Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Elevator Pitch

On Christmas day, I finally started talking about my new venture. Not widely, mind you, and I won't go into details on this blog, but I will discuss certain aspects of the business as openly as I can.

I spent most of my time pitching to my aunts and uncles. I figure that at some point in the not-too-distant future, my partner and I will need some level of outside financing. While discussing this with one of my advisors, it made more sense to start with friends and family investment as opposed to institutional (read: venture capital) financing. So I began giving impromptu demos of the current state of the software with my uncles and cousin. We're not ready yet but I figure I should start working on these skills to be ready when the point in time comes to really start pitching. I did get some questions that I was a bit unprepared for, and while I feel I navigated them well, I need to be less "on my feet" and more "ahead of time". I need to be able to present my answers and rebuttals quickly after having prepared for those questions instead of improvising. Its funny because I don't think well "on my feet" anyway, and I never have. But I think this idea, this business, has consumed me so much over the last few weeks that these answers are becoming second nature. Now I need to cement them and make them automatic.

Clearly, this preparation could become a full time job. But as the brother of a friend of mine said to me as a freshman in college, "if you want something you've never had before, you have to do something you've never done before." So I'll start practicing my pitch along with working out the business plan details.

As for the product, it is coming along nicely. My partner has been very productive in the last few weeks. She's great! This is moving so much faster than I imagined. 9 figures, here we come!!!

So until next time...

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