1/31/2006 07:16:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Did you hear about the web20map? It's cool and we are on it with only 2 other Web2.0 companies in Europe. Only uncool thing (and not very WebWhateverVersion) is that they concentrate the map on north america. You have to scroll to see the world. Come on guys, think big, think global, think web2.0!|W|P|113872113045442072|W|P|Put a Fleck on that (web20map)map!|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/31/2006 08:12:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Thanks for the link Boris. I do apologize for the lack of international representation as I realize there is a vibrant international community. I wanted to tackle geocoding those, but it was beginning to get a little time consuming even for the N. American ones (for which I already had a geocoder app working). So I put it out there and hoped people would send us the coordinates. It will get there. I'd encourage the international teams to email us the lat/long, url, short description of their sites and we'll get them added. (contact@fourio.com)1/31/2006 11:33:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|In my post I said that Ryan's wasn't being very WebWhateverVersion with his map. That might be so but he sure is very Web2.0 by posting a reply to my post within the hour. I guess he is monitoring his refferals as frequently as I am...1/31/2006 08:59:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Unfortunately, yes, it's very addicting to watch those referrals on a hot page :-). The link: search on Google's blog search is also very fast (using the feed) and that's how I noticed your post.1/31/2006 03:40:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|We are trying to release a product without bugs (duh!) but we are sure that we will have our fair share them when we go live. That's just the way it works. So it's comforting to see that even Google still has it's bugs. Don't believe me? Try it yourself: Go to Google Click on Advanced Search [http://www.google.com/advanced_search] Go to the "Page-Specific Search" field Enter 'www.fleck.com' in the field titled "Links" Do a search. Nothing.. Now do it again but on the result page add one space between 'link:' and 'www.fleck.com' and search again. Aha! 578 results! Try again for any URL... So somehow that damn search field only works with a space between those links. I tried it on several browsers and on a mac and on a PC. Same thing everywhere. If you try Google.com without a space you get 3.5 million results. Add the space and you will get 14.5 million results... A market cap of 126 billion dollars and there is still room for bugs. Cool... UPDATE: Loren Baker from Searchenginejournal.com took the time to explain what the real problem is. It turns out the Google form itself isn't buggy but the Link Tracking Search is. Although Google knows that there are hundreds of pages linking to Fleck.com and shows this in an normal search (try 'fleck' and see the 5th link) it suddenly forgets this when you use the Link Tracking feature. Loren Baker: 'Yep Boris, that's the bug, Google's link tracking is more or less broken. :) It's kinda old news for the SEO types out there' Sigh, and I thought I was on to something.|W|P|113870872312691364|W|P|Bugs: nobody is perfect (or: Google is broken)|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/31/2006 01:54:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|If you read 'Never Eat Alone' by Keith Ferrazzi you know that good networking is key to leading a successful life. At the office we are all proud of the people we know and the network we have build around us. The way we go about networking is not by trying to be interesting but by trying to be interested. But when you are working at a start-up, with a secret product, you become interesting. This means that networking is even easier because now we are interested in people who are interested in us too. In the last 3 months we have emailed, spoken to and had lunch with a whole bunch of people who we didn't think we would ever meet before we started. Mind you; they didn't all like what we pitched to them or agreed with what we are planning to do so this isn't a list of supporters. The reason I list these names is, well, to brag a little and thank them for their support, or constructive criticism. In December we spoke with the master of Social Networking: Reid Hoffman We didn't even realize until 10 minutes into the meeting that he is the founder of LinkedIn. The conversation didn't go that well until we started asking questions about LinkedIn and started being interested instead of interesting. He cheered up, told us a bit about his experiences and then gave us a few great tips for our own business. Scott Rafer has been very supportive since we first told him about our ideas back when it wasn't much more than an idea. It is just great to speak with people like Scott who bring so much energy to a meeting. One hour with him is the equivalent to 10 espresso and 5 cans of coke. I only wish we could speak with him more often. There are also a few VCs which emailed me after the '10 tips for a perfect pitch' post with compliments or suggestions. I kept emailing with a few of them for extra information and we are now connected. I think this is a very good way to get in contact with a VC, don't mail them your businessplan: write a blog that they like and let them contact you! I wouldn't suggest to anyone that to expand your network you might as well start a company but we do see it as a nice side effect.|W|P|113870357643239469|W|P|Starting a Start-up as the ultimate networking tool?|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/29/2006 03:24:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Everybody is watching Yahoo as they buy their way into Web2.0 with the acquisition of Flickr and del.icio.us and maybe soon Digg. People wonder what Yahoo's strategy is with these acquisitions. We can all guess at the added value to their search engine, the future of tagging and how Yahoo has to buy it's way into innovation to keep up with Google. And as with every acquisition of a smaller player by a bigger player there is the recurring 'Buy or Build' decision and discussion: 'Del.icio.us only had 300.000 members!', 'how hard would it have been for Yahoo to build their own photo upload service?' and 'They would never buy Digg because they could build a system like that themselves'. The truth is, I think, that Yahoo bought 'Entrepreneurial Spirit'. Ok, these small companies also have some technology, a few members, a little revenue and great PR but that wasn't the main reason to buy them. The truth is that big companies don't innovate. They can't. And I have a simple anecdote to prove this to you. In 2003 I sold my small company (15 FTE) to a large company (18.000 FTE). They replaced me as the CEO and I worked as an advisor for a few months. One day I was on the phone with the new CEO and he sounded depressed. I ask what the problem was and he told me he needed 4 photo's for a mock-up brochure for a pitch on wednesday. It was thursday when he told me this. He told me he asked for the 4 photo's and was told it would take 10 weeks to produce them. I laughed and offered to get him the pictures by monday evening. 'You could do that?' he asked in disbelief. 'Sure, no problem' I replied. So I called a photographer and asked him if he could take the pictures for me on monday morning and what that would cost. He responded 'For you, I'll do them for free' and I said 'That is very kind but I'll pay you €1000 anyway'. Then I called the best looking girl and guy I know and asked them if they would like to pose for me on monday. I'd give them €100 for their trouble. So on monday we did the photo-shoot, developed the photo's, had them digitalized and I delivered them on monday evening. Then I send them an invoice for €2500 and kept the difference, about €1000. So, the next week I had a meeting with the CEO of my old company and he kept thanking me for the photo's. He pitched their product to the client and the client was really impressed with the brochure and the pitch and had signed the contract right away. The CEO was so happy I started feeling guilty about the €1000 I made on the deal. But then I asked him 'So why did it took your company 10 weeks to get those photo's'. He smiled and answered 'They would have had to assign a project manager to it, he would have had to go find a photographer, set-dresser, make up artist, modeling agency and location scout and they would have hired a stylist too'. I was silent for a moment and then asked 'Well, how much would that all have cost?' and he answered 'between €35.000 and €45.000'... You can imagine I don't feel sorry about the extra €1000 anymore. But besides being a funny story there is also a lesson to be learned here. While we were negotiating the price for our company they told us 'This is a buy or build question for us. You do understand we have over 18.000 people working here so we could copy your concept within a day'. That sounded very real to us at that moment. In reality however a big company can't do anything in 24 hours. It will take a week just to get a meeting with the first person of the 100 people you need to reach and convince if you want to do anything. And then there are budgets, targets and other projects that take up all resources or seem to be more important to the CEO or your manager. So, back to Yahoo. What exactly did they buy? They bought Entrepreneurial Spirit. The spirit to think of something and just doing it. Even though it is a weekend, middle of the night or you haven't checked with your boss yet. That is what they bought, and they admit it. Here is a quote from the december issue of Business 2.0 from an article titled 'The Flickrization of Yahoo'. The quote is by Horowitz, Senior director of Yahoo's technology development group: '"I met Stewart and Caterina and fell in love" Horowitz recalls. "It was beyond Flickr. I saw them as kindred spirits, entrepreneurs who could infect Yahoo with that small-company focus"' There you have it. I rest my case. This is the true reason Yahoo has bought Del.icio.us and Flickr. So the next time a VC or potential investor asks you 'But what about the big companies, why wouldn't they just assign a few thousands programmers to this and blow you out of the water. They have 10.000 programmers!' just send them a link to this story.|W|P|113854392357157992|W|P|The truth behind the Flickr and del.icio.us acquisition|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/29/2006 11:20:00 AM|W|P|Blogger BillyWarhol|W|P|i had read where Caterina was heading up Yahoo's My Web2.0 - which is similar to delicious but kinda cheezy looking. i think they did the smart thing buying the market leader in social bookmarking & not trying to reinvent the wheel.

