Pitch Decks

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Just like raising money – there is no ONE way.

If you are always searching for the trick or the hack, when it comes to these subjects I suggest moving on.

Deal flow is alive and well, which means I get lots of PDF’s sent in email and/or lots of meeting requests. I am not complaining in the slightest – I am fortunate enough to be in this position and grateful enough to know that having folks email or come in and meet me is a privilege.

I have some tips though. Take them or leave them. It’s up to you since I am an apprentice but I can always share what makes me tick.

I am all for a deck but the main thing to remember is you are telling a story. If you can emote the story without a deck. Cool. If you can use the whiteboard, a flip chart or even some play dough then cool. Whatever tool helps you tell the story is fine by me. I am interested in the story as much as anything.

Tips as a list:

– stay human and share the journey

– talk about the team earlier – don’t save it to the end

– a roster of advisors and investors is only interesting if you can explain the relation or how they help

– explain the problem you are solving – if there is no problem to explain then that should tell you something

– explain the solution – and then touch on how tech is used for the solution

– explain the various ways you might make money and who might be interested in paying for it 

– touch lightly on what might happen if you can’t make money or the main plan doesn’t work

– discuss what the funds will do to help you – be explicit

– leave plenty of time for discussion – do not have the goal of getting through the slides just because you made them. It is more important to cover the topics and have a healthy discussion. 

Storytelling…

Have fun. Enjoy the telling. Ask questions. Leave an impression.

Most of the details, fact finding and business modeling discussions will most likely happen in follow up meetings anyway. The main point of your first meetup or virtual deck is to leave a positive impression while you convey the story.

As always – it is a marathon. Not a sprint.

Raising money

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

I get asked a bit from friends and from people in my network about how to raise money or checking in on is A better than B when it comes to raising money for your startup.

When I came across this article today,  it resonated with my usual reply to people – anyway you can that works for you is the right way to raise money.

In other words there is no one way or the perfect way. The goal is to raise money in some reasonable fashion that allows you to reach your goals. Maybe it is an accelerator, maybe an incubator, maybe you bootstrap, maybe you get some from your family or maybe – you take some from a VC. 

Point is – only you can determine what works for you and don’t let anyone tell you it is wrong or not the normal way – there is no normal way.

Find a path that makes you happy.

OTT nuttiness in Australia

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I wrote this earlier today so it is fitting that this data is out about OTT in Australia.

In other words some of these countries do not seem to think that it is a winner take all type of thing in video and my guess is that when one wants to stream you cannot get everything you want from one provider. This is no different than say cable or terrestrial TV – there are many channels. Same with OTT – there are many providers and it takes 2-3 of them to get all the content you want.

Disruption

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

Picked up on this article by Steve Blank over the weekend – such a good read.

I have worked at a few places in my life – startups, corporates, corporates in decline (Yahoo) and joint ventures masked as vehicles for corporates to try and stem declines (HOOQ). All of them share critical components but the corporates trying to deal with disruption can be very interesting. They don’t have it easy but they also continue to display the classic behaviors that got them to where they are in the first place. 

I notice in the local space that there is not a lot of investigative journalism into the big corporates around Singapore. I am guessing it is too touchy of a subject or maybe doesn’t drive page views. Hard to say.

Having just left HOOQ I would like to say a few things about it since I am asked many times why I went from startup land, Spuul, to pseudo startup land – HOOQ. 

Let me list a few reasons:

– I wanted the chance to get to know Singapore Inc. more closely.

– I wanted exposure to Sony and Warner.

– I was generally intrigued by the concept – 2 big studios work with local telco to try and do something cool in OTT.

– The plan had a solid model – the plan that is. The execution – not so much.

I went into the gig with my eyes wide open. I would learn, I would network and I would gain much needed experience on how to deal with a big corporate giant, actually three of them, trying to innovate. I would have a seat at the board meetings – huge learning opportunity. Boards can help a lot if done right.

Lastly, most importantly for me – I would try and see if I could buck the trend of a large corporate trying a new way to innovate but normally failing. The model had the right ingredients – a joint venture versus a subsidiary, good partners, a worthy business to go after and funds. Most startups don’t have these ingredients but then again most startups also don’t come with any baggage. Usually startups have a green field advantage and the right to make plans as they go whereas a joint venture is immediately plagued with too much funds, large parents to make happy and long range planning processes.

