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Engineering in STEAM education is of growing importance due to the sheer demand for engineers worldwide. All of the STEAM education fields (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics) are included within the concept because of their perceived importance and the question of ‘what is STEAM education?’ can largely be answered by emphasizing their value in teaching transferable life skills, assisting with cognitive development, and teaching useful concepts. However, the field of engineering can be especially important because there is a real demand for more engineers within the workforce.
Keep reading to learn more about the importance of engineering to STEAM education or visit the ViewSonic education solutions page for further insights into the modern classroom.
The philosophy behind STEAM education is to bring together five important subjects or areas of study – science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics – in order to highlight their importance, emphasize their value to employers, and promote more integrated teaching. Additionally, a key part of the concept itself involves teaching these subjects in a way that students can relate to and in a way that is relevant to real-life situations.
Out of these subject areas, engineering is especially reliant on each of the other fields. It does not have the same long history of being taught as a standalone subject that, say, science or mathematics have, but its reliance on other fields does help to make integrated teaching easier. In this article, we will go into more detail about what engineering is, the importance of engineering, and how it functions within STEAM.
Various definitions of engineering refer to it as the application of science, technology, mathematics – and some even describe it as an art – with a view to designing and constructing objects, machines, structures, and other items or things. Most commonly, it is defined as the application of science and mathematics principles to create things.
The field of engineering is also sometimes divided into a number of sub-categories:
Some definitions offer aerospace engineering as a separate fifth category, focusing on aircraft and spacecraft specifically, but these activities are still most commonly included within the field of mechanical engineering.
The importance of engineering can perhaps be best summarized by thinking about how much we rely on engineers’ work. Whether it is the buildings we live, work, and study in, the computers and smartphones we use every day, the roads we drive on, or the medicines we take, there has inevitably been some level of engineering involved.
One of the major reasons for its inclusion within STEAM education is because there is a high level of demand for individuals with engineering skills and qualifications within the workforce. Over recent years, in various parts of the world, including the United States, initiatives designed to encourage students to pursue this area of study and its integration with other subjects are seen as a potentially useful way of furthering this agenda.
Any good answer to the question ‘what is STEAM education?’ will place a focus on integration between the different STEAM fields. Out of these fields, engineering integrates with the others in some fairly straightforward ways – to the extent that in her overview of STEAM, Georgette Yakman states that students who are studying subjects like design and technology are essentially studying engineering.
A great example of where engineering combines with both science and the arts is in relation to ergonomics. This is where physiological and psychological principles are applied to design and engineering to emphasize things like comfort, safety, and ease of use. Similarly, architecture is an area where the arts and engineering combine very clearly because buildings and bridges are intended to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Meanwhile, engineering, science, and mathematics can easily be taught together because engineering is hugely reliant on scientific and mathematical concepts. The key to teaching in a STEAM-friendly way is by integrating the different STEAM fields and making sure the lessons are as applicable as possible to real life.
The inclusion of engineering within the STEAM education initiative is intended to highlight the extremely valuable role that engineering plays within the global economy while also highlighting the skills and problem-solving abilities that can be learned through engineering lessons and projects.
While it is not as established as mathematics or science as a standalone academic subject, its reliance on scientific and mathematical concepts, as well as its links to technology and the arts, make it ideal for integrated learning.
This article has been part of a short series on STEAM education where we have so far covered an introduction to STEAM, the importance of science, and the importance of technology. You can also visit our education solution page for more articles, resources, and insights surrounding modern education.
In this follow-up article on the intricacies of pitching on Zoom, Eric Bahn draws on his own experience as both a founder and a VC to explain the benefits of pitching online and provides a detailed breakdown of how to design your fundraising process, how to pitch on screen, and how to effectively follow up.
Keep reading for tips on how to fine-tune your fundraising process or visit the Acceleration for All page to see how ViewSonic and Hustle Fund are teaming up to provide new opportunities for entrepreneurs.
Eric Bahn is a co-founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund. Prior to Hustle Fund, Eric was an angel investor and partner at 500 Startups. Before becoming a professional investor, he spent over a decade as an operator (Facebook, Instagram) and entrepreneur (Beat The GMAT). Eric is a native of Detroit, Michigan and attended Stanford University (BA, MA), which launched his career into software and startups. Eric is happily married with two kids, loves minivans, and helps lead the Hustle Fund team from his garage in the Bay Area.
If you haven’t read part 1 in which I cover everything from the microphone you should use to why you may want to introduce your dog when you start your pitch, start here.
Once your setup is dialed, you’re ready to pitch.
To start a Zoom meeting and get through any initial awkwardness, say something like, ‘Hi, thank you so much for your time. Just out of curiosity, where are you based right now?’ It’s a good way to get things going, and quickly after I follow up with, ‘Well here’s my agenda for today. I have a couple of objectives — I want to introduce myself and walk through the company. But I also would love to hear about your fund and your process for how you make decisions’. Did you read that last part? I think it’s really smart to cover who they are because it helps the meeting feel balanced. I’m not just pitching you…you’re pitching me and you’ve got to explain to me how you make your decisions and why it’s a good process. Why should I consider you for funding? You’ve got to have some of that balance.
This may alarm you, but in the next part of this article, I’m going to explain why you should not use your pitch deck at all on a Zoom call.
When I pitch and fundraise, I never use a deck. Bear with me here. So.. let’s go back in time to that exercise where I talked about closing your eyes… You’re on Sand Hill Road, you’re pitching in a room and the problem is that it’s really hard to look at what’s on the screen and look at every face in the room. They could be seated far apart if you’re in a full partner meeting. Also, it’s really difficult to keep track of all of this while pitching in-person.
This is where Zoom is a superpower. Everyone’s faces are appearing in a nice little Brady Bunch grid. Being able to track everyone’s faces and expressions is a superpower that you have got to lean into.
When I’m pitching, I probably have 10 different versions of my pitch. We at Hustle Fund really care about inclusivity, for example, so if I see people starting to nod more vigorously around our values such as inclusivity, I dive into more kinds of stories about how we support that belief.
In other cases, we’re talking about our unique funding model. We have a unique model where we start with a small check and help startups with growth projects. Then in a subset of cases, we concentrate a much larger check into teams where we’ve earned mutual trust with each other and want to build a longer-term partnership. In those cases, when we talk about the technical aspects of our model and I see people nodding or smiling, I lean into that. If I see people start to yawn in a Zoom setting, it’s a good time to crack a joke or tell a related but weird story to jolt people back into attention.
It’s much, much, much harder to execute this in a room full of people than it is on Zoom. So I think a really engaging pitch that you do without slides, especially your first impression pitch, is important and allows you to pay attention to the faces on the screen and see who’s bored and see who’s interested. You can see where you can put a bit more detail into some parts of your story.
As an aside here, I think a first pitch should be one-on-one, ideally the CEO/founder or co-founder of the business. If there’s a follow-up meeting that involves a lot more partners and so forth, that’s the time to bring in your co-founders because everyone’s going to want to meet the team. But only one person should take the lead and do all the pitching in the initial Zoom call.
Next in the line of key elements: have a template email follow-up ready to go before you begin each pitch. So go through your pitch, end the meeting, and within one minute of concluding the meeting, you hit send on that template saying, ‘Great to spend time with you this afternoon. I’m glad that we could talk like regular people one-on-one like this but I wanted to share the context of the deck. Here’s a link to the deck, here’s a link to more information… Let’s talk very soon, or let’s schedule a meeting very soon.’
This leads me to the next part of this article: scheduling your next meeting on the Zoom call. We have talked about this in previous Hustle Fund articles and videos, but one of the biggest screw-ups, and I’ve made this screw-up many times myself, is leaving the end of the pitch vague.