Yahoo is buying the key pieces to the Web2.0 puzzle & along with that large groups of enthusiastic users & as U pointed out some very creative mindz*

;))1/29/2006 11:31:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Hi Boris, I totaly agree on your post!1/29/2006 02:37:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Very well explained. Atleast now I dont think that "Big shark ate small fish".1/29/2006 06:25:00 PM|W|P|Blogger sfong15|W|P|This is what professional managers call system. For big companies you need systems, i.e. lots of gears connecting each little part of the company and associated companies making sure they all behave they way they are designed to. CEO maintain control using these gear trains. The downside of course is speed and creativity as professional managers don't deliver products but they manage.

You do need system for large corporation. It's a dilemma for small creative companies getting big, let's see how Google do that.1/31/2006 02:24:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|I work for a small software company, and we are quite successful with our niche products. A couple of years ago we were approached by one of the "big guys" in our niche, asking for an OEM of our product.
Of course we agreed, but we had no illusions that they are simply buying time, that we are simply an intermediate solution while their huge R&D works on their own solution. We figured that we maybe have 2 years, and once they have their own solution a significant part of the market would be lost to us. So while working on this product, we started to develop another product to be prepared for the time when our OEM partner will be a competitor.

This has been 6 years ago. They still have no product of their own, though we know from a reliable source that they actually tried but have buried the project soon after. In fact they are still selling significant amounts of our OEM. We on the other hand are in the lucky position to have started the second product so now we have two major footholds in our niche.

Please understand that I prefer to stay anonymous.1/31/2006 02:26:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Hello 'Anonymous', thank you for sharing that with us! Boris2/03/2006 04:55:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Sometimes it is about fit, and sometimes it is about taking a competitor out of the market. Can you maintain innovation and creativity in a large organisation? My view is that it is only possible if you don't mind taking the heat.1/28/2006 08:27:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Disclaimer: This post has nothing to do with Fleck technology I shave. I'm a guy. I have to shave. This means I also have to buy shaving tools. And I own quite a few. Depending on mood, humidity of the air and my skin, time of day and people present I either use a Gilette razor with cream or a electric shaving tool from Philips. As with every other acitivity I undertake in life every time I shave I try to think of ways to improve this system. The tools also inspire my thoughts ofcourse with recent innovations like 2, 3, 4, 5 blades on one Gilette razor and added electricity for extra vibrations for an already shaky hand. last week I came up with an innovation that I'm sure is easy to add and would make Gilette or any other razor company more money: the Sharpness indicator This is how it works: on each individual blade they add a small plastic clip. The first one is red, the second yellow and the third is white. When you shave you break off the white tip. The next time you shave and use this individual blade you break off the yellow tip. You are now entering the Red zone! Then the third time you shave you try to break off the red tip but that one won't break off. That willl be Gilettes signal to you that you are shaving in the red zone now. A zone where hairs are torn out by the root because you are using dull blades. Get it? I think most people use their blades 5 or 6 or even 20 times before replacing them. I don't even know how many times I use a blade. I just look at my blade with a blank stare and try to determine if I should or shouldn't throw this one out and get a new blade. So, do you work at Gilette or some other shaving company? Well, what are you waiting for? Introduce the idea on monday and send me my money before the end of the week. You know I deserve it...|W|P|113846649924212465|W|P|Shaving innovation|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/29/2006 11:25:00 AM|W|P|Blogger BillyWarhol|W|P|i use Schick blades which used to be coated in teflon & are very smooth* i then use a Panasonic wet/dry which is very unique in that it uses a Linear 13,000 rpm-like motion which is great*

highly recommended*

;))1/30/2006 11:27:00 AM|W|P|Blogger rafer|W|P|"I have to shave."

That's simply untrue.1/28/2006 06:51:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|I own almost every Wired Magazine published including the hard the get first editions. The technology behing Fleck was invented on sunday while reading one particular article in Wired. Every month I look forward to getting my next issue of Wired. One day I hope to make it into Wired magazine or even better: make it to the cover of Wired magazine. One of my friends, Scott Rafer, got quoted in the february Wired magazine which I just bought about an hour ago. It is just a quote but it makes my week. Just knowing someone who makes it into Wired is great for me. Here is the quoted article: http://rafer.wirelessink.com/?p=10 |W|P|113846110960322620|W|P|Scott Rafer: Fake It Till You Make It|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/29/2006 11:36:00 AM|W|P|Blogger BillyWarhol|W|P|i Luvv the brilliant Neon Pinks n Greens n Yellows of the Wired Spines* they look way cool on a bookshelf*

i came across an awesome technology called 3D Fax in Wired - it allowed U to compress an 80 page Fax into 1 page & send it Encrypted*

it had a beautiful viral effect that U could give the Receiver the Reader for Free* but once people used it who wouldn't want to save lots of $$$ faxing??

Big Corporations that's who!

atanyrate the market went Email altho i still suspect a lot of things get Faxed still*

it always blew me away how the 3D Fax page of encrypted garbledygook could be scanned & decoded to provide yer Original file which could even be an executable file with Motion, Music & even Colour!!

pretty neat stuff*

atanyrate the 2 page ad for 3D Fax in Wired didn't make me a Millionaire so thass why i'm reading da Fleck Blog*

