Do you have a real startup plan or are you just 'shooting from the lip'

Funding, pitching and "becoming a unicorn" seems to be on the lips of most every startup founder I meet, who are building some "world-crushing" application.

The polite cold approach that I so often received is "I'm raising $Y for our 'Z'-series round for our "Uber for X" startup, and am looking for investors; can I send you my Pitch Deck"? Though often they aren't that polite. Investment is taken as a right, not an opportunity, by many.

So I'm sorry to bust your bubble, but I am about to tell you the cold, hard, honest truth, and it's going to hurt - a lot.

You aren't going to get funded, at least not without a solid plan, anyways.

Shooting from the lip, blasting out a thousand emails, and 'working the room' (whilst a good place to start) won't likely get you that magic bullet introduction to that critical investor. Despite all the "one in a million" introductions that you might read or hear about in popular press, it just won't happen. Why?

Most investors aren't at meetups - they are too busy working with the serious entrepreneurs who have already differentiated themselves from the pack of 100's of 'wannabees' through action & real progress.

A little hard data, and then perhaps I'll share a couple of alternatives.

• From idea to seed stage, less than 1% of pitched ventures get funded
• From seed stage, only 20% go on to raise a "Series A".
• Of those only 20% go on to raise another round of funding.
• More than half of the CEO's founders of funded ventures, get 'kicked to the curb' by investors
• Less than 0.13% of all funded ventures go on to become a unicorn.
• And it's usually only a very small actual amount of cash of that exit pool (if any), that is realised by founders.

Sure you’ve got a pitch deck and a product plan, but what else have you got?

Forget fancy pitch decks; most serious investors have already seen a 1000 slick versions of the AirBnb and Uber decks that you hacked for your own great idea.

What's your;

• Minimum Lovable product? - forget MVP - that’s for whiz-kids who've never sold a product before, and wouldn't know a 'customer objection' if it hit them in the @ss
• Value proposition? - the thing with which to test with frontier clients that people want to buy?
• Commercial Business model? - the way you make money?
• Sales model? - how you acquire customers?
• Service delivery plan? - how you deliver & support your customers?
• Team roadmap? - the number & types of people that each stage that deliver on your SDP?
• Culture plan? What you stand for in order to attract the fans, followers, funders, fanatics that will build & promote your venture?
• Network resourcing map? - from which to build your team & audience - how you reach the people that will evangelise your offering to their network?
• Creative Resourcing Plan? which is how you fund, resource & finance your life until your venture can afford to pay (typically 2 years), and a
• Marketing Framework? This is how you build your brand.
• Traction milestones?
• Current & future cap table.

Because if you haven't got most of these, AND have a plan to get the rest of the missing elements, save yourself the pain & tears & quit now, because you’ve got less than a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

Its going to take all you got to succeed, so you also want to be clear, committed & passionate, have a very clear vision, are prepared to put in the blood, sweat, tears & years, AND you can demonstrate that you are teachable, there are wise mentors that will help you on the path. I happen to know a few, but they don’t work with wanna-bees, so you'll have to bring your 'A-game'.

Are you really trying to build a business, or is your objective something different? Like a mythical unicorn? If so, you are just buying the kool-aid because that’s all 'they' are selling?

And by the way, if you are going to reach out to me and ask for my help, make sure you’ve read at least 5 of my other articles on LinkedIn before approaching me cold. I highly recommend "Are you a Beauty Queen or an Astronaut?"

"To Your Success", Daniel

PS. I've set myself a big bold challenge (have you?) - this is the 11th of 60 articles in 60 days. If you aren't following, commenting, sharing, subscribing, liking (or hating) any of my other articles, then what on God's earth are you doing reading this post? ;-)

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About Daniel

I'm a founder, mentor, advisor, venture investor, venture catalyst, accelerator, known as 'That Startup Guy', I am a co-founder of StartUp Foundation (The Startup Accelerator for Experienced Professionals. I am intensely, deeply, passionately dedicated to "The intersection between personal mastery & business entrepreneurship".

My goal is to help you, by guiding you through the steps, and past the challenges and pitfalls, to turn that 'Great Idea' into reality, whether it's a business, service, product, or to disrupt an entire market.

And if you've got an experience about startup success (or failure), comment about it. If you've got a question, reach out to me via your preferred social media. Other posts can be found here on Linkedin.