Master of 500 Hats

fbFund REV: Our Summer of Social Startups

I'd love to write a longer post about the fbFund REV social incubator program i've been running this summer, but tonight we're getting ready for our investor demo day presentations tomorrow, and it may be a long night before i get to sleep.  for a more in-depth review of what we've been up to, check out the Techcrunch post on the fbFund REV Summer of Social.

in the meantime, checkout the video below of me pimping REV, and tune in for our fbFund REV webcast live on ustream Tuesday, Sept 1st at 1:00pm PST for all our fbFund company presentations.

fbFund REV: We Make Startups Social from fbFund REV on Vimeo.

Join GeeksOnaPlane for DC (9/18-19) & Europe (9/21-10/2)

Want to meet geeks, startups, VCs, and other folks in DC and/or Europe?

Come with us in September for the next GeeksOnaPlane.com trip!

Here's our current travel plans & agenda (note you can join us for just one city, or for the entire trip):

• 9/18-19: Washington, DC — Tech & Govt Meetup, Startup2Startup dinner
• 9/21-23: London — SeedCamp Week
• 9/24-25: Amsterdam — Picnic Conference
• 9/26-27: Berlin — Ignite, Startonomics, Startup2Startup
• 9/28-29: Prague — Ignite, Startonomics, Startup2Startup
• 9/29-30: Paris — Ignite, Startonomics, Startup2Startup
• 10/01-02: London — Future of Web Apps

Costs vary based # of cities/events; estimates as follows:

• Full Trip (4-6 cities): $1250 all events + travel/hotel = ~$3000-5000
• Partial Trip (2-3 cities): $750 events pass + travel/hotel = ~$2000-4000
• Single City (DC or other): $500 events pass + travel/hotel = ~$1000-1500

Want to come along?  Great, just request an invite:

Here are some of the fun & awesome geeks that will be joining us...

Hosts + Travelers:

Dave McClure	Brady Forrest	Adriana Gascoigne	Frank Gruber
Founders Fund 500 Hats	O'Reilly Media Ignite	SGN Girls in Tech	AIM/AOL Somewhat Frank
Eric Ries	Vanessa Fox	Wen-Wen Lam	Sean Ellis
Kleiner Perkins The Lean Startup	Ignition Partners NineByBlue	Slingshot Labs	12in6 Startup Marketing
Ben Rattray	Evan Cooke	Mark Hendrickson	Rashmi Sinha
Change.org	Twilio	Worldly Developments	SlideShare

Your SOLUTION is Not My PROBLEM

QUICK !!!

i'm a VC. you're an entrepreneur. 

we're in an elevator, and you've got 30 seconds.

GO.

ok, if your pitch began with "we're building an X for Y", then guess what 

YOU FAIL.

yeah, i know in an earlier presentation i said "we're X for Y" works well for short-hand notation. 

but the problem is... it's not my problem. it's your solution. 

and the solution isn't your solution, it's my problem.  

more specifically: 

your SOLUTION is to SOLVE MY PROBLEM

or i can say that another way:

IT IS NOT HELPFUL TO YOUR CAUSE TO DO AN ELEVATOR PITCH WHERE YOU SHOVE YOUR SOLUTION DOWN MY GODDAMN THROAT. OVER and OVER and OVER.

got that?

      let me explain...

several months back at Startup Weekend San Francisco, as is my usual wont, i was being a real dick.

we had just finished doing the typical mind-numbing bullshit VC panel on what's trendy / what's hot. (which was of course, incredibly insightful and useful... NOT).  next, the attendees -- all 300 of them -- were asked to get up and do a quick pitch on the startup idea they wanted to do over the weekend. the concept here was that other people might hear the idea & want to join forces. now, not to say there aren't some flaws with listening to 300 people do a quick pitch in a crowded room with terrible acoustics, but beyond that auditory imposition, there was one other big problem:

almost all of those pitches SUCKED ASS.  

big time.

after about the 4th or 5th one, i just couldn't stand it any longer. i was NOT going to sit thru an hour-and-a-half of shitty elevator pitches.

N. F. W.

so i grabbed the mike from the next open-mouthed entrepreneur and said:

"Ok folks... if there's ONE thing i can help you with tonight, it's how to pitch.  it's very simple, and i can teach you in about 5 minutes."

"Here's the secret: PITCH THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION."

"That's it. done! that's all there is... just tell me the problem FIRST, not the SOLUTION.  the reason is, i may not be able to understand what your solution does, but if you connect emotionally with me on what the problem is -- and i hopefully i also have the problem, or know someone who does -- then i'll give you PERMISSION to tell me more about how you're going to solve the problem."

after that, i handed the mike back to the entrepreneur... and you can guess what they did.

yoo betcha.  

they pitched their solution.  

and i interrupted them, RUDELY & WITHOUT MERCY.  

i grabbed the mike back and said:

"THAT WAS NOT A PROBLEM.  

THAT WAS YOUR SOLUTION. 

            DO IT *AGAIN*."

and they tried their best, and barely got through the problem statement.  then they handed the mike to the next entrepreneur.  and guess what happened?  yep, AGAIN, they pitched their SOLUTION.

and i again, i rudely stopped them, grabbed the mike back, and said again "Nope. that was another SOLUTION.  tell me what the PROBLEM is that you're solving... i guarantee you, the PROBLEM is NOT that the world doesn't have enough RSS readers out there." again, they barely got thru stating problem.

this happened for another 4-5 entrepreneurs.  they would pitch their SOLUTION.  i would then be a dick, yell for them to stop, have them start over, and state the PROBLEM first.  after about 10-15 minutes of this insanity, i think i scared the shit out of them, and perhaps only to stop me from berating them publicly in front of several hundred people, they FINALLY started pitching the PROBLEM.

slowly, excruciatingly, over the course of the next half-hour, the pitches gradually got better.  they didn't necessarily get good, mind you... but they didn't completely suck balls.  they were at least easier to understand, and by end of evening most pitches were understandable, if perhaps still crappy.

and i made a name for myself as perhaps the biggest asshole VC of the northern california area.

but that aside, i made three hundred people NEVER forget the point i was trying to make, and hopefully at least 5-10% of them will have a slightly better pitch the next time they get stuck in an elevator with a VC.

if so, then it will have been worth me being such a complete dick.

remember folks: pitch the PROBLEM first, connect with your audience emotionally around the problem, and then -- and ONLY then -- offer your solution as the remedy to that problem.