;))1/27/2006 01:42:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|It might not be completely newsworthy but the fact that Fleck is now podcastworthy made it blogworthy for me. Yes, Fleck was mentioned in the VentureWeek Podcast. I don't know how many people think that podcast is iPodworthy but we were still happy and surprised that we made that podcast. You can listen to it here directly of visit their site: Website VentureWeek: http://www.ventureweek.com/ Podcast: http://www.ventureweek.com/VentureWeek_7.mp3 I hope you will find it commentworthy and tellityourfriendsworthy.|W|P|113835545254388469|W|P|World wide premiere: Fleck mentioned in a Podcast|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/27/2006 07:19:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|The podcast is definately listenworthy.1/26/2006 11:02:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|As you can imagine there are more people in the world who knew about the word 'Fleck' before we started using it. And quite a few decided it would be a good name for their business. Some people even have 'Fleck' as their last name! Designing a logo is hard. I love it when it is over but the process is painfull and takes a long time. Every time I have to design a logo I feel useless, unskilled and without talent. Then the logo is finished and I think 'Wow, that was simple' and kind of forget how I felt during designing. Today I decided to do a search for Fleck logos on the web to see what other people came up with. I found quite a few Fleck logos. Here they are in no particular order: |W|P|113830244363633156|W|P|Other Fleck Logo designs|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/27/2006 01:22:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|"Fleck" is also a german word and has the meaning of a spot, mostly a dirt spot on some clothing or somewhere else :)1/27/2006 01:34:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Hi Andy, thanks for the tip! I looked it up at Answers.com and they display all the international explanations there too: http://www.answers.com/fleck1/27/2006 12:51:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|None of the logos look as good as Fleck's1/25/2006 10:54:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|I'm still getting great feedback from readers all over the world on my blog titled '10 tips for a perfect pitch'. I was just reading my RSS feeds and noticed David Cowan (of Bessemer Venture Partners) updated two of his blogs. I scrolled to the end of those blogposts to see what information he added. Well, it looks like he agrees with me. Getting mentioned by David Cowan is not as good as getting funded by David Cowan but it sure made my day week month! Go check em out: http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2006/01/practicing-art-of-pitchcraft.html http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-to-not-write-business-plan.html|W|P|113821607693749850|W|P|Even David Cowan agrees...|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/25/2006 03:57:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|A few people emailed with with the same message that the banner I posted yesterday was a bit, well, normal... I'm not offended, I like feedback. I took some time today to design another Fleck Badge so here it is. This is the code for the banner. <!-- Start Fleck.com Badge of honour --> <a href="http://www.fleck.com/" target="_new"><img src="http://www.fleck.com/images/fleckbutton.gif" alt="Fleck.com" border="0" height="137" width="98" /></a> <!-- End Fleck.com Badge of honour --> Feel free to change the code as you please but do let me know (by email) when you add it to your page!|W|P|113819436248833712|W|P|New Fleck Badge/Button|W|P|bomega@gmail.com3/10/2006 02:22:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|How about a small button? I have a few in my sidebar and i think ures would look out of place so i dont want to use it. But if you could manage a small button that would be cool!3/13/2006 07:30:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|How small do you want it to be?3/28/2006 12:29:00 AM|W|P|Blogger ycc2106|W|P|Agrre with nogg3r5, here's a 15x80 one:
http://mypage.bluewin.ch/yuppi/images/buttons/fleck-button.png" alt="fleck-button.png
I've put it in my blog(http://3spots.blogspot.com/) footer ;)1/24/2006 12:28:00 PM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|So today is Patrick's birthday. I bought him an Airport Express to go with his iPod and iBook and a laserpointer and flashlight that connects to his iPod. If you read this and have a spare minute do me a favor and send him a message on patrick@fleck.com to congratulate him. I'm sure he would love the attention. He didn't take a day off (and why would he, we have work to do!) so a few extra messages would make his day! It's his 27th birthday...|W|P|113813553308247916|W|P|Birthday|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/24/2006 11:11:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Happy birthday. Why are you using blogger? Shouldn't you be hosting your own stuff?1/25/2006 01:24:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|We use blogger because it only takes 2 minutes to set up an account. We wanted to focus on our product and not on our blogsoftware...

:-)1/23/2006 12:59:00 PM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Finding a good name for our start-up was hard. But we figured Fleck would be good and descriptive name for our technology and we hoped a short domainname which was registered first long ago would do good in Google. Imagine our surprise when we couldn't find Fleck.com in Google, at all... No, the whole site wasn't available in Google no matter how hard we searched. We clicked through all 6.500.000 results looking for it and it just wasn't there. The whole domain disappeared into the GoogleIgnoreDataBase. This was a huge disappointment! But then we started this blog and some blogs started linking to us and something changed. Today I decided to give it another try and lo and behold, we are suddenly there, and on the second page! We are now search result numer 18 for 'Fleck'. I hope we can even improve on this by getting a few more links to our page. So if you have a blog or homepage I am going to bribe you with this scheme: If you want to make sure you are the very first person to get your hands on our beta product you can now earn that right. Display the FleckBadge on your blog and send me the URL where I can find it and you will get a premium placement in our BetaUserDataBase. Here is the code you need to correctly display the Badge:

<!-- Start Fleck.com Badge of honour --> <a href="http://www.fleck.com/" target="_new"><img src="http://www.fleck.com/images/fleckbadge.gif" alt="Fleck.com" border="0" height="30" width="88" /></a> <!-- End Fleck.com Badge of honour -->