So you go through your pitch and it goes great, or it goes poorly, and then the meeting kind of ends. It’s like OK thanks so much…and that’s it, and you’ll never hear from that VC ever again. You’ve got to reserve time, like five minutes at the very end of your pitch, share your screen, and bring up your calendar and say, ‘alright let’s talk about concrete next steps.’ Ask them how their investment decisions get made after today. How long after this pitch should we expect a response… and then while we’ve got a little bit of time, why don’t we schedule our next meeting, put a placeholder in… ‘How does Tuesday next week work?’ Schedule it within the Zoom meeting and avoid the vague ending.
It’s going to feel a little bit awkward but I think it helps you drive the process further. And you shouldn’t rely on the VC to drive the process – they have all the time in the world. The action that I always include in my own pitches at the end is to say, ‘Thanks for the pitch. I’m going to follow up with you in two days and get some early thoughts.’ In this case, it’s going to be you taking the action – you’re not going to wait for the VC.
So include that at the very end of your verbal pitch on Zoom, but also include it in your email that you send within one minute of concluding your call. I know this is super tactical, but I strongly believe that it’s a kind of ‘alpha dog’ thing and it demonstrates that you are on top of things. It leaves a very strong impression that you’re someone who’s driven, an execution kind of person. When I see that and I’ll be honest with you, maybe less than 5% of founders I talk to have this kind of approach, I am impressed.
The last part of this article is about designing your fundraising process. This is an expansive topic that’s bigger than just Zoom pitching. But it’s something that I love to discuss with our founders. I strongly believe that fundraising is a two-week process. We coach all of our founders to condense fundraising into two weeks.
What do these two weeks look like? Well, it’s actually two and a half weeks.
The Thursday before the two-week period begins is where you’re going to dedicate all of your time to fundraising. You’re going to talk to other founders, your friends, your existing investors, anyone who’s willing to give you warm introductions and try to compile a list of let’s say, 100 VCs, Angels, and any other investors that you want to meet.
Put all these people into a spreadsheet and figure out who would be willing to give you a warm introduction to each one of these people. On that same Thursday, you’re going to ask every single one of your referrers to make introductions for you all at the same time. OK, so that’s Thursday. Everyone dropping 500 referrals for you for introductions all at the same time on Thursday.
The next thing you do is you’re going to see a bunch of people getting back to you on Friday. You’re going to see a VC respond, “Oh hi, I’m Eric from Hustle Fund, and I’d love to talk to you. Want to schedule some time?” But you’re going to ghost them. You’re not going to do a damn thing. You’re going to be radio silent on Saturday and Sunday. I’ll explain.
The reason you don’t respond immediately is that you want to be in control of the process of whom you’re speaking to and when. In your first week you’re going to start talks with a bunch of Tier 2 VCs and Angels, those that you’re pretty cool with but they’re not super duper ideal dream VCs.
You’re going to practice with these Tier 2 VCs Monday through Wednesday. That’s when you get your reps in and you get your best pitches honed. Then you’re going to move to your Tier 1 funds, those that are your dream investors, for Wednesday through Friday. End of week one.
You’re going to leave this weekend open. Do not schedule brunch, or hike with your husband or boyfriend or your dog. Leave that weekend open because if you do find that at the end of week one, your pitches are going well, someone’s going to invite you to take a long hike with them or do some sort of other kind of Zoom or coffee session with them over the weekend. You’ve got to leave that time free so when week two comes around, you can wrap up any remaining Tier 1 and Tier 2 discussions that you have as early as possible in the second week.
In week two, on Wednesday through Friday you get into your Tier 3, Tier 4… the individuals that you don’t really care about. Hopefully by that Friday you’ve given your Tier 1 and 2 people enough time to consider your company and have answered their questions. Then terms start to land all at the same time. That’s when the auction begins! You’ve got a lot of options here so you’re going to start negotiating higher valuations, wanting these certain conditions removed, etc.
That is sort of the arc that I think we should all be striving for, and the beautiful thing about Zoom? Before Zoom, in pre-pandemic times, you could maybe do five meetings a day. That’s a lot of Ubering plus a plane ticket to Sand Hill Road. On Zoom you can fit 15 of these pitches in one day if you want. I wouldn’t recommend that many, maybe 5 to 10, but achieving 50 or 100 meetings over the course of two weeks is a lot easier now. This is where leaning into Zoom has become super amazing for a founder.
By the way, location matters increasingly less. A lot of VCs are biased towards investing in companies in the region, in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, etc, but what Covid has taught us is that businesses that are ‘Silicon Valley’ are more of a mindset versus a location.
If you’re near the Australian outback and want to run 100 meetings from your garage, it’s going to look like you’re my neighbor here in the Bay area. Moving away from location importance is one of the aspects of Zoom pitching that gets us excited at Hustle Fund.
A couple more things I’d like to mention about the fundraising process. Let’s talk some more about lining up your investors.
How can you figure out who can give you a warm introduction?
Do your research on NFX Signal and AngelList just to see if there are folks in your industry that you care about and then expand it a bit further. Look for anyone who can Angel invest into your company at the early stage. This is not just someone who’s an accredited investor making $200k a year in salary or more and has a net worth of more than a million dollars. These are small business owners, doctors, dentists, and lawyers. It’s OK to include those folks; they’re not a negative signal. They actually really do expand the pie.
Once I’ve identified who these people are, I like to go on LinkedIn and see if I know someone who is a secondary connection. I reach out to my friend and ask if they can make a warm introduction for me.
One thing you really need to have ready here is a forwardable blurb. When you ask someone for a referral, don’t make them do any work. Don’t say, ‘Yo Mike, I really want to talk to Bill Gates, can you make an introduction?’ and he’s like I need more context like what do you want to talk about, who are you, what are you pitching… you’re making Mike do your work and he’s already super busy doing other stuff. Don’t make him do anything.
What you need to do is create a nice pithy forwardable blurb that your connection can pass along in under two seconds. The only thing that Mike has to write is an ‘Interested?’ and that’s it.
Let’s dissect the elements of a good forwardable blurb.
The best approach is to write one to two sentences about your company that show the most compelling details, like traction, customer base, or pipeline. Including something about the team is a really good flex to say, “Hey! Look how much experience we have in this space! We’re really relevant!” If you have a teaser deck which is basically a summary deck with five slides or so of what you do, include those and have your contact information at the end.
What if you have a demo? Should you show it on a Zoom call?
As you’re trying to avoid distracting visuals on Zoom, I think any demos have to be short and take 5 minutes, maybe 10 minutes max for something that is a little more complicated such as an enterprise platform. If there’s a way you can get the VC to participate in the demo it’s even better! That way they aren’t passively watching or getting bored.
Create a dummy account in advance they can quickly log into on the Zoom call and then ask them to share their screen so they can do the demo with you. This is the very best kind of demo. It is like kinesthetic tactile learning: you’re forcing the VC to actually do and listen at the same time.
Always start off with just a one-on-one video chat and then say, ‘Hey I’m Sarah, I’m the founder of this company and I just wanted to give you an overview of what we’re doing but if we have some time I want to show you a quick demo too’. Offer the demo in the middle of the presentation but rely mostly on the one-on-one video chat.
Another important point in the process is what to do about running over time.
The moment that you become one minute late to the next meeting, you’re going to be two minutes late to the next meeting… three minutes late… 10 minutes late and at some point it just makes you look really bad. You have to end on time. The way I handle a call that is going to overrun is to say, ‘Look I want to respect your time. I see that we have two minutes left and this is such a great conversation, why don’t we schedule our next call now?’ and just move into the scheduling phase. Build the momentum and end the call at a high point. It’ll leave a great impression.
I also advise that you subtly drop that that you have other meetings to go to. It’s a little bit of a dance and it’s a little bit of a flex. But in general, as a VC, I don’t want founders to feel like they’re in a supplicant position where they feel they are begging for cash. Don’t bend to other people’s will. That’s the wrong relationship. Don’t be in a subservient relationship with your VC.
The relationship with your VC should be as equal as possible, we at Hustle Fund feel very strongly about this. If you feel, for example, that there may be a risk of bias, or you have experienced it, then alternatives to Zoom video are perfectly fine. I think asking for a phone call as an alternative to Zoom is a great way to get around this.
You can set this up by saying, ‘I know you’ve got a ton of Zoom calls, and maybe we can go for a walk instead and we can just talk and walk while on the phone and I can share what we’re working on’. I love that – that’s so smart and the reason why is you get your body moving and the blood flowing. It makes it easier to move to the attention-focused neocortex part of our brains. I can concentrate on the ideas properly. And it also just sounds really fun to take a 30-minute walk and talk to someone on the phone versus sitting at my garage desk and hearing the pitch. So I definitely think phone calls are the best option outside of Zoom.
Finally, if you are a pre-seed stage company, or just have an idea, we would love to hear about it. You can go to Hustle Fund VC and click the pitch button and tell us what you are working on.
Our team reviews every single company that comes through that door and whether you’re a warm referral to our fund or someone that read this article that we haven’t met yet, everyone is asked to go through this form to have an equal footing from the start. This is a very important part of our process to make sure that we limit our bias as well.
What are you waiting for? Pitch us!
If you enjoyed this article, you may also be interested in Eric’s previous contributions where he shares his advice on how to raise capital via newsletter updates and how to create the perfect headlines for your pitch deck. You can also visit the ViewSonic workplace solutions page to explore productivity-driven displays designed to improve the way you work.
Remote fundraising is here to stay, but it requires a different approach than in-person pitching in order for founders to be successful. In this article, guest writer Eric Bahn draws on his experience as a VC to provide a tactical guide on how to pitch over video conferencing platforms, especially Zoom and manage the fundraising process remotely.
Keep reading for actionable advice for fundraising on Zoom or check out the Acceleration for All Awards to see how ViewSonic and Hustle Fund are teaming up to power innovative startup ideas and help first-time founders get the start they need.
Covid is not going away quickly, and so remote work is making remote pitching feel more and more natural in the context of fundraising. It’s now possible to run your entire fundraise without physically meeting anyone — which is historically unprecedented in the VC industry.
We will cover three areas in more detail in this 2-part article, but the first thing founders should do is set up their space well:
In part 2 of this article, I’ll explain why you should avoid using a deck.
And, why you should load up your schedule.
Now I want to start with a bit of scene-setting and go through a little exercise with you. I want you to close your eyes, and remember a time pre-pandemic…
This is sometime in 2019. Imagine yourself waking up from a semi-comfortable bed at the Hyatt House in Redwood Shores, California. You’re there because that hotel is relatively cheap, and you’re getting ready for a full day of pitching on Sand Hill Road in northern California.
So you get ready, take your shower, brush your teeth, and put on your very best Patagonia vest, maybe it’s the blue one today. Then you wipe the dust from your Allbirds or Adam’s shoes and you’re looking ready to pitch.
You go get your Uber and head down to the Blue Bottle in downtown Palo Alto to get that power breakfast. It’s going to be the single origin Yirgacheffe Ethiopia pour-over and an avocado toast and it’s only $26 dollars – what a deal.
After you make sure that there are no sesame seeds or whatever in your teeth, you call another Uber and head down to Sand Hill Road to take your first meeting.
You enter the building. It’s got a beautiful minimalist aesthetic that was probably designed by a Japanese architect for millions of dollars. The receptionist greets you, and you get sort of settled and then you’re escorted over to the conference room where you see five dudes also in blue Patagonia vests (because it’s usually dudes who are the VCs in Sand Hill Road).
They are waiting to hear your pitch and you’re going through your mental prep. You do as best you can, you try to make sure that everyone’s not looking at their phones, and that they’re actually paying attention to you. Meeting 1 is done. Then you call the Uber, head to your next meeting on Sand Hill Road… 30 minutes later you’re at the reception… lather… rinse… repeat…
OK, if you had your eyes closed this entire time, you’re now welcome to open your eyes again and I have great news for you.
That BS song and dance in-person pitching may no longer be necessary because it’s post-apocalypse time. I mean, I work and pitch every day from my garage and it’s not in the Bay Area — but it is where I’m managing $50 million of AUM with my team.
Right next to me is a child’s potty, because we’re trying to potty train our two-year-old. This is totally cool, I have 8 little potties set up all around my house including in my garage. I’m smelling the potty, I have some garbage back there, and spiders are attacking me all day long. This is actually the setting that you should expect to see your VCs in moving forward when you go through your pitch.
It turns out that I think there are a lot of advantages to pitching on Zoom. But we’re going to expand our lens. It’s not just your pitch which we’re going to tactically address, but also discussing how to run an effective fundraise process, leaning into the fact that you can do this all online moving forward in this new reality.
One thing you should know about me is that I have raised a lot of money and I’ve done it almost all entirely through Zoom. This is almost entirely true for our previous and current funds, so hopefully that gives me some credibility.
What is the current state of VC fundraising? It’s basically this – we are beholden to our overlord which is the Zoom platform. This is the gold standard that everyone’s using. It’s not Microsoft Teams which is a little bit awkward still, no offense to all the Microsoft Teamers out there. Zoom is the place where people are going and the tool that people are using most for their pitching right now and I don’t think that’s going to change.
It took a little while in 2020 once the pandemic started for VCs to actually feel comfortable making decisions only online, and not being able to meet with teams in person. In fact a little bit of macro context on this is that a lot of VC funds, the traditional ones, had a very specific kind of protocol where the final steps were to meet the founders in person.
That seemed reasonable I think in the previous era, but in today’s post-apocalypse era it’s no longer happening and it took a little bit of time for people to catch up in my industry.
So I’m going to start with some very tactical things about pitching on Zoom and then we’re going to look at the fundraising process itself.
Let me walk through some of these things and bear with me if it sounds a little bit crazy. Take a moment to watch a tour of my workspace below. I’m in a garage. I’m usually standing or walking on my treadmill all day. I have a space heater for times when it’s a little bit cold. I have a gigantic camera.
Let me talk about some of the elements in my garage.
My clock: I have a gigantic clock and it is quite helpful as sometimes when you’re in full presentation mode, it’s impossible for you to track what the time is. Depending on what kind of software you’re using, it will obfuscate the time. Having that clock in the corner of my eye keeps me on track and on time on Zoom. Ending on time is really critical in your fundraising process.
Lighting: I have a cheap light that I bought on Amazon. Some people go with a ring light, but I just go with whatever is sort of soft and movable. It cost me $10 I think, and I have a ViewSonic monitor which is ridiculously wide-screen.
Onto the camera. When I’m on Zoom, it’s important that I’m speaking at eye level. Most of the materials that I click on are at the high part of my screen, so it makes it easy for me to have eye contact with the folks I’m pitching, aka the camera. I put the camera right in the center to be center-framed. I don’t put too much headroom above me and I have a decent-ish camera. It’s 1080 pixels because I want clarity so people can see my expressions and smiles. These small things make a difference.
The new eye contact on Zoom is looking directly into the lens and it’s a little bit subtle. When you can see me reading stuff, the eye tracking looks pretty good, so think about that kind of positioning. It makes it feel much more natural when you deliver a pitch.
Now onto sound. This is something that I learned over 10 years ago when I ran an education company. I had to do hundreds of webinars over the course of that career. If you were to spend just $100 on your entire audio visual setup, I would recommend spending $95 of that on sound. It’s OK for the visuals to be a little bit grainy, a little bit janky, and it’s OK if the lighting’s a little bit off too. But the cardinal sin is having terrible sound. This is where you get the most bang for your buck.
What do I use? I have a condenser microphone – it’s an Audiotechnica AT-2020 USB Condenser and it’s 13 years old or so. I have it on a spider mount and arm which allows me to reposition the mic for sitting, standing, etc. When you have a condenser microphone it’s important to point it at the range between your chin and the lower part of your neck – that actually captures much more resonance and bass. Why am I telling you all this? It’s one of those small details of having a meticulously framed pitch that reduces distractions.
Now in my case, let’s talk about why I work from my garage and why I don’t have a green screen for pitches or webinars or anything. I’ll be frank: I don’t want to hide the fact that I’m in a garage. This is my life and even when I’m pitching you’re going to see children running in and out so it creates a little bit more authenticity and shows I’m not trying to obfuscate anything. In addition, I think it makes me slightly more relatable because a lot of founders are also struggling. Like me, they have their own lives and they’re sequestered in places like garages, closets, and so forth because of their noisy, beautiful, real lives. That’s something that I want to present as a VC, to you, as a founder.
When you use your authentic background and show you’re not hiding, maybe you have a cute dog or an indoor succulent garden, it sometimes provides a fun talking point. If you find that there’s a little bit of awkwardness at the start, you can say, ‘oh yeah you can see my dog, I just got that puppy, sleeping in the corner’.
Another cardinal sin is a distractingly laggy internet connection. It’s very hard to schedule potential investors so make sure that all of your infrastructure is in place before you get them on Zoom.
The moment that we had to shut down our Hustle Fund offices, I went to Comcast and bought the most expensive gigabit plan. It’s about $70 a month and it turns out that it is the most critical business expense I could have made for this transition. If you’re in a region that doesn’t have good internet, you may want to consider taking more drastic measures, for instance looking into places near you, such as a hotel, where you can go to use their internet for the pitch. First make sure that they have a super fast connection because in some cases, hotels will charge you $25 to use the internet. It’s totally worth it, especially if you’re pitching for a million dollars or more.
Laggy connectivity is just one of those things that, for a VC, feels like a missed detail. When someone has slow internet, even if it’s totally not their fault, it doesn’t leave a great impression. During the height of the pandemic, some of the Hustle Fund team, despite living in major cities like Boston, chose to go to a local WeWork to get a super clear and fast connection to do Zoom presentations.
If, on the other hand, the VC has a laggy internet, maybe they are on a yacht in the Mediterranean, I suggest jumping on just a phone call instead. You don’t want the VC to have control of your fundraising process by them coming back to you suggesting moving the meeting to a time that suits them. Try and avoid that at all costs.
There it is, the setup you need to fundraise on Zoom.
Stay tuned for our next AFA article and I’ll dive into the details of your pitch and your fundraising process.
You may also be interested in How to Construct Perfect Slide Headlines for Your Pitch Deck, another article penned by Eric that provides excellent advice for founders looking to fine-tune their pitch deck. Or, if you’re ready to pitch, jump directly to the Acceleration for All page and get started today.
Are the headlines in your pitch deck there simply for decorative reasons or are you using them to tell the story VCs (venture capitalists) want to hear? In this follow-up article, Eric Bahn gives detailed examples of effective headline writing to get you closer to hearing the 3 words every founder hopes to hear from a VC: “Let’s meet up.”
Keep reading for a recap of the 5 most important rules of constructing slide headlines with clear examples of how to put them into practice, or see how ViewSonic and Hustle Fund are teaming up to provide new opportunities for entrepreneurs with the Acceleration for All Awards.
In the first article on this topic, I talked about the persona of a stereotypical VC who will take about 30 seconds, if you’re lucky, at the end of a long day to assess your pitch deck and decide whether or not to meet with you.
In this second part, we’ll walk through a fake startup example based on the tens of thousands of pitch decks that we have seen at Hustle Fund.
First, a quick recap of the rules we outlined in the previous article.
OK, let’s go ahead and walk through the Hustle Fund fake example from the presentation I did earlier this year on this topic.
In this example, it’s a startup making a wearable device that helps stop babies dying from SIDS. Like a little sock or something that alerts parents when the infant is sleeping in the wrong position or some other vital sign. SIDS is something that all new parents worry about – I certainly did when I became a parent.
Now let’s walk through the most common slide titles that we see in a pitch deck:
By far, these are the most common slide titles that we see in a pitch deck.
But do you see the problem here?
Again, let’s circle back to the sweatpant VC persona.
I’m in my sweatpants, I’ve got my Chipotle in front of me, and I’m tired…it’s like 7:30-8pm and I just want to go watch Netflix.
But I’ve got to roll through these 20 or so pitch decks that just hit my inbox. And I’m like, OK, what’s this company??? OK, whatever…Team. Problem. Solution. Market. Traction… What the HELL is this thing?! It gives me nothing! I can’t scan this and you’re forcing ME to read?! How dare you. You’re forcing me to actually do VC work?! What the hell!! I’m so offended.
This is an example of some really bad slide titles, so let’s try to see whether we can fix this. In this exercise, we’re going to go ahead and design better slide headlines.
So in this scenario, I want to only produce 5 slides as a teaser deck.
What I think is best practice when it comes to creating assets for your fundraise is to have 3 things.
Firstly a blurb – which is a forward-able, very quick summary of some of the sexiest aspects of your business that can be forwarded very easily by your friends and other investors to make warm introductions to anyone else. I think that is a really critical first asset to create which is just the blurb. And we’ve had past workshops on this before that you can check out on the Hustle Fund YouTube channel.
A second asset that is very important is your full presentation deck, and that could actually be pretty long, 20 slides or more, that presents the deeper, more nuanced case of why your team and your business are compelling to invest in.
But what I want to focus on here is the teaser deck, which kind of sits in between the blurb and the long deck. It’s often the asset that is attached to your emailed blurb. It offers more of a flavor of what your business is about.
One more thing to set up here. Pretend that this is a seed fundraise, not a Series A or B. So for any good seed pitch deck, there are only 5 elements that you need to make the case for to try to garner investment. It is Team, Problem, Solution, Marketing, Traction, usually with the team at the start of the deck for a seed round. But let’s just go with the existing structure of Problem first with this example pitch deck to keep it simple. So you basically only need just 5 slides for your teaser deck.
The goal you want with a good teaser deck (along with the blurb) is not an investment decision but just the sweatpant Chipotle VC typing back saying, ‘Hey, let’s meet up’. That’s it. It is then a chance for you to make your full pitch with the VC.
First, let’s start with the ‘Problem’ slide. I’m going to totally make up this data. Instead of just saying ‘Problem’, let’s go with:
‘Every year, 37,000 infants die in their sleep due to SIDS, and it’s completely preventable.’
So that’s the problem statement, which is a lot of dead babies. That is terrible and I don’t want to be flippant about it. This really did freak me out as a young parent and I’m sure many of you out there too.
From here we jump to ‘Market’:
‘We are in a massive baby boom, and this year alone 2.3m new parents will have their first baby. And everyone is fearful about SIDS.’
The title should fit into 2 lines maximum in the headline of a slide.
On the ‘Market’ slide, I would include things like statistics on the baby boom in the US, Asia and elsewhere. And then triangulate that into a total addressable market, size of billions of dollars, and so forth.
Let’s go with ‘Solution’ next:
‘We have created a simple wearable sock that monitors the vitals of infants and alerts parents if there is a problem during sleep.’
We can’t get any more straightforward than that! A cute little sock that you put on a cute little foot and the alerts happen. So this is the solution slide.
Let’s go with ‘Traction’ next:
‘Last month we trialed a crowdfunding campaign that generated 2,700 pre-orders of our product before it was ready for market.’
Oh my goodness, that’s pretty good… this traction. Now traction is, by the way, the one that we’re the most forgiving about at Hustle Fund, and a lot of pre-seed funds are the same. A lot of times you have only maybe the concept or a prototype already built out. Maybe there’s been one or two pilots or a handful of traction. So if you don’t have this yet, this is the least important I think at the pre-seed stage, possibly seed stage too.
Let’s finally end with the ‘Team’ slide title:
‘We are veteran builders in hardware and wearables with over 10 years working at Nike and Underarmour. We hold 2 PhDs.’
I almost want to tweak this one a little more because frankly, this is the most important slide. If you’ve ever viewed some of our past presentations on pitching, I generally like to see the team slide in the very beginning, but sometimes from a narrative perspective, if it just makes sense to put it in a different spot in your presentation, that is totally fine. It’s 70% about the team for pre-seed and seed companies. If the team feels right I’ll make the bet.
So let’s again go back to the setup. So we’re talking about this wearables company that is focusing on preventing SIDS.
