From the moment we wake up on Friday morning at 7 a.m., there isn't a minute to waste. This Friday, as with almost all Fridays, we will make five investor presentations - in rapid-fire succession.
We won't take breaks because there isn't any time for them. The minute an idea pops into an individual's head and he or she chooses to follow through, it's a never-ending race to launch.
Adrenaline pumping, I throw on some slacks and a crinkled shirt I wore last week, shovel some food in, and race over to Miles' house to pick him up. Dressed in similar attire, business casual with a dash of disorganized, Miles darts to the car with the Mapquest directions folded in his back pocket and we are on our way to presentation No. 1. The ride there is a non-stop discussion of personality analysis: Who is the person? What is his relationship to us? I tell Miles this particular guy tends to be very impatient in the mornings, and we should spare him all details that are not essential. Miles tells me that given his profession, we should focus on concept and steer clear of the financials. In sales we have learned quickly that a well thought-out, strategic approach to a meeting is almost as important as the content.
After we engage in our traditional pre-meeting fist-pound, Miles and I enter a living room, office, café, trading floor, hedge fund, or wherever else the presentation may be taking place, and we attempt to do one of the hardest tasks out there - raising money. How does one get a typically risk-averse person to shell out thousands of dollars to two 21-year-old first-time-around entrepreneurs with an idea? Good question. To make an analogy, we are selling a movie on a trailer. Yes, our products are in design and development, but we currently cannot present tangibles, which makes investors uneasy. It's a chicken-and-egg story. We need the money to make the product and we need the product to raise the money. So, we are forced to sell like nobody has ever sold before.
2008 Woodie Awards