 I hope you like it! Any other ideas for getting a good rank in Google are welcome... UPDATE: we are now search result number 10 which means we are on the first page! Only 9 spots to go... UPDATE 2: we are now search result number 8! It's getting better every day...|W|P|113805124445466258|W|P|GoogleIgnoreDataBase?|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/23/2006 07:34:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Here ya go:

www.kerabu.com

cheers!1/24/2006 06:10:00 PM|W|P|Blogger sfong15|W|P|Inserted into my sidebar here http://me.sfong.net/

It's a bit small....not eye catching enough as you know people like putting badges and buttons at their websites and fleck got to stand out from the cloud.1/24/2006 07:39:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|It's on my Wordpress.com blog at:
http://abdul.wordpress.com

My page has a good PageRank (5/10) so yeah, I'm sure it will help you as it has helped some others.1/24/2006 11:40:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Thanks everybody for putting the badge on your page. Please post it here for the world to see BUT also send me an email so I can contact you...3/09/2006 02:13:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Hope it helps...3/24/2006 03:57:00 AM|W|P|Blogger sainathkm|W|P|hi You are now 3rd on google.. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fleck1/23/2006 04:57:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|We Fleckers are a secretative bunch of people. Whispering and hyping all day, silently writing code or mingling with VCs to get our funding. An underground movement like us needs a signal. Something to use as a indentifier when we are among strangers. We tried 'the nod' for a while but that didn't really work. Nodding at strangers while keeping your eyes fixed on them and looking suspicious didn't have the desired effect. But we found a solution! The Fleck handsignal! As you can see in the image you use 2 fingers to make the V for Victory signal but then horizontally. Do you see the F for Fleck?? That is the secret handsignal for Fleck from now on. If you see people doing this to each other in the street (while nodding and staring) you will know it is us. Don't ask us to be included in the beta but DO fleck us back, you know how...|W|P|113802202341631555|W|P|Fleck Hand Signal|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/23/2006 06:16:00 AM|W|P|Blogger BillyWarhol|W|P|Darn I've been practising that signal fer some time now**********