We went from slides that said Team, Problem, Solution, Market, Traction. We understand the persona of the VC is this tired VC, probably a dude, again, the demographics are changing, fortunately. Anyway, he’s wearing stained sweatpants, hasn’t laundered himself for a while… pizza boxes and Chipotle and empty $100 bottles of wine are scattered around. It’s 7:37pm and he’s trying to actually just to blow through the decks that are in his inbox so he can just enjoy the rest of his evening, and watch whatever relevant Netflix show is on right now.
So how does this read – do the titles read as a sentence? Yes. When we read them together does it complete a full paragraph or 70% of what you need to know is here? Let’s find out.
Every year, 37,000 infants die in their sleep due to SIDS, and it’s completely preventable. We are in a massive baby boom, and this year alone 2.3m new parents will have their first baby. And everyone is fearful about SIDS. We have created a simple wearable sock that monitors the vitals of infants and alerts parents if there is a problem during sleep. Last month we trialed a crowdfunding campaign that generated 2,700 pre-orders of our product before it was ready for market. We are veteran builders in hardware and wearables with over 10 years working at Nike and Under Armour. We hold 2 PhDs.
OK, that feels pretty good.
You know I think I have a pretty good sense of the team, problem, solution, market, and traction. And for me, as the sweatpants VC, it might be interesting enough for me to reply by saying let’s meet up. Three words: ‘Let’s meet up.’ And that’s it. You can take it from there and hopefully present your full pitch deck which again will conform to some of these rules that we’ve mentioned.
So you’ll have a great pitch and then you’re ready to start collecting term sheets, or SAFE’s, or whatever you need.
Now finally to end the deck, your email and phone number should be on the last slide. And I’d suggest putting your email in the footer of each slide. Maybe also include in the footer a confidential disclaimer saying do not share, it gives people pause before they decide to share it and gives you a little more control over the distribution.
What to do when a VC wants a meeting? Think of this as a progressive discovery. It’s like going on a first date, you only stick to pleasantries. And then later in subsequent meetings, that’s when we air all the dirty laundry.
The ideal engagement sequence is the blurb, the teaser deck, then full deck and full pitch. You start with the pleasantries and then now you get really deep into the nuance, and the more time they sink with you the better. There’s a higher likelihood you’ll get the money from them. Telling your story in a very simple, clear, and concise way is the best chance of giving you a headstart in your hopefully long investment journey.
I just want to quickly add something at the end here. This exercise that we just went through ends up becoming a really really good practice for the rest of your team.
It’s just a good way of trying to align your story very clearly with the rest of your team and any of your advisors.
If you can get your entire company down to a few sentences, just like our exercise, then that can be distilled into any format, such as marketing, technical presentations and documents used in team meetings.
I think you’re going to find that you gain a lot in terms of how you can teach your team to pitch this deck. Your team will be armed with the key sentences to rely upon to pitch at any time.
This is when fundraising gets really interesting… when your engineering manager, who is not involved in the fundraising process, just so happens to be in line at Chipotle with me, Eric, next to them (not in my sweatpants).
She’s like, “Oh Eric, I see you on Twitter! If you have a minute between getting your burrito bowl, can I just tell you a little bit about what I’m up to?” She then casts her mind back and thinks about the exercise that she went through to refine the pitch headlines. She can now advocate on your company’s behalf too.
If you missed part one of this article by guest writer Eric Bahn, you can find it here. You may also be interested in visiting the ViewSonic workplace page for further insights into improving the productivity of your team.
In order for the flipped classroom approach to be effective within an elementary school setting, teachers need to first consider the best flipped classroom activities to utilize for particular lessons. After all, younger children may need a greater level of support to help them understand new information, while schools also need to contend with the digital divide and the reality that some students have better access to technology than others.
Keep reading for five of the best activities to utilize within a flipped elementary school classroom or visit the ViewSonic Education page for further insights into teaching with technology.
The flipped classroom model works by reversing the conventional approach to teaching, with students being introduced to new material prior to a lesson, allowing classroom time to be used for flipped classroom activities that help to enhance understanding. This then facilitates more active learning opportunities, as well as more ‘ hands-on’ teaching.
At the elementary school level, however, there are some adjustments that will need to be made. For instance, any video content or reading material kids are expected to consume at home will need to be comparatively shorter than the type of content given to high school or university students. Moreover, the proceeding classroom activities will need to be chosen carefully too.
Nevertheless, when the right flipped classroom activities are selected and utilized, this approach can be just as effective with younger children as it is in older age groups. In this article, we examine five effective activities to put into practice during lessons for elementary school students get the most out of this approach to education.
One of the most important concepts for teaching elementary school students is the idea of active learning, where students are engaged in the learning process, rather than being passive consumers of information. By its very nature, the flipped classroom approach attempts to embrace this, and collaborative active learning activities can help.
The precise activities that the teacher selects will depend somewhat on the topic that is being taught. However, the common features should include students being placed into groups, where they work together to apply the information they learned individually. This could mean problem-solving activities, practical work, experiments, etc.
By introducing a collaborative element to the classroom, students are simultaneously able to develop their teamwork and communication skills. Furthermore, the students can help further their understanding of the topic by sharing ideas, challenging one another, and discussing their thoughts with their teacher.
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While flipped classroom approaches can be extremely beneficial, getting the right combination of online and offline activities is important. This is a key feature of blended learning, and if students are going to be exposed to new information online, they need offline methods of furthering that understanding as well.
Simple think-pair-share activities can be ideal for this within classroom settings because they combine both independent and collaborative learning. Here, students are asked to sit individually and think about the material they have learned. From there, they are then asked to pair up with another student in the class.
Once in their pairs, the students will then discuss their ideas together and then ultimately share their thoughts with the whole class. Explaining concepts to another student can help them better understand the material while sharing it with the class provides a great opportunity for the teacher to ask further questions.
When the topics being introduced to students at home are slightly more complex, and the teacher needs to know that the concepts have been understood, sometimes it is best to spend the lesson time having a whole-class discussion. Within this broad framework, there are a number of different options, from informal discussions to brainstorming.
The main focus here is to get students to talk about the topic at hand and reveal what they have understood and where their understanding may be limited. There may also be topics where students hearing different viewpoints can help them think about the information more comprehensively, furthering their understanding.
For teachers, an important priority here is to make sure everyone is participating in the discussion. With elementary school students, as opposed to high school students, it may also be best to keep discussions relatively short to avoid problems with shorter attention spans, resulting in important content being missed.
Elementary school students learn best when they are having fun, so it can be beneficial to try to introduce games into the classroom. In particular, class quizzes can be a useful way for teachers to get a sense of where students are with their understanding, while also making sure the lesson itself is as engaging as possible.
A variety of free online resources are available, including the excellent ClassTools.net, to assist teachers with the creation of enjoyable quiz content. The precise format of the quiz can be adjusted to suit the needs of the lesson, but it may be a good idea to break the class into teams to avoid singling out the students who are lagging behind.
Of course, teachers should not feel limited to the quiz format if they come up with other ideas for games that can help further understanding. The concept of gamification within education is well-established, and there are a number of different ways to gamify a classroom, from introducing collectibles to playing party games.
One of the biggest criticisms of the flipped classroom model – and a criticism that is especially relevant with elementary school students – is related to the concept of the digital divide that exists between those who have regular access to a computer with high-quality internet, and those who do not have such access within their home.
A great way for elementary school teachers to combat this is through the faux flipped classroom approach, otherwise known as the ‘in-flip’. Here, the same basic approach exists, with students being introduced to material online, but this initial learning takes place within the classroom, at the beginning of the lesson.
As an article for Edutopia explains, depending on computer availability, it may be necessary to divide the class into two groups, with one group using computers while the other group works independently on something else, before they switch over. Once students have finished, any of the other four activities listed can be carried out.
The flipped classroom model can be applied within elementary schools with great success, but it is important for teachers to consider the specific flipped classroom activities they rely on during lessons. In particular, there needs to be plenty of opportunities for one-to-one interactions, especially if students are struggling with new concepts.
