Starting a Start-up Part II

Wow, Howard Gwin and I must have been sharing a brain over the last couple of weeks. I just read his blog "Left and Right Brain: The Execution Factor".   I was looking at the problem of starting up a company in terms of domain skills: Technical versus Sales versus Business. Howard adds a complexity to the mix in terms of Right Brain / Left Brain:  Big Picture versus Execution and Detail Oriented.

When he and I  talked this afternoon,  he was telling me of recent investment pitches that he has seen.  Many are 90% about their product and why it is going to dominate the market and 9% about their Go-to-Market strategy and 1% about the Team that is going to doing it. Some split their time equally between Product and Go-to-Market presentation and throw a little in at the end about the Team. This week, he had a presentation from a third time CEO looking to raise a significant amount of cash to grab a large global market. The CEO spent a bit of time on product, a bit of time on Go-to-Market and most of the time on why his Team could get the job done.

The reality of pitching for funding is that VC's "get" or "don't get" your product pitch really quick and then due diligence the crap out of it later if they are interested. Same goes for Go-to-Market strategy. As a start-up, spending time on your Team is where you will break from the pack or not.