;))1/23/2006 06:28:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Send us your photos!3/21/2006 06:12:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Unknown|W|P|Hey so i've just made my post on Fleck Hand Signal's Nothing special but it has a pic of me doin the Fleck.
Style1/22/2006 02:32:00 PM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Funny thing about the post '10 tips for a perfect pitch' is that I received several comments from VCs and so far no comments or questions from entrepreneurs. It seems that I hit a nerve somewhere. I would have rather hit a goldmine to be honest but attention is good too. I'll post a few links here to blogs that reacted on my post and added their own tips: A comment on this blog from Seth Levine (Mobius Venture Capital): http://sethlevine.typepad.com/vc_adventure/2006/01/how_to_make_a_g.html A few very good tips by James L. Chen (CXO Ventures): http://purevc.typepad.com/pure_vc/2006/01/the_pitch.html A few links that might help: David Cowan from Bessemer Venture Partners about your Elevator Pitch: http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2006/01/practicing-art-of-pitchcraft.html Top 10 lies of Venture Capitalists by Guy Kawasaki: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_top_ten_lie.html The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs by Guy Kawasaki: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_top_ten_lie_1.html Ablog dedicated to giving great presentations: http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/|W|P|113796968627089695|W|P|More tips for a perfect pitch!|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/23/2006 07:21:00 AM|W|P|Blogger David Cowan|W|P|correct link to my blog post is
http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2006/01/practicing-art-of-pitchcraft.html1/19/2006 06:23:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|You are reading this blog so you probably know we spend a lot of time talking with potential investors. Because of this I think we know a little bit about the subject so I decided to write down my own experiences in a blogpost. Hope it is of some help or maybe it is just funny for you to read. If you have tips to add or disagree completely tell me in a comment. Here we go: So you have a great idea and need some money to start a company, right? Well, so does the rest of the world! To make a good impression and improve your chances of getting your seed money I have compiled a list of tips. I might not be the ultimate expert on this matter but we use these tips ourselves to prepare for meetings with potential investors so at least you know they are tested tips! In no particular order: Tip 1: No more than 5 slides for your presentation! A simple formula to explain this tip: if you have a 30 minute meeting you will want to spend 10 minutes getting to know each other, asking some smart questions about the investor and giving them your elevator pitch and at least 10 minutes for general questions after your presentation. That means you have 10 minutes left for a presentation. You will be talking for at least 30 seconds about each slide and then the investor will have one or 2 questions taking another 30 seconds each. That leaves you with 1 slide for every 2 minutes or so. So the maximum number of slides is 5 for a 30-minute meeting. How do you know how much time you spend on each slide? Practice your story at least 10 times and you will know! Keep a few slides with extra information in the back of your presentation or even in the middle. If a certain issue comes up that you can illustrate with a slide you can always show it. Quit all programs except the one that you need to do your presentation. Don’t check your mail in the background! Tip 2: don’t read the text on your slides Never read the text on the slide out loud. People can read faster than they can listen. If you read the text on the slide people won’t listen to you anymore and just read your slides and then be bored. Make sure you know what is on the slide (keywords and figures) and illustrate them with your story and details. This is another thing you should just practice a lot! Tip 3: watch yourself! Borrow, rent or buy a video camera and tape your presentation and watch yourself to see how you can improve your story. This does miracles for your presentation! I promise you that the first time you see yourself you will be incredibly embarrassed and will see at least 5 ways to improve your story. When you practice, let your partners play the investor. You all know damn well what the painful questions are so ask them. It’s fun to see your partners sweat and talk their way out of a tough question, and a great learning experience! Tip 4: timing is everything! Practice your story with a timer next to you so you know how much time you spend. It’s terrible to be in the middle of your story and then suddenly realizing that you only have 1 minute left to go through 4 slides. The only way to prevent this is to practice. Tip 5: test your story Call your mother-(or father)in-law and explain your story over the phone. If she gets it you are ready to talk to your investors. If she doesn’t get it: back to the drawing board and video camera. And if you can sell her some shares, even better! Tip 6: answer EVERY question Make sure you have the answer to these questions: who is your audience, what is your marketing-plan, when are you going live, how much money do you need, what kind of percentage are you thinking about. Be firm and decisive when you answer these questions. Don’t make them up on the spot