Moreover, it is important that steps are taken to address the digital divide. Not all students will have regular access to a computer with a reliable internet connection, and so adaptation may be required to ensure no students are left behind. The faux flipped classroom, or ‘in-flip’, is a great way to guard against this particular issue.
Nevertheless, activities like think-pair-share and group work can help to make lessons more enjoyable and will allow children to either put the information they have acquired into practice or better understand its relevance.
If you’re new to the concept of the flipped classroom model, you may also be interested in our previous article where we look at the many benefits of the flipped classroom. You can also find a number of other insights and EdTech solutions to better learning by visiting the ViewSonic Education page.
The flipped classroom model is quickly gaining popularity amongst educators around the world for the fresh approach it brings to traditional ways of learning and the numerous benefits attached to it. Yet, while the concept of the flipped classroom may seem simple at first glance, there are in fact many variations that teachers can adapt to meet the learning goals of each of their classes.
Keep reading for eight flipped classroom examples and how they differ from one another or visit the ViewSonic Education page for more educational insights and EdTech solutions.
In our definition of the flipped classroom, we explained how the model essentially ‘flips’ the two fundamental stages of traditional learning. Instead of students being taught the foundations of a topic in the classroom and then using homework and assignments to individually expand and explore the topic, the flipped classroom model requires students to acquire foundational knowledge through self-study at home before using class time to delve deeper into the topic under the guidance of the teacher.
Amongst other benefits, the flipped classroom allows teachers to spend less time explaining foundational knowledge and more time using their expertise to dig deeper into topics and further explore concepts. This new approach has proven popular with both teachers and students as it removes a large amount of lecture-style teaching and opens class time to a variety of group-based activities where students can take a more active role in their learning.
But how teachers choose to use the additional time they now have in class is what defines each of the variations of the flipped classroom model. In the next section, we’ll look at eight specific flipped classroom examples, what they mean, how they work, and when they might be most useful or viable.
The first example of a flipped classroom is the conventional or standard flipped classroom approach, which is what people tend to think of when discussing this topic. The basic model here is that students are given access to learning materials, usually through online video and content, allowing them to attend the class with a basic knowledge of the topic. Classroom time is then spent with students putting their knowledge into practice and expanding their understanding.
In many cases, this approach leads to more enjoyable and more interactive classroom-based lessons. It enables teachers to spend less time disseminating basic information and more time developing students’ understanding.
A group-based flipped classroom model is similar to the conventional flipped classroom, but an emphasis is placed on group activity. This means that once they arrive in the classroom, students are placed into groups so that they further their understanding of the topic together. This allows them to challenge one another, while their comprehension can be improved by learning how to explain a topic to their peers.
Some teachers choose to emphasize the group aspect of this model even further by including teamwork elements within the home-learning stage.
A debate-focused flipped classroom works as follows: students take in the initial information at home, then attend the class and engage in a debate, or a series of debates, with their peers. Various studies have found that the act of debating can enhance student engagement, while also improving learning outcomes. Debates can also strengthen understanding by revealing some of the complexities and different viewpoints that exist within a topic.
Furthermore, debates help to reinforce information learned at home, resulting in superior knowledge retention.
In a discussion-focused flipped classroom, students acquire information about a topic at home, often through the deployment of educational video content. From there, they attend the classroom and engage in much more in-depth discussion about the topic, revealing some of the nuances, broadening their understanding, and learning about different perspectives. However, this occurs in a more relaxed environment than you might expect from a formal debate.
This particular approach can be especially valuable for subject areas where context plays a crucial role and where questions may not have a simple or correct answer, with examples including History, English, Politics, and Art.
The micro-flipped classroom is essentially a way of combining the traditional and flipped classroom approaches, affording teachers some time for more conventional lecture-based instruction while still providing students and teachers with some of the benefits of flipping the classroom. A 2017 study on the subject explains that the benefits of the micro-flipped model, such as it not being subject-dependent and still allowing for more interactive classroom sessions.
The aforementioned study also compared exam results for those in a micro-flipped classroom with those in a traditional lecture-based classroom. It found that the students in the micro-flipped classroom enjoyed a two-point improvement to their course grades, with the benefits of this approach seemingly increasing over time.
Much of the criticism of flipped classroom-style courses focuses on the idea of the digital divide and what happens when students do not have reliable, frequent, or equal access to the technology they need at home. The in-class flipped classroom, or faux flipped classroom, aims to solve this. The basic approach is still the same, with online information followed by a more practical lesson, but the initial learning is carried out using computers in the school.
There is also flexibility here, as teachers can show the entire class the learning material or provide a period of time at the beginning of the lesson for students to all acquire the information independently. Alternatively, students may be asked to use computers in the school, but still do the initial work in their own time.
As the name suggests, the virtual flipped classroom follows the basic flipped classroom approach, with students taking in information from online resources first, but the key difference is that the lessons that follow are also carried out online in a virtual environment. This essentially allows the flipped classroom model to be utilized in situations where classroom attendance is not possible and for distance and hybrid learning courses too.
Depending on the situation, this can also be combined with in-person classes or one-to-one sessions. These may be held regularly or at agreed intervals in order to allow teachers to check progress more closely.
Finally, one of the most unique flipped classroom examples comes in the form of the flipped teacher model, which is sometimes referred to as the double flipped classroom. Here, students are asked to create learning materials, such as a video, in order to demonstrate their understanding of the topic. Much like the debate and discussion-based flipped classroom, this approach helps to reinforce what students have learned.
This approach also has supplementary benefits, such as helping to develop technology skills and allowing students to gain experience in academic instruction, which can be valuable for those who wish to pursue academic careers.
One of the biggest challenges educators face is how to keep students engaged during the presentation phase of foundational knowledge, which is often done using lecture-style teaching. The flipped classroom model largely reduces this challenge by allowing students to take in foundational knowledge at their own speed at home, therefore opening class time up to a number of more active ways of learning, such as discussions, debates, and group activities.
However, this is a broad framework with a variety of models for teachers to use. Debate and discussion-based models work well with subjects where context and opinion count, like History and English, while the faux flipped classroom is ideal for students who may not have regular access to a computer at home. Therefore, teachers will still need to decide which of the flipped classroom models are best suited to their students and the learning outcomes they hope to achieve.
To understand more about how technology is shaping modern education, read Blended Learning in Education 3.0, or visit the ViewSonic Education page for further insights and EdTech solutions for your classroom.
You’ve no doubt spent countless hours meticulously fine-tuning your pitch deck to the point that it looks like a work of art, but do your slide headlines tell the story investors are looking for as they skim through multiple decks in a matter of minutes after a day of meetings? In this article, guest writer and co-founder of Hustle Fund, Eric Bahn, explains the why and the how of writing effective slide headlines for your pitch deck.
Keep reading for the 5 most important rules for creating slide headlines that speak to investors or visit the Acceleration for All page for the opportunity to get funding and productivity-driven tools for your startup.
Founders put a lot of work into their slides, but don’t realize one major core truth – investors don’t really read your deck. Maybe they spend 30 seconds to 3 minutes reviewing your materials, but not enough to get very deep.
This is the first of two articles on this topic and comes from a presentation I did earlier this year, where I gave a tactical walkthrough of how to create better slide headlines for your pitch deck.
In this first part, I’m going to give you an insight into who a typical VC (venture capitalist) is and a bit about the way they will view your pitch deck. You’ll get an understanding of the reasons behind why writing better slide titles is so important to get a meeting and funding.
In the next article, we’ll dive into the details of writing effective slide headlines with a practical step-by-step example.
Investors (especially VCs) are inundated with lots of pitches every day and have to go through a super-fast information triage to assess which ones to dig into properly.
Think about the persona of the VC you are pitching to. Assume they are overwhelmingly:
Just looking at that list reminds me of what inspired Acceleration for All and how we’re aiming to level the playing field. But back to your pitch…
You need to make your deck skimmable, and do it in a way that resonates with how these investors were trained to create decks – focus on the headlines.
