Rick Segal’s 12 Step VC Process

Rick Segal had a good post on his The Post Money Value blog regarding the VC process.

He broke it down into the 12 steps that his firm applies to funding opportunities.

It’s a good read, and will give you a brief overview of the VC funding journey.

If you are seriously pursuing VC funding, you’ll want to read up on it.

Here are some relevant titles:

The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs

Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms

Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur

Term Sheets & Valuations – A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets & Valuations

The Business of Venture Capital: Insights from Leading Practitioners on the Art of Raising a Fund, Deal Structuring, Value Creation, and Exit Strategies

 

 

 

The Big! Long! Scary! Sales Page Questionnaire

One of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make is being feature focused rather than benefits focused.

When you read most startup web sites or marketing materials, the focus is on features, not benefits.

Those companies all fail the “What’s in it for me?” test for the customer.

Customers are actually not very interested in your product or service features. What they are very interested in is what benefits does your product or feature have for them, directly and specifically.

If you are struggling to conceptualize or articulate your product or service’s answer to the “What’s in it for me?” test, try this excellent questionnaire, courtesy  of Naomi Dunford from the ittybiz blog.

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The Big! Long! Scary! Sales Page Questionnaire
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The secret of a successful sales page is focusing more on the
customer’s needs than the product itself.  You want your customer
to say to themselves that YOU really understand what they’re going
through, and that because of that they can be confident your
product can help them.

The more detail you have on your ideal customers and their needs,
the easier it will to create copy that makes them click that “buy”
button.

IMPORTANT! Try to answer all of the questions that you can, even if
they’re hard to answer in your specific situation. If something
really doesn’t apply to you, you can skip it. But try, though.

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