and don’t try to be interesting by being mysterious about these issues. It won’t work. When you are practicing with your video camera and you are playing bad guy (well, a VC anyway) try to think of every question you can think of and not just the ones you have the answer for. Tip 7: Don’t bluff, lie or try to be a smart-ass! What you shouldn’t say: We don’t really need money right now (THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE?), that your exit is going to be an IPO or acquisition by Google (YOUR INVESTORS KNOW THAT), that this is a sure thing (NO SUCH THINGS AS…), that you don’t have any competitors (YOU ARE LYING, DIDN’T DO YOUR RESEARCH OR YOUR PRODUCT SUCKS), that you aren’t going to do it yourself (MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR IDEA, MONEY AND TIMING IS THE ENTREPRENEUR. IF YOU DON’T DO IT THAN NOBODY ELSE WILL) and don’t tell them they should decide quickly because you have other investors waiting unless it is true! Tip 8: Use your deodorant Some entrepreneurs say ‘I don’t like selling. They should take me as I am. I’m not going to dress up for them!’. That might sound cool in a bar but when you go to meet with an investor he looks at you more than at your idea or company. You are your company! So if you are late, unshaved, unfriendly or smelling bad you make a bad impression and so your company makes a bad impression. You also make a distinct prediction about how you will treat important partners, clients and employees in the future: if you don’t respect the investor, you won’t respect anybody else who matters in the future. So: take your hands out of your pockets, stand up straight, smile, say ‘please’, open the door for your investor, be on time, offer coffee or something else to drink and don’t interrupt the investor! Avoid saying ‘Euuh’ and ‘Hmm’ too much. The more you practice your story the more confident you sound. Remember that investors look at you more than anything when they invest. They think ‘Is this someone I can trust? Will he be able to motivate his people? Can he sell his product? Will he work through the night to get things done? Will he do anything to protect my money and our future company?’. Did you forget your slides, did you get stuck in traffic, forget your tie? Then you will also do that with your important first customer. This opportunity might change the rest of your life! Sleep in front of their office if you have to avoid traffic, pack 3 spare ties in your bag and bring 16 backups of your presentation on CD, DVD, memory-stick and paper. Tip 9: don’t be a clown Be serious about your stuff. This concerns you for the rest of your life! If an investor makes a joke laugh politely but don’t be funny or make jokes about your company. If you don’t take your story serious, why should they? Tip 10: don’t pick a fight Don’t argue with your investors. If you disagree with what they say never say ‘Yes, but…’. You can say ‘I don’t think that that is the case but maybe we can talk about it some more after the presentation because it is an important issue which I would like to explain further’. If you absolutely want to answer that question right there and then say something like ‘Excellent question! I’ll tell you why that isn’t the case in this particular case…’ Free bonus tip: be prepared for ANYTHING!!! Make sure you know how the place looks like. Come early and inspect the conference room. Try to feel at home. Take a pee before the meeting. Make sure you can park your car and you have a full tank of gas. Drive there the day before so you know where it is and you don’t get lost. Google each potential investor so you know if they have kids, play football, like to ski and if they are male or female, tall or short, fat or thin and might be interested in your company or not based on earlier investments. Know what you need to know about their investment company. Find out what their latest successful deal was and congratulate them on it. Brush your teeth, wash your hands and use your deodorant! Bring cash to pay for coffee if you decide to go out for some. Imagine that during each presentation there is a crew from CNN who is going to tape the meeting and broadcast it worldwide the next day: how do you want to look? Unshaven? Unprepared? Fly unzipped? I think not.. Conclusion: So what happens when you ignore one or all of these tips? Not much. You can ignore all the tips in the world if you have a great idea and are able to make a good impression on your investor. If he is unshaved, smelling and too late too you might get along fine! Remember: This is a list of tips, not rules! One more thing: the people you are meeting are entrepreneurs just like you. They want to make money just like you. They we’re young and brave once too. So if they ask a tough question try to take it like advice and thank them for it. You don’t even have to be nervous because the least you can get from a meeting is some experience and a few good tips. You have nothing too lose here… So, good luck with your presentations and may you be showered with money! And now I’m telling you for the last time: Practice your story at least 10 times!!! |W|P|113768109326679361|W|P|10 tips for a perfect pitch|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/19/2006 11:20:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Very good tips!
Now only to find investors...1/19/2006 11:27:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Ah, yes. Maybe I should add another post on that subject?1/19/2006 12:49:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|That would be nice.