Frankly – it is too early to tell what will happen. Right now the market for OTT in emerging markets is early days. It is all about funding, posturing and moon shots. Obviously Netflix and Amazon will be the largest global players. As I keep saying to folks who constantly ask – who is the Amazon of India – Amazon. Just wait and see.

However folks tend to only thing big and forget that there are some healthy niche businesses out there – take Spuul for example. Doing well, but most folks only want to hear about big fund raising or other PR noteworthy milestones as examples of success.

For video we tend to think of Netflix or maybe YouTube. Right now the YouTube of emerging markets is YouTube. The Netflix for emerging markets – is also probably YouTube cause free and piracy are still the leader around the emerging markets. The idea of building out a robust, and profitable, paid OTT service for the emerging markets is still a work in progress.

HOOQ has a shot but iFlix appears to have the early lead. Will guys like Rakuten, Alibaba and HotStar emerge to try and go big? Don’t know yet. Will Netflix and Amazon slowly take over? Possibly. Will Google eventually get it right around the globe when it comes to premium content? I think not likely. Apple – well, they just seem to suck at emerging markets when it comes to payment models so I am not hopeful.

The race is on. I will continue to armchair quarterback it and share more insights as I go.

Doing versus saying

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Lately been getting back into Seth Godin’s blog. Always a nugget or two in there.

Amazing his daily consistency.

We just came off a 3 day offsite at Jungle and we had some great, even heated discussions. As a new team we have a lot to learn about each other and we have much to discuss about our future. 

In my own life and work journey I keep thinking about my impact and my mark.

Realizing more and more that people love to talk – love to tell you about stuff but more and more I feel like talk is cheap. I am not saying this about just other people either – I am saying this about myself as well.

When I think about SeedPlus and what we are working on I realize that all I, or the team can do, is be able to look back after some periods of months, maybe years, and use our portfolio to speak for itself. 

It’s a scary thing to think about it but it is true. It’s a long game.

So stay tuned for portfolio announcements but note that it will take many moons to see the fruits of our work.

Choose wisely…

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

If you don’t already follow Suster on snapchat then I’ll give you a chance to go get that done now – that is if you use snapchat. 😉

I always appreciate when he writes though – here is one of his latest posts.

There is so much in it to dissect. Much of it I think is a phenomenon unique to the USA given the startup climate there and the proliferation of funds. When I look at Singapore and the regions I am focusing on, this type of frenzy doesn’t really exist yet except for a few deals. However there is a lot to learn from what Mark is saying.

I am going to pause here for a few disclaimers. I am totally new at what I am now working on which means I approach it with a beginner’s mind and with the realization that going slow is perfectly acceptable. I have a new craft to learn and it would seem that being in a hurry would just amplify my mistakes

I plan on blogging more as I share lessons from my new craft and as I try and explain what it is we hope to accomplish at SeedPlus. I am also not speaking for my team here since SeedPlus is a team effort. 

Just a reminder on our launch here.

Another post here on my personal journey.

Given all these disclaimers, I would like to share some of my own personal beliefs. When we launched SeedPlus the initial reaction was that this is just another seed fund. I have been hesitant to retort this much since I believe that actions speak louder than words. I am also trying to listen more, learn more, speak less and perfect my craft.

Yes – there are a lot of seed funds in the region. Is there room for more? Sure. Simply put – the region has so much growth in store for it that there is no end to the need for capital or for more successful startups to take the region to new levels. I feel there is no better time to work on global startups from Singapore starting from their seed stage.

Our goal at SeedPlus is to invest with conviction, bring our operating experience to the problem, and think about the long term potential of the startup. I know this a long game and it will take time to bear fruit. Therefore anything I say at this point is just sharing since the only proof of our work will come later. Given this, I feel quite strongly that we offer something unique to the region but again time will tell.

So just as the startups should choose wisely, at SeedPlus we also feel the same way about how we choose who to invest in. It’s a long game for anyone truly serious about creating a successful enterprise.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Updated :: More questions than answers on the facebook/liverail acquisition

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Now we have Facebook actually shutting LiveRail down. This is what I ultimately expected would happen. Tough industry…

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So what I originally feared has happened :: http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/07/facebook-liverail-ad-serving/

Quite a blow to some folks…

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Been waiting to see if there was any proper analysis written dissecting the Facebook acquisition of liverail – so far I haven’t seen much.

