Silicon Valley isn’t a town, a neighborhood, or a zip code.
It’s a concept. Ecosystem.The epicenter for the most revolutionary
advances in technology.
Pro/Cons for Valley
‐Largest access to tech mentors, capital, tech enterprises;
‐Largest homogeneous market [US];
‐Insanely expensive;‐Spend your time (burn money) EFFECTIVELY
‐ Azure Capital Partners - 2100 Sand Hill Road
‐ Greylock Partners - 2250 Sand Hill Road
‐ Highland Capital Partners - 2420 Sand Hill Road
‐ Benchmark Capital - 2480 Sand Hill Road
‐ The Blackstone Group - 2494 Sand Hill Road
‐ U.S. Venture Partners - 2735 Sand Hill Road
‐ Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers - 2750 Sand Hill Road
‐ Andreessen Horowitz - 2875 Sand Hill Road
‐ Charles River Ventures - 2882 Sand Hill Road
‐ Draper Fisher Jurvetson - 2882 Sand Hill Road
‐ Battery Ventures - 2884 Sand Hill Road
‐ Redpoint Ventures - 3000 Sand Hill Road
‐ Sequoia Capital - 3000 Sand Hill Road
How to connect to Valley
‐Meetups;
‐Silicon Vikings, GABA, SVForum events;
‐Industry or Vendor conferences;
‐Co-working communities (Hacker dojo);
‐Invitations only events (from network)
Vocabulary and comprehension
MVP, minimal viable product, Iteration, Guerrilla Marketing,
Growth hacker, Conversion funnel;
Acquisition, activation, retention, upsell, cross-sell;
Burning rate, Funding runway, Pivot;
UI/UX design,Wireframe, Front-end, back-end;
Pitch, Elevator pitch;
IPO, VC, SAAS, NDA;
Term sheet, Scalable, scalability;
LEAN, Lean startup, Bootstrap, Agile;
Exit, Exit strategy.
PrerequisitesReady to answer following questions:
‐ Opportunity. Why now?
‐ Problem. Problem definition you are trying to solve. Who cares?
‐ Solution. Why you? What is your special sauce? What is your competition and why you are better? Do you offer pain killer or vitamin?
‐ Market (who, where do you fit, dynamics). Product market fit. Who are your customer?
‐ Product and business development plan. Scalability plan.
‐ Go to market strategy. Who and why should buy?
Art of Pitching
‐ Be prepared for different length: Elevator, 2 min, 5 min, 7 min, 20 min (Q&A);
‐ 10/20/30 Rule (10 slides, 20 min, 30pt font);
‐ «So What?» Answer Little man on shoulder;
‐ White on Black;
‐ Shut Up, Take Notes, Summarize and Follow Up;
‐ Rewrite from scratch