Although my problem is more of that i don't have a product i want to sell, but more the concept of a consultancy business. So far, most things i see about VC shows me there is not enough money in such a venture for them.

Then again, i could be wrong.1/19/2006 12:52:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|No I think you are right. VCs generaly are looking for investements that can multiply their investements in a short period. Consultancy is a long term business with a low return on investment, at least for a VC.1/19/2006 01:14:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|hmm. looks like i need a new hobby then.1/19/2006 01:21:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|If you choose a job that you like you will never have to work a day in your life.--Confucius1/19/2006 01:54:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|confucius, he wise man.

by the way, nice show on bbc2 right now. "the dragons den". people get to pitch their ideas to 4 VC's.1/22/2006 02:06:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Nice post. You guys are definitely pros. Can I add a few things? I still constantly am approached by entrepreneurs who make contact with me through my network and then email me their plan or summary and then request some phone time to go over their presentation....Always make your pitch IN PERSON!!!

Part of being a VC is judging people face to face and sizing someone up in a short period of time. I am improving on this skill over the years, but a lot of it comes down to instinct.

Similarly, if you are an entrepreneur worth your salt, you will want to size up your investor and figure out what he will bring to the table.

The last thing is that if you are turned down on your pitch, do not give up, do not get pissed off, do not go off. Ask the investor what his critiques are, how you can improve on your presentation and plan. Most importantly, ask him if he knows anybody who might be interested or might be an asset to his endeavor...do not burn bridges, because if you end up being a strong entrepreneur, you will be back again knocking on doors and the investor will want to know about your previous company, how successful it was, what you learned from it, etc.

I have posted a longer response on my blog.
http://purevc.typepad.com/pure_vc/2006/01/the_pitch.html1/25/2006 12:05:00 AM|W|P|Blogger kisut|W|P|the most important is you mus have a fuckin great idea!!!!

no matter how fascinating your presentation.1/25/2006 01:35:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Hello 'gerimisdatangsebelumhujan' (is that your name???) thank your for posting. But I have to disagree. The most important thing is that you are able to SELL your idea. If you have a great idea and are late at the meeting, ignore all advice and start a fight with the VC your idea it worhtless. If you are a great entrepreneur but your idea isn't perfect you are more likely to get an investment. You can always change your idea, changing the entrepreneur is a whole different thing...1/26/2006 05:14:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|I love Top Ten Lists. Everything in life should be distilled to a simple Top Ten List.5/09/2006 11:00:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|This is a great post! Having been on both sides of the table, I can tell you have as well. Thanks for linking me over, and I will be sure to keep up with your blog.5/14/2006 08:30:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Thanks. We have referred your website.6/04/2006 07:10:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Thank you for very good tips1/18/2006 04:15:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|I just added our RSS feed to Feedburner. Please delete the old URL and use the new one. Or enjoy your anonimity and use the old URL! ;-) http://feeds.feedburner.com/Fleck I wonder how long it will take for this image to fill up: |W|P|113758675943100677|W|P|FeedBurner|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/18/2006 01:49:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|When we decided to at least put up a simple webpage and a blog we hoped it would be of some interest for our friends, family and businesspartners. You know; about 5 visitors a day. We would have never dreamed of creating a small hype and even getting featured on our favorite weblog: TechCrunch. Ok, I admit we did think (and hope) to get picked up by someone somewhere in time. But since this morning we noticed traffic multiplying and sign-ups for the beta going through the roof. We are jumping up and down in our office! We are close to the target we set for our beta program which is a bit of a problem (or not!) because we were hoping to get to the number we now have around the end of February. It looks like a lot more people will participate in the beta than we anticipated. A few things make us proud: people seem to like the logo and appreciate our sense of humor. That's good! Now go and read the TechCrunch article: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/01/17/fleck/|W|P|113757994393794763|W|P|TechCrunch & hype|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/18/2006 06:51:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|Yeah...1/18/2006 10:03:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|smiles1/18/2006 10:06:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Senseless|W|P|Moo?1/18/2006 07:24:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|The logo really rocks !:)I really like the colors :) And I'm really anxious to find out what fleck is :) clues pls.. :)