There is some good notes over at statechery – http://stratechery.com/2014/daily-update-microsoft-phone-wearables-office-facebook-acquires-liverail-google-right-censor/. But I think this is for subscribers only:

Small excerpt:

This is another very smart and rather obvious acquisition for Facebook: they have the best user data, while video ads are the fastest-growing and most lucrative (on a per-ad basis) digital ad units. LiveRail ties the two together in a very nice, and almost certainly a very profitable bow.

I subscribe to the daily update and the comments part of stratechery – https://stratechery.com/membership/. I don’t comment much but I read all the updates and enjoy them.

So far the general digest of the deal is video is booming and video ads will boom and therefor Facebook should get in on the action. Rumor has it that a huge amount of youtube referral traffic is from Facebook but that Facebook doesn’t capitalize on it well. I am not sure this helps that issue much unless Facebook intends to build a proper video product and keep that action in the stream. If that were the plan then Facebook needs video advertising kit and liverail would obviously be a great fit.

What I am not seeing many people talk about is what happens to the customer centric side of or the b2b/b2b2c side of the liverail business under Facebook? I have no previous experience of integrating a product that one uses to build a consumer product that then is acquired by Facebook. We are not talking about things like Instagram but what liverail is for most people is something they don’t see. Consumer facing products like Spuul, for example, use liverail to power our video advertising. Something that really has nothing to do with Facebook or their goals. So I am curious to see what will eventually happen here. One thought is liverail gets better and due to the money, vision of Facebook they turn the platform into a full-scale offering to compete with google in the video ad space(doubleclick/adx). This would be the vision of Facebook starting to rival google in all things advertising and is not anchored to the Facebook product. Sure maybe user data and such helps here but the idea is I don’t need Facebook when I use liverail but that the product gets better at targeting/profile when Facebook is integrated. This might be cool.

The other idea, not the one I am hoping for, is that liverail starts to inwardly focus on being a tool for Facebook advertisers and becomes less and less the ecosystem play to rival google. I think one has to watch the technology or product direction some to see what happens. For example liverail missed the instream video ad play and is now playing catch up. Google acquired a company to solve this problem cause google is in it to win it. Liverail might also be able to win it with the Facebook backing.

A lot of companies also use liverail to build their own SSP’s in certain regions since this is a niche play but most folks don’t want to recreate the core ad plumbing. Time will tell if Facebook continues to support this use case of liverail.

For now I don’t know how to read the tea leafs here. Liverail must have wanted the exit versus going public. Good for them but now we are down one piece of independent plumbing used to make video ecosystems. This could be bad or possibly under the Facebook umbrella it actually gets more powerful.

Watching and waiting…

Out of the armchair and onto the field…

~ michael_msft ~ 8 Comments

Karma.

Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म; IPA: [ˈkərmə] ( listen); Pali: kamma) means action, work or deed; it also refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect where intent and actions of an individual (cause) influence the future of that individual (effect).

When I was younger I should have thought about this more but fortunately I hit a point in my life where I started to grasp cause and effect. I wish I hit this self realisation sooner – but no such luck.

The basic principle for me is that you will do good and bad things in your life and those actions will someday come back to you. Its a simple concept and if you grasp it then the meaning is also simple – do as much good as possible. Empathize. Be nice.

I can recall in my early career not always being nice. I wish I could take those moments back. I can also recall lots of good interactions that years later came back to me in good ways.

I always remind people that everything is about people. Everything. Be good to people and they, plus the earth, will be good to you.

I feel like my career is finally where I want it to be. Yes – I am 44 and some people reach their career goals earlier. Some later but I had ideas of where I wanted to be and I think I have finally found the sweet spot. My nirvana. I owe a lot of it to karma. And sheer luck.

Let me touch base on this luck thing since many times you read about or meet successful people and never hear them talk about luck. I am sure you have also met or read about people who are not so successful. Guess what? It might be that only luck is the dividing line between success and not having success.

I try to think that karma helps to increase my chances of getting lucky.

I feel lucky.

