David Cowan, a Bessemer Venture Partners investor, blogs occasionally about venture capital, pitching, TED talks and startups.
HN commenters call it an infrequent but consistently good read, and cite its posts on elevator pitches, TED talks and Gladwell.
Great stuff by Leslie. He is also the author of Sales Learning Curve, a framework to figure out when to ramp up your sales force.
Likewise, technology companies shouldn't expect to sell their 1.0 product without undergoing a learning curve around the needed feature set, the competitive response, the right type of channel and sales rep, optimal pricing, etc. And yet, nearly every business plan I have seen shifts gears directly from Development to Sales, staffed by a growing number of experienced sales reps charged to sell their regular quota of product.
The consequence of skipping the Sales Learning Curve in a business plan is all too common: the company fails to meet the plan, sales reps are fired, eventually the VP Sales is fired, and the company has to raise a highly dilutive down round of capital to stay in business.
Leslie's prescription for success and capital efficiency is a plan that includes the Sales Learning Curve. Accept that until we're out there selling, we can't know what we don't know about the selling process. The goal at this point is to maximize runway, since you can't rush science. As my erudite partner and Harvard Business School Professor Felda Hardymon likes to instruct, "run the business like a one story whorehouse" (with no fucking overhead). Hire only two or three creative, guerilla-style reps and a VP who knows how to experiment with multiple channels.
It may take 4, 7, or 10 quarters to climb the curve. Only then, when your sales force is a…
Why on Earth would he go touch marijuana legalization with a 10-foot pole?
Well, if its good enough for TED, why not Reddit?
http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2012/03/best-of-ted-2012.html
Hands down, the best [TED] talk this year was from Bryan Stevenson on injustice in the US criminal legal system. For example, the number of prisoners in the last 40 years has grown from 300,000 to 2.3 million (primarily, I believe, due to non-violent drug infractions). One third of young African American men are in prison, on probation or on parole. Ours is the only country in the world that gives life sentences to 13 year olds. As for the death penalty, one out of nine defendants sentenced to death have been exonerated. in California a billion dollars will be spent defending and executing the death penalty in the next 5 years, although a referendum is on its way to re-direct those funds to police enforcement budgets.
What made the talk great was Stevenson's ability to weave in his personal stories, recounting memories of what it was like to grow up among activists like Rosa Parks. There was so much enthusiasm for Stevenson and his cause that TED Curator Chris Andersen jumped on the occasion to solicit donations for Stevenson's private foundation. Right there many of us stood up and, in aggregate, pledged close to a million dollars!
Slide illustrates "Stick to the point and say it in a single sentence. I know it sounds a little crazy, but indeed I’ve come to agree that a clear, compelling elevator pitch is essential to growing a business. (And I’ve paid dearly for the evidence.)" http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2006/01/practicing-art-of-pitchcraft.html
David Cowan, Bessemer Venture Partners, writes infreqently at
http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/ , but it's always a good read and in a voice consistent with Bessemer maintaining an anti-portfolio.
For business plan formatting, I always suggest this article by David Cowan: http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-to-not-write-business-plan.html
David Cowan captures it better here http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2009/11/gladwells-igon-value-problem.html