The 5 rules of writing effective headlines or slide titles are:
Let’s start by introducing the thinking behind crafting effective slide titles by digging deeper into the persona of a typical VC.
I’m sure many of you have probably tried to go out and raise capital before. And I’m sure that you took great care in putting together what you thought was the perfect pitch deck.
The colors were perfect, all the text was top left-aligned. The imagery and graphics all looked amazing. Even your friends said that this was a deck that was super compelling.
So then, when it’s all done, you take a deep breath and fire off your deck to a VC that you’ve been excited to pitch! You hit that send button…
…On the other side of the email inbox, there’s a VC jerk wearing sweatpants, he’s on his couch working from home cause it’s Covid, eating Chipotle. He receives your deck. He looks at it for 30 seconds and makes a mental note to automatically reject you and doesn’t even bother to reply to your email. You may never hear from this person ever again. What happened?!
Well, it’s complicated. A lot of things could have happened, but a common reason for a pitch deck failing in this scenario is actually something pretty simple – it’s poor slide titles. We’re going to fix that in this article and the next using an example that I’ve created for a company I made up.
I come from a product management background and personas were something I am so grateful to have been trained to do early on in my career. It is this idea of trying to build a characterization, like a stereotype, of the ideal person you’re trying to serve. In the case of products, building a product that initially serves the needs of that core person who you think will be your power user.
Personas also work really well when it comes to pitching. And I want to paint you a picture of the VC that you’re going to be serving.
So, it’s usually a dude. It’s usually a white or Asian dude. Let’s be honest.
It is changing, thankfully, but I just want to play on stereotypes. It’s usually a white or Asian dude who has possibly a green or blue Patagonia vest, just like Jared from HBO’s Silicon Valley.
He has the AllBirds shoes, goes to Burning Man, maybe takes vacations to silent retreats down in Big Sur, hangs out at the Madera Bar on Sand Hill Road.
I’m playing here on all these very big inside jokes, all these extremely annoying stereotypes of VCs. So only some of you might get this, and thankfully we’ve moved on from that era into a new more diverse era of VC.
But I want you to picture this person because a lot of times they still come from a surprisingly narrow background. They went to top schools, a lot of them come from banking, and a lot of them come from consulting.
Fun fact – I was originally hired out of college into a top consulting company, but I got fired after three months after they realized how terrible I was. But I did get through their analyst training program, and the top thing I learned there was about crafting pitch decks. It was pretty much all that I was going to be doing as a consultant. Designing these decks, these 100-page decks for the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to present strategies to boards and so forth.
The number one rule that they taught me was that no one is going to read your deck. At all. So all those fancy charts… the data that you’re putting together, they’re not going to read it at all.
But you do need to make the deck as skimmable as possible, and this usually relates to titles. So that you can just skim through a 100-page deck as quickly as possible. Those that are reading can capture most of the value without looking at any of the slide’s content too deeply.
So why are we talking about personas and why am I telling you this story? Well, I’m an amateur cognitive scientist, I really got into psychology and cognitive science late in life. I’m not trained in this at all. But there’s a simple principle in nature that I think really applies, which is like begets like. Meaning people who are similar are naturally attracted to one another.
If you present a deck that looks very similar or at least has some of the principles applied to what analysts at the Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey’s, Goldman Sachs, etc were trained to design and conditioned to design, like I was as an early analyst, then that is sort of an example of like begets like. It’s a bit of implied messaging showing that I’m like you.
This is my theory and I think it does work and it does produce incremental gains in terms of conversion to checks over time. Sometimes it is all about those increments and optimizations in the pitch deck that allow you to fill out your funding round.
There are a few things to understand about a great pitch deck so here are the 5 rules that I believe that everyone should follow. At Hustle Fund, we’ve reviewed over 30,000 deals in our careers across our team. Yep, 30k. So we’ve seen a few pitch decks in our time.
Again assume no one is going to read your deck, truly. Occasionally I see these decks that are super duper text-heavy. It’s like the founders are trying to produce this standalone product, this deck that could be passed around that provides 100% context about the entire nuance of the business. All this tiny text, disclaimers, data points, etc.
If you think about that persona of the VC who’s maybe seeing dozens of these things every day. He’s maybe earmarking like an hour at the end of the day after taking a bunch of meetings to look at decks. His sweatpants now are kind of gross from the Chipotle stains and all that stuff. You know this is a person that’s just going to be trying to fly through to put yes, no, yes, no flags on those decks as quickly as possible. So if you’re going to present something that takes 40 minutes to read, that’s a real bummer because humans are naturally lazy. Don’t assume that people will want to read a deep deck. That’s rule 1.
This leads us to rule 2, which relates to the size of your slide titles. The thing that people naturally do in these kinds of decks is just look at the biggest text, then try to grok what’s happening just from that biggest text. It just so happens that the biggest text on your pitch deck is going to generally be your slide titles. So keep that in mind – this is really the crux of this entire article.
Rule 3 though is where it starts to get a little bit less obvious. Each slide title should be a full sentence. I’m very very biased towards this treatment. I very strongly believe that if you can concisely summarize what you’re trying to say in one brief sentence, possibly two, but ideally one sentence for the slide, that is the gold standard and that’s what we’re going to aim for in the course of these two articles.
Any data or other information that you want to show, such as graphs, charts etc should just augment what that title says. It’s a very simple principle – the title is the most important thing. It’s a sentence at the top of your slide and then any information below that is just a pure augmentation of that.
So if I’m claiming the market that I’m serving is $5 trillion on my slide title, that’s a crazy number right, but then you present the OECD data in the slide and the Fed data etc that supports this fact, then the VC will be like this looks OK, I’m not going to read that but it looks credible from credible sources so I believe this slide so let’s move on.
The 4th rule is that the title slides should form a complete paragraph. When you read just the slide titles back to back that you’ve created into sentences, when you read those one after the other, they should form a cohesive complete paragraph.
The 5th rule is that from the slide titles alone, the investor should have a 70% understanding of your business. You have now armed your reader with 70% of everything that they need to know to understand your business enough to make a decision to proceed to the next step. Whether it’s an investment, which is usually unlikely, more likely it will be an invitation to talk or to meet to then get into more of the nuances of the business and the full pitch.
So those are the 5 rules.
A lot of founders sometimes hesitate and say, well, I just want to reveal as little as possible and you know, get to the meeting where I can control the narrative. I understand and empathize with that sentiment but I think it’s very unrealistic.
Even if you’re able to get to a full pitch with a Partner, what often happens is that the Partner is just going to share your deck with everyone on his or her team to try to get some different perspectives. So more people than you realize are going to view your deck without any inclusion of your own vocal narrative.
Because the Partner is just going to send around your DocSend link or just pdf it and share around your pdf, people are going to make judgments and decisions based on just this deck. And again, if it is very text-heavy or they have to do lots of reading, that’s a bummer.
Or to go in the polarized other direction – if it’s not revealing enough because you really care about your vocal narration in a real pitch – it’s not going to be sufficient enough to make a decision. So this is where the art of pitch deck headlines actually matters.
So let’s keep those 5 rules in mind for part two of this article (coming soon!) where we’ll look at some real examples of a totally fake company with slide headlines that get the attention you want!
If you’re a founder who is currently in the process of finding investors, be sure to also read Eric’s previous guest post How to Raise Capital Via Newsletter Updates. You can also visit the ViewSonic workplace page for other valuable insights and solutions for productive work setups.
If you’re a startup founder seeking funding, you may be missing the invaluable potential that lies hidden in your investor newsletter. As guest writer Eric Bahn points out in his article below, your investor newsletter is the single best platform to tell your story and, if you get it perfectly on point, it may be all investors need to make the decision to fund your startup.
Read on for actionable steps you can take to unleash the potential of your investment newsletter or visit the Acceleration for All page – an exciting and inclusive startup awards program powered by ViewSonic and Hustle Fund.
