Introducing For Founders Press

I’ve been working on an idea that I think you might like. I’m creating a series of 25,000-word books for founders. The first book, Pitch Decks for Founders, will launch in the Fall and we’ll have another book on Bitcoin shortly after that.

I’d love for you to check out the first book so I’ll be posting excerpts from it to this Substack for the next few weeks. You can sign up to get the whole?book for free here.

Here’s the Introduction from the first book, Pitch Decks for Founders. Let me know what you think!

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Introduction

“Send me your deck.”

Every founder has heard this request and, if you’re not prepared, the result has often been fear and confusion. What should go in your deck? How should you write it? What does a modern deck look like? And what if someone steals my idea?

Don’t worry. Everything will be explained in this short book. Our goal is to make you a pitching superstar by offering you two types of pitch decks and some advice on how to give the best pitches on the block.

Pitching is an art. The goal is to sell a product and that product, at the end of the day, is you and your company. Our goal is to teach you, an entrepreneur and founder, how to pitch confidently and sell your audience on your idea.

Pitching is a game. The goal of the game is to convince someone with money or time or talent to join you in your cause. In fact, the end goal of pitching isn’t always an investment. Most pitches end without any checks or contracts signed. A pitch is often the first step in a long process but, with a good pitch, at least that process has a chance to start. In other words, the founder’s journey begins with a single pitch.

Pitching is an art. Even if you’re good at public speaking, even if you have the confidence of a superhero, and even if you’ve pitched a million times before, every pitch is unique. Here’s another interesting fact: as a founder, there is a very good chance that you won’t be the best person to pitch your idea. Because founders are wrapped up in their projects, their dreams, and ambitions, pitches become some kind of bloodsport. The result is an uneven, overly confident mash of buzzwords and fear.

And neither of those will win you any prizes.

Our advice? Practice your pitch as much as you. Pitch as much as you can. And have confidence that once you master the tools we show you in this book you’ll be the best pitcher in the ballpark.

What You Will Learn

In this book, you will learn how to build a one-page deck, a ten-page deck, and how to pitch both types of decks comfortably in a startup environment. Decks come in all shapes and sizes, just like businesses. Our goal is to teach you how to pitch a startup, a company identified as a small business with a global audience. Does this mean you can’t use this book to pitch your food truck or retail shop idea to an investor? Absolutely not. It just means that we will use language and examples focused on tech startups but everything they can do you can do (better?).

Use this book as an outline for your pitch preparation. Whether you’re getting up in front of a roomful of investors at a big event or you’re facing down one person in a tiny conference room, the tools you find here will be useful.

A pitch is a way to tell your story and can be used to tell your story when you aren’t in the room. It is both a script and a self-contained tool that performs the pitch for you. In other words, it augments your story and can tell it in your stead.

Summary

When you are done reading this book you will be able to:

1. Build your own one-page deck (one-pager).

2. Build your own 10-page deck.

3. Create a “long” deck with appendices.

4. Comfortably pitch both your one-page deck and your 10-page deck.

5. Run a pitch meeting with a potential investor