My first gig was a dishwasher at the local restaurant where I grew up in Alta, CA. The job sucked but I got a free meal, got paid and I could ride my bicycle or walk to work. I learned a lot.

After that I worked with my parents at a camp ground they managed – cooking, cleaning, helping with events and doing whatever was needed. It was fun. Learned more.

During one of the summers in my teenage years I worked cooking breakfast for male and female prisoners who were fighting California’s largest forest fires at the time. I cracked a lot of eggs. Fried a ton of bacon. I served the food behind bars. I was freaked out. I learned things.

As I was closing out my home school final years, I started working as a dishwasher at Dingus McGees. Used to be a famous steak joint in Colfax that folks heading up to Tahoe to ski would stop at to chow down. After a few years there I was a prep cook and working the line. Ever read Kitchen Confidential? Yeah – that world is true. That was my school of hard knocks. After that I wanted out of the kitchen forever.

After the kitchen I went semi-corporate. I started working at a small regional bank in the warehouse and drove around to the branches delivering stuff and helping the maintenance guy. In between doing grunt work I would hang with the IT guys learing foxPro and Clipper. This gig mostly got me through my A.A. degree in Computer Science.

With the banking career over I went for a help desk job at State Net, at the time the leading provider of legislative data for all 50 states in America. I answered the phones and email, helping customers reset their modems and debug their SQL queries. During my shifts I started coding more and was given random Perl and Ansi C work. This grew into being a full time dev doing everything from Visual Basic to Emacs to C. I learned a ton. I also discovered I loved computers but sucked at coding. Sucked. They used to keep coding samples around to showcase horrible work – it was my code.

I went to the Sun Microsystems Java Day and from that moment on I wanted to code Java – so I left State Net and went to work at a marketing agency as their first coder. I made websites and applets. It was fun. I learned a lot about marketing.

I got bored and decided to take another job that required me to be the resident Java expert at company using data to help large corporations lower their legal bills. Of course since I ran the Sacramento Java Users Group – I was the Java expert. 😉 The good part was I was able to hire people who could code and away we went. That gig lead to me speaking to a VC about a round in WebLogic, who was raising at the time, and then that got me an interview, full days worth, which landed me a job as a Sales Engineer. I covered half the globe. I didn’t need to code anymore. Just pretend I could and talk about tech and – sell. I am a firm believer in the Mark Suster view of the world that everyone should carry a bag once in their corporate life. Why – you learn about convincing someone to part with their money in exchange for a service or product. Training ground for any entrepreneur.

My WebLogic run was the best startup experience of my life. Bar none. 

I should have never have left WebLogic but I got cocky and thought I could go play startup CTO at a place called MetaMarkets. Helped the founders to burn through 17 mil USD in capital building product, data center and a customer base. Dot com crash hit and I was out. But I got an Aeron chair out of it.

Fortunately BEA, the company who bought WebLogic, took me back. Offered to move me to London or Hong Kong. Of course Asia is where it is at and boom. My 1 year assignment turned into 4.5 years in Hong Kong with some months spent in China. I didn’t want to stay in China so I bailed on the job and moved to Bangkok.

I think my Bangkok years were my mid life crisis in my 30’s. I went into the F&B business. Was terrible at it but again I learned a ton. People management, crisis management, dealing with the mafia and all the nutty stuff that comes with doing a nightlife business in a crazy city. Fortunately, I survived it.

This is where I cashed in some Karma points. I was lucky to get called by a recruiter who knew me about a Yahoo role and then I called ex WebLogic people who were working at Yahoo to help get me over the hump. Within weeks I went from the unemployment line to a great gig.

At Yahoo I met one of the founders at Spuul who offered me a great, flexible role working on video. I learned a ton there and met some great people. That experience lead me to HOOQ which again, might not have been the best spot for me, but I learned a ton about management and big company politics. Which is certainly very valuable.

Then over a lunch one day I was talking with David Gowdey, who I did the Koprol deal with at Yahoo, about Jungle and suddenly I was interviewing again. Did I think I would become a VC? Not really but I did get a taste of things while I was advising for Hian GoH and his crew at NSI which made me think that I might like to be an investor versus being a product guy.

So life is one strange trip. I am lucky to be here. I am thankful to everyone who helped get me here. I am back to learning and I hope to make my mark in this space. Stay tuned for more.

Long read. I know.