Keep it short and sweet. Use lots of bullet points / bold highlighting to ease readability. No complex multi-idea paragraphs. And most of all, just answer the key questions.
Do we believe Kawasaki on this one? He says, paraphrasing, "a pitch is a great communication tool, but no substitute for a plan", which he says you should write in 12 point type for people over 50. I feel like webwright at least would contradict this advice.
I'd avoid memorizing a script. Memorize and push bullet point phrases, rather than a full 'story'. You'll be so familiar with the project that you should easily be able to recount the story.
Focus on what the judges want to hear, eg if they are investors then make sure you cover:
1. business model
2. market trends / size
3. how your startup solves a problem or fulfils a need
4. your team
5. what you need to implement
6. and how you plan to execute.
The reason for the script is the 3 minute time limit. It took me about four hours to get the pitch down to 3 minutes while still covering all the points they wanted covered. These are the criteria:
1. What is your technology, product or service? Briefly describe what you sell and the need it fulfills.
2. Who is your target market? Briefly state who buys this product or service and the size of the market.
3. How do you expect to make money? Describe the source(s) of revenue and how you will sell.
4. Who is your competition?
5. What is your competitive advantage? How can your company provide this product or service better than the competition?
6. Who is behind the company? Share your and your team’s background and accomplishments. Explain how your background gives your business credibility.
It should focus minds on business models, that's for sure. There's nothing wrong with bootstrapping or having a point to doing what you're doing (ie, making profits). Do you REALLY need the funding?
I think the smaller investors will want to be sure about the team running these startups. And disruptive tech, however cool, isn't going to cut it. Jam today will beat ham tomorrow.
VCs invest in 10 companies and expect 8 or 9 failures, and 1 big winner. In that sense nothing will change.
Also, a recession is a sure-fire opportunity to launch a company, no doubt about it. Better deals and other companies cut the chaff. If you can help another firm improve efficiency, or optimise what they're doing, then you will be well placed.
That's a great point, regarding improvements on already existing services/companies; they will welcome any ways to decrease their costs or increase their revenues. But do you think that a recession is also good for starting a company with a brand new product/service?
It depends on the market you're aiming at. Some market sectors are recession-proof, others less so. Holidays in Hawaii / Bali might be downgraded, but people will still want to go on holiday.
Also, it is competitive out there, but if you are in a niche then go for it. If you have a lot of competition then do it better.
I personally believe that the companies of the future that will do best will listen and learn from their customers. They'll engage with customers. They will let their customers tell them what they want.
We already know what works on the internet in terms of usability / user experience / product page design / checkout process, etc, so don't go reinventing the wheel. Many large companies still suck at this stuff (just look at the Gap.com website if you don't believe me).
Be the best. Understand the mindset of your customers. Make sense of your data. Iterate as often as is practical. And market the shit out of your product (don't forget to sell it to Google via a blog...).
Thanks for the insight, I appreciate it. I'm currently aiming at some rarely explored user base in the social networking area. Can't disclose details, but it entails the sharing of life events.
It's really important and not at all negative, it just means people are searching for something specific, and will most likely move on once they've found it.
For retailers, these are the 'gold' searches. The more detailed the search phrase, the more likely the purchase.
Think about it: 'Digital camera' is far too broad to determine the mindset of the searcher, but 'sony cybershot offer black' shows a far greater purchase intent. Add on a specific product name / number and a sale will be imminent.
For NewsCred this stuff is equally important. You can minimise bounce rates by doing more to keep these users onsite, be it related content, UGC, improved usability / navigation, etc.
Good points all around. We definately have to focus on keeping these SEO users on the site longer. More importantly, to have a good acquisition funnel to convert them to registered/regular users.
I'm not so sure all traffic is created equal, but the marginal benefit of all traffic is certainly positive.
To encourage users to sign up you just need to encourage more interaction / personalisation. Easier said than done, I know.
The news aggregation game is a bit in-and-out... traffic we receive (as a publisher) from aggregators comes in and mainly bounces. These readers often browse multiple sources to get a view on an individual story (to get a wider spectrum of views, more detail, better pics, more user insight etc).
The way NewsCred is designed doesn't lend itself so well to this... you have promote one story at a time; I'd consider adding more links to more sources on that story, Techmeme/Google News-style, to take advantage of this sort of behaviour.
Maybe users can ultimately choose their own sources, or NewsCred can choose for them, based on where other people are going. The key is in achieving a good depth of coverage, rather than just pointing people at the big media sites.
Some good tips here: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/07/how-to-write-a-.html
Whatever you do don't spend a month writing a 60 page document. Keep it short and sweet. Use lots of bullet points / bold highlighting to ease readability. No complex multi-idea paragraphs. And most of all, just answer the key questions.
Good luck.