wow.. that's too many smileys :) :) :)1/18/2006 11:08:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Thank you for all the comments! We like the logo too...1/17/2006 05:53:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous|W|P| Since Keso has posted Fleck on his clearly popular blog "Playing with IT", a large number of new beta tester are joining us from China. I don't speak Chinese, but it looks quite impressive! Thanks Keso. And welcome new Fleckers from the east.|W|P|113750649682471310|W|P|Fleck goes China ?|W|P|1/18/2006 10:00:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Steve Jurvetson|W|P|Buzzword compliance + China = HOT, HOT, HOT!!!!!1/13/2006 07:50:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous|W|P| FROM: Flickr Ideas? Almost all people have them, some more then others, but almost everyone claims that one or two (well-known) ideas found their origin in their heads. There's a big diffence between having an idea and bringing your idea to reality. 99.9% of all ideas belong to the first category, the part that is left (0.01%) are ideas from entrepreneurs (or intrepreneurs). And of those ideas about 90% fails. There are some ideas that stick and always come back in your mind / conversations, maybe because people love to dream about the 'what if....' question, or maybe just because it is a very good idea. How do you recognize a good or even a great idea? A couple of weeks ago I gave a lecture at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam about ideas and how to go from idea to product (or even better: from idea to IPO :)) and that same question was asked by one of the students. How do you recognize a good or even a great idea? For a moment I had to think about this seemingly easy, but in fact difficult question. I could have summed up a list of components that a good idea is comprised of. Instead I came up with only one thing: You know when you have a great idea, when that idea arouses a #%&!load of new ideas around itself. Maybe I was wrong, but I believe that the GREAT thing about a GREAT idea is that there are infinite possibilities. When you have a great idea, there is only one problem left: How can I stay focused when there are infinite possibilities that all seem great? Then it comes down to: Good people, open communication, enthusiasm, drive, listening to your customers, and manage the process (but not too much)|W|P|113717237996228390|W|P|The GREAT thing about GREAT ideas|W|P|1/13/2006 04:58:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P| Try repeating the title of this post out loud for several times for kicks. Yesterday Factoryjoe (A Flock developer) posted a screenshot of our website on Flickr. http://flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/85393285/in/photostream/ And he also posted a few photo's of me (Boris!) on his blog here. Quite funny: http://factoryjoe.com/blog/|W|P|113715745590119282|W|P|Fleck on Flickr|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/13/2006 04:55:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P| Ahh, being part of a hype is soooo gratifying. We just became immortal (for about a month or 4 I guess) because we are now included in 'the Museum of Modern Betas'. I'm not sure how honorable this but until I hear otherwise, I'm happy... Check it out: http://momb.socio-kybernetics.net/invitation/fleck|W|P|113715710279250533|W|P|Immortality!|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/12/2006 12:09:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|As you might have noticed we updated the Fleck.com website with our new logo. We chose this one after looking at several options. We finally decided to pick this one and are really happy with it. It looks a bit like an old Yin and Yang logo but fresher and the F is clearly there. And when you look at the logo on a different background you can see the white F that is upside down too: Later this week I will update the look and feel of the blog and add the new logo there too. Oh, and did you see the Favicon at our site? It even works in 16 x 16 pixels! I'll post some of the other logos too if you are interested...|W|P|113705406560007117|W|P|New logo|W|P|bomega@gmail.com1/16/2006 12:06:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Qing Liu|W|P|The logo is very creative. The Yin Yang derivation is great. It seems that we will see more pink web site in future :).1/17/2006 10:21:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Paul Montgomery|W|P|I commend you. Designing a compelling favicon is a large part of the success of any Web site.3/10/2006 01:51:00 PM|W|P|Blogger baggy|W|P|I woudl love to see some other logos.1/01/2006 03:40:00 AM|W|P|Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten|W|P|Fleck is a modern company. And a modern company uses modern tools. So we use a lot of cool and innovative tools to organize our company. One of the most important tools is our project management system. For a few dollars a month we rent the services of BackPack. It's a great tool where you can collaborate with your partners on documents, todolists, milestones and notes. We keep all our stuff there available for everyone at any time within our company. And our project has it's own RSS feed so we all know when things change or are updated. Very web2.0!!!|W|P|113620988738624505|W|P|Start-Up Tools|W|P|bomega@gmail.com