Larry Chiang scandalously shows granular tid-bits in how to start as an entrepreneur. He edits the Bloomberg BusinessWeek channel “What They Don’t Teach You at Business School”. After Chiang’s Harvard Law keynote, Harvard Business wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“ (its the same title as his NY Times bestseller). If you read his scandalously awesome “What a Supermodel Can Teach a Stanford MBA” and “How to Get Man-Charm”, you will like his latest post:
Founder Hacks: How to Hustle and ‘Work It’ at TechCrunch Disrupt
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by Larry Chiang
Founders in Silicon Valley are very book smart.
Now the oh-so shiek thing is to be street smart too. I know a li’l about this topic because I read and re-read this book written by a Yale lawyer that started a sports agency named Mark McCormack. The book, “What They Will NEVER Teach you at Havard Business School”, is at the heart of the tips that I will present:
-1- Bring up a customer.
If testimonials help conversion so much, why not just lead with the customer pitching for you.
No, it is not my crazy idea. I observed it at Finovate when Kasaaa’s John Waupsh sent up a cs major and a customer to pitch on BankVue’s behalf. The customer gave a case study. She disclosed she wasn’t paid. The co-presenter was on the development team and explained development. Founders who are CS majors pitching better than GSB and HBS grads was last demo class.
Join the future and bring up a customer to your demo pitch.
-2- Leave your founder in the front row
The first question in an investors mind is team.
Remember, most VCs do not understand you, your pitch or your area of expertise. They are pattern recognizers. The pattern you wanna broadcast is “The TWO people pitching are employees five and seven”. The pattern you want to broadcast is “Founders one through three” are in the front row. The pattern you want to promote is: We are going to be billionaires. Jump aboard.
-3- Give good oral
My film school professor told me I would be something.
I said, “Is it because I am a good director and compose good shots.”
He said, “No your framing sucks — It is because you give good phone”
I said, “Huh, so I talk good”
He said, “You talk well. You do well on the phone and that one task will carry you far”.
Well, I used it in my GigaOm post, “9 ways to close a deal via voicemail”
-4- Get Verbal Commitments
Founders can hack by not only calling interested investors but also tying down a commitment in-person. Getting a verbal commitment and re-confirming a verbal commitment is very street smart. Letting an investor wiggle free from their verbal commitment is even more genius.
-4- Food.
VCs take and get two lunches a day. They nibble on premium food all day. They order Evvia in.
At demo days they starve.
Hack demo day by getting morsels of food. Culture Kitchen may be a rounding error in the 500Startups portfolio full of tent poles like Twilio, SlideShare and DailyAisle. But I remember them because they served this Thai Lemongrass soup TO DIE FOR. Also, Culture Kitchen follows in the footsteps of winning startups hacking pitch competitions;
– RedBeacon (cupcakes won TechCrunch50), Plancast (pizza won FBrev), Duck9 (cupcakes, pizza, frozen yogurt, crack, salad won Fed Reserve, ABA, Stanford University, Congress and World Bank) and Mint (cupcakes for TechCrunch40)
-5- Brand Activate
Bright shirts are the new requirement.
Activate your brand before the investors leave the premises. An example is to have your pitch be your anchor event and then engineer satellite events. In addition to the food hand-out, have another satellite event. I love the tech afterparty. I recommend getting food for that too.
Q: Yo! Larry Chiang, we don’t have money for a hosted reception.
Larry Chiang Answer: You can do pizza and tap water*
Q: What if people don’t come
Larry Chiang Answer: You have a website where people don’t come… You’re not taking your website down 😉
Remember, its a party if five or more come. Plus it is five people that may end up telling more people.
Q: Larry, our founders are not super social. we don’t wanna do a 2 hour party.
Larry Chiang Answer: Have you heard of Minimum Viable Product
I recommend Minimum Viable Party. Host a short party. At SXSW I hosted a party for 11 minutes.
If you liked this… Larry’s mentor Mark McCormack wrote this in 1983. His own book came out 09-09-09. It is called ‘What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School‘ *** BONUS *** a party invite for you… |
This post was drafted in an hour and needs your edits… email me if you see a spelling or grammatical error(s)… larry@larrychiang com
Larry Chiang started his first company UCMS in college. He mimicked his mentor, Mark McCormack, founder of IMG who wrote the book, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”. Chiang is a keynote speaker and bestselling author and spoke at Congress and World Bank.
Text or call him during office hours 11:11am or 11:11pm PST +/-11 minutes at 650-283-8008. Due to the volume of calls, he may place you on hold like a Scottsdale Arizona customer service rep. If you email him, be sure to include your cell number in the subject line. If you want him to email you his new articles…, ask him in an email 
You can read more equally funny, but non-founder-focused-lessons on Larry’s Amazon blog .
Larry speaks on stuff they don't teach in B-school to help you get street smart in doing business. In college, he started a business that helps college students with their FICO score. He loves entrepreneurs, Ben and Jerry's ice cream and after parties. You can reach him at:
