We’ve Collected Some of Our Best Startup Lessons in a New Guide

Leader, fundraiser, product developer, marketer and head of whatever passes as HR at the time. These are the roles a startup founder has to take in the early days, and it's why you’ll often hear the phrase “wear many hats."?

It's a time that can be overwhelming, isolating and, of course, tremendously difficult. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t best practices that can serve as shortcuts that bypass common mistakes.?

And that’s why we got senior members of the BCV team to gather their best insights — drawn from their years of experience as founders, operators, investors and board members — to give early-stage founders a guide to each of those hats they have to wear. We’re happy to introduce to you “The Head Start”! Yes, that is a double pun.

We launched with 12 articles and a fundraising pitch deck guide, and will be periodically updating it with new content. We want it to be the kind of guide you bookmark and reference. Here are some top-level takeaways to get an idea of what’s in there.

Building a Leadership Team

You should definitely leverage your network, and your network’s networks, when you’re looking for hires. But time is of the essence and sometimes an expensive search firm is worth it.

“Give yourself a timeline to make a hire on your own, but be practical. At a certain point, there’s a cost to not having a leader you need at your company, and at some point you may need to hire that search firm. The value of someone being in a leadership role as soon as possible for an early-stage company is really high. If you need a VP of sales, you want them there as soon as possible, because every moment they’re working with you can have a tangible impact on your business. As you well know, startup time moves so differently than time at a big company, and so much can happen in just a month.” - Leslie Crowe, “How To Hire Your First Leadership Team”

Prepping Your Financials

If something isn’t working in the business, it’s better to be honest and upfront with your investors rather than attempting to spin it to look as good as possible.

“Founders can put themselves in a tricky position by painting a very rosy picture during the diligence meeting and leaving the investor to find the bad news buried in the third tab of the financial model in the data room. Not only do you lose the chance to control the narrative, you also damage your credibility. In the worst case, the investor is left questioning founder judgment and wondering if they even understand that there’s a problem. On the flip side, attacking any thorny issues head on shows that you are very dialed into the business, can identify and diagnose problems, and are focused on solutions.” - Saanya Ojha, “Preparing for Investor Due Diligence as Part of Your Fundraise Process”

Making a Product That Can Catch on

If you’re selling software, your tool needs to immediately show its utility to a user. Details matter — if an experience is 90% useful and 10% clunky, for example, then you’re not going to win over customers.

“The idea is not rocket science: Whatever is special about your product, whatever makes it 10x better than existing solutions — a new user needs to experience that as quickly and as frictionlessly as possible. This is really about getting ‘full credit’ for what you’ve built; if you’ve built a great product, the user needs to feel that viscerally.” - Slater Stich, “Making Magic Moments for Your Software Customers”

Telling a Story People Care About

There’s a time and a place to get into the technical details. But first, hook your audience by focusing on what’s memorable and relevant about your company and vision.?

“Most founders are product people. They eat, sleep and dream about what they’re building. That obsessive drive to get it right is what makes them great builders! But it holds many people back from being great communicators. It’s important to know what you’re building for internal reasons. Clarity and precision are fantastic tools for driving alignment among your team.But for the rest of the world of potential customers, investors and talent? There are bigger fish to fry. It’s more important at the earliest stages of your company, when no one knows you or cares about what you’re building (yet!), to connect your story to the wider world.” - Allison Braley, “How To Tell Your Startup’s Story in a Memorable Way”

Building Where the Talent Is

Establishing your company in one of the US’s two biggest startup hubs, the Bay Area and New York City, may be the best option for you. But a fundamental aspect of this decision should be access to the specific talent your team requires.

“If you’re building a startup that is innovating in the field of generative AI, especially at the foundation layer, the nexus of talent is in the San Francisco Bay Area, and so you’re at a huge disadvantage if you don’t start your company there. If you’re working on autonomous driving, you’d want to be in San Francisco or maybe Pittsburgh, given its access to Carnegie Mellon University. BCV portfolio company ShipBob is located in Chicago, which is a hub for logistics, and another BCV company, Kiva Systems, was based in Boston, a hub for robotics technology given the proximity to MIT.” - Ajay Agarwal, “Deciding Where To Build Your Startup”

Giving a Killer Pitch?

There’s no one-size-fits all approach to building a fundraising deck, but over tens of thousands of pitches we’ve found a few key elements the great ones all share. The key is to include these and have them ladder up to a bigger narrative:?

1. Problem and Solution
2. Team
3. Business Model
4. Traction
5. Market
6. Competition
7. Milestones

• Amit Bhatti, “The BCV Guide to Fundraising Pitch Decks” (you can also download our sample pitch deck on the Head Start landing page)

We’d love to hear from you!

Check out the full series and let us know what you think. Which piece are you finding particularly useful? What other topics would you like us to explore?

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This newsletter was edited by Richard Feloni.