Eric Bahn is a co-founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund. Prior to Hustle Fund, Eric was an angel investor and partner at 500 Startups. Before becoming a professional investor, he spent over a decade as an operator (Facebook, Instagram) and entrepreneur (Beat The GMAT). Eric is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and attended Stanford University (BA, MA), which launched his career into software and startups. Eric is happily married with two kids, loves minivans, and helps lead the Hustle Fund team from his garage in the Bay Area.
Founders often don’t realize that they have a powerful tool for raising capital – their investor newsletter. This article will show you why an investor newsletter is one of the most effective ways to fundraise and how to write a newsletter that converts!
Your investor newsletter is essentially a two-pronged engagement campaign:
Your earliest investors are often your biggest supporters, they believed in you before anyone else did. Communicating with them regularly via a newsletter shows that you appreciate them and are bringing them along with you on your journey.
Investors are more likely to participate in your future rounds if they have been kept in the loop with regular updates. Make them feel part of your business and they’ll become your biggest cheerleaders and will refer you to their friends and contacts.
As you and your business are introduced to more people, the number of non-investors on your newsletter email list should grow exponentially over time. At Hustle Fund, our newsletter list of investors to non-investors is about a 1:4 ratio.
It’s important to keep more non-investors than investors on your list to build momentum and increase FOMO. When your next raise is coming up, you can signal this subtlety and elegantly in your newsletters.
An effective investor newsletter shows, not tells.
The content of the newsletter shows investors what you have been working on, what you are thinking the whys behind your actions, and what your plans are next. It is important to be transparent and honest. You control the narrative.
But even more importantly, sticking to a strict cadence shows that you are a persistent, mature, and disciplined founder.
We at Hustle Fund send out our monthly investor newsletter at midnight on the dot on the first day of each month. It is like a pulse. We have never missed a single deadline.
In fact, our very last investor said just by virtue that we were so consistent and transparent in our investor newsletters… never missing that date… became the key reason to push him over the edge to decide to invest in Hustle Fund, and with a pretty substantial check. Yay for us!
Your investor newsletters become like a time capsule of your business. It is fascinating for investors to look back at years of history from your newsletters to see the evolution of your business.
Again, investors love being taken on a journey. How you are growing a business from literally nothing and what methods you are using to track your progress. If you can take people on that journey, about why you are measuring certain things, and why they are the best measure of your progress – that is so fascinating, especially in pre-revenue businesses. This is all part of the storytelling.
For example, take the view of a Series B investor. They read the last three years of your updates and see the evolution from what you were measuring from the beginning and why, to your present valuation. It is interesting to see your progress, your adaptability and your growth mindset. It shows a sort of longitudinal view that doesn’t stop until your IPO. One day, you may even end up as the subject of an epic VC Twitter thread.
Take a look at the template we successfully use at Hustle Fund, and here we’ll explain a little more about our thinking behind the structure.
Investors are human too. A fun or personal update gives some color and personality to the newsletter and you may get replies back asking more about what happened etc. Engagement!
Include the good bits and don’t be afraid to put some bad bits here. Highlight any calls for help.
It’s fine to put this link this early in the newsletter. We’ve had surprising people contact us for a quick chat via this link.
They receive so many newsletters so it’s a good memory jogger, and they may forward it onto their connections who most likely don’t know you yet.
Ask upfront if you need help. It makes people feel like you can be trusted. This can be as simple as hiring recommendations or more substantial help.
Your investors never want to be surprised by bad news, or even by good news! By being transparent about the highlights and lowlights of your business, your investors might have a way to help you in unforeseen ways.
Include key metrics like MoM rev, burn rate, key hires, etc. Even pre-revenue startups have things they can share such as co-commits, media/branding, or partnership talks. The most interesting thing about what you measure is why. There’s usually something founders are measuring against. Investors love to know that.
Name dropping – people love to hear their own name and love kudos. It’s a good human thing to do. And remember your newsletter has multiplying effects.
Sometimes we have 20 names on ours with very specific examples. Putting thank you’s at the end of the newsletter is a conditioning behavior, they will read to the end!
Use open tracking tools to do some segmentation into who is consistently opening the newsletter and who isn’t so much. Track non-investors who are opening it and clicking through and who are not.
It’s not a perfect signal but it’s pretty helpful in case you want to slice and dice your newsletter audience segments with some more tailored engagement when you’re ready to fundraise.
Regardless of interest, always end a meeting with a prospective investor by inviting them to join your newsletter list. They will more often say yes than no.
When people do opt in, send them your last month’s newsletter straight away as a cookie. It’s a nice touch and conditions them about what to expect in future newsletters.
No is not a no unless it is explicit. Then, respect that. Take them off your list or don’t add them. You don’t want to spam and be a nuisance – it’s not good karma.
Assume the newsletter will be shared, so be careful about sending sensitive things like detailed roadmaps. Some information triage is required.
Publish your newsletter at the same time, whether weekly, monthly, or quarterly, and be very disciplined about it. It’s also a pretty good pulse check for your own sense of your business – it gives you a regular chance to reflect and course-correct. Share it with your employees.
Don’t be stressed if you do miss a newsletter deadline, just send it as quickly as possible. Investors understand life gets in the way.
Tease your next raise via your newsletter to your insiders first. The best newsletters have a clubby feel. The person reading the newsletter has an insider advantage to jump the queue – to pre-empt the allocation before the round opens.
The ultimate goal if you pull off a persuasive investor newsletter is you never have to do a pitch deck ever again. Ever. Investors will have seen your progress and they will fight to get in on your cap table.
This article forms part of a series of guest posts by Eric Bahn to help provide fresh startups with valuable funding insights directly from VCs. If you’re a founder looking to turn your passion into profession, check out the Acceleration for All Awards for the chance to get funding and win productivity-driven displays from ViewSonic for you and your team. You can also visit the ViewSonic workplace solutions page for more insights into tech in the modern workplace.
The purpose of standardized tests in schools is to give educators an objective, unbiased perspective of the effectiveness of their instruction. Although standardized testing was designed to identify the natural aptitudes of individual students, over the years some educators have found additional factors may skew the results.
Keep reading to learn more about standardized testing or visit the ViewSonic Education page for further insights into learning outcomes.
Standardized tests have been a part of U.S. education since the mid-1800s. But their popularity really skyrocketed in 2002 when the No Child Left Behind Act mandated annual testing in all 50 states.
Since then, there’s been much debate about whether or not standardized testing can truly measure education quality—and how much weight should be given to standardized test scores. Like most arguments, there are strong opinions and points to be made on both sides.
Some say that standardized testing is the best way to accurately and objectively evaluate students’ academic progress. Others, however, are strongly opposed—believing that achievement tests provide skewed, inaccurate results, and preclude many students from being able to exhibit their individual knowledge.
But before we delve into each of these arguments, let’s define what standardized tests are, what exactly they are designed to do, and what they are used for.
According to The Glossary of Education Reform, “A standardized test is any form of test that (1) requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from a common bank of questions, in the same way, and that (2) is scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of individual students or groups of students.”
Standardized test scores are used by districts and states to identify student progress, measure how students are performing in different schools, and compare how different groups of students perform relative to others. States also use these test scores to identify the lowest-performing schools and provide those schools with needed support. An important point to note is that standardized test scores also help decide the distribution of federal funds across the USA.
But are standardized tests truly fair to students and teachers? In the bigger picture, does this type of testing work?
Despite the criticism, standardized testing does serve an important function within education. Schools need to have a benchmarking system in place in order to measure the performance and progress of students, and the government needs to have a way to identify schools that need additional support. However, as pointed out, the system is not without its flaws and there are certainly areas that need to be addressed. Hopefully, with enough discussion of these criticisms, standardized testing can continue to serve the function it was created for, but a solution can be found that provides a more balanced result.
If you have found this article helpful, you may also be interested in reading our short series on STEAM education, beginning with STEAM Education: Preparing All Students for the Future. Or, for more valuable classroom insights and innovative EdTech solutions, head directly to the ViewSonic Education page.