[HN Gopher] Rules of Storytelling for Fundraising
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       Rules of Storytelling for Fundraising
        
       Author : domrdy
       Score  : 102 points
       Date   : 2021-07-08 06:20 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nfx.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nfx.com)
        
       | maverick-iceman wrote:
       | Storytelling is for movies..
       | 
       | For maximum conversion fundraising you need a rat inside the VC
       | firm so that you can retroactively put together a startup which
       | ticks all the boxes of whatever thing is on the minds of the
       | decision makers at the VC firm.
       | 
       | Any other tactic is being thrown at founders by gurus who either
       | got lucky using said tactic and now think they discovered fire or
       | even worse some mumbo-jumbo.
        
       | lmeyerov wrote:
       | super astute in pointing out there is the initial decision maker,
       | and then the internal sell: associate->vc->partners->due dil
       | 
       | Something this misses, in both cases, much of the initial yes /
       | no is often in the first minutes. it hints at it w putting best
       | stuff first, so worth being explicit on that. Ex: "Amazing
       | factoid about us X, like 100K people are using us to shine their
       | shoes 100X faster!". That makes the rest of the story draw them
       | in further, and should grow that: more excitement + less fear.
       | Otherwise, you've lost them before minute 5, and they will likely
       | only get more agitated & distracted as you go on.
        
       | RandomWorker wrote:
       | This gave me lots to think about. Lists like these are a great
       | resource to return to. Besides CEOs product owners could also
       | read this because making any product needs a story, or the sales
       | department also needs stories. Learning more about stories will
       | only help you.
        
       | halfmatthalfcat wrote:
       | I just went through making a deck for my startup and it's really
       | hard to not want to say everything on your mind and why your
       | startup is so great.
       | 
       | It is a constant process of tweaking copy, redoing graphics,
       | trying to distill your idea into small bite-sized chunks.
        
       | onion2k wrote:
       | There's a good episode of Metrics That Measure Up where Bill
       | Reichert (Garage Technology Ventures) covers this -
       | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/metrics-that-measure-u...
        
       | neom wrote:
       | These are excellent points and can be summarized into: Why are
       | you here and how did you get here? Where are you going? How do
       | you plan to get there? - With that in mind, of all of the points
       | they make, the most important one IMO is point #4.
       | 
       | Point #4 is so important, and I feel like a lot of people lose
       | because of this one. Sometimes you'll say something in the "how
       | do you plan to get there part", and then you'll really want to
       | delve down into why, this smart cool thing you've figured out.
       | You don't need to. If they ask why, tell them, if they don't,
       | just tell the story. If they ask why, _do not_ get into crazy
       | detail or operations stuff, partly because you 're probably
       | wrong, partly because to some degree you'll be held to it, partly
       | because there is a high chance you'll introduce
       | confusion/disagreement. I cannot say this enough, do whatever you
       | can to stay out of the weeds, if you're pushed, tell them you'll
       | email them later with the details, make a note, email them later
       | with the details.
        
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       (page generated 2021-07-09 23:01 UTC)