YES or NO? Decide quickly and in time!
November 26th, 2024 • Zdena Macháčková
Reflex Capital → Blog → There’s Beauty in Simplicity
There are hundreds of How-To’s. How to date a partner, how to sum up a CV, how to shake a hand. In our business, you need to know how to get noticed, should you send out a pitch deck. We get dozens of them a week. We try to consider every one, but you know.
If someone shakes a hand like a fish or smells bad, and someone noticeably more interesting stands next to this person? Could be seen superficial, but we simply do not have time to explore the inner beauties of everyone.
So you have to make a good first impression and, therefore: prepare the pitch well. Above all, be brief and concise. Often we get a long technical description, that we have no chance to understand right. You should empathize with the person, who is a stranger to your business. Imagine you want to explain your idea to your grandmother, for example … you would not burden her with the details, right? Emphasize one or two key ideas and make them visible. What is your secret sauce, that sets you apart from the competition?
If you read our blog regularly, you know that we care about people, about yourself. So don’t send us a generic pitch deck. Tailor it to us, if you want to increase your chances. Tell us where you come from, why do you do, what you do, and where are you heading. Who are the other people on your team? What do you need money for and what you can do with it? Avoid generalities, such as boosting growth, investing in marketing, harvesting the opportunity before the competition overtakes you. Everyone wants that. You must have a clear plan on how specifically will the money help you. A sure ticket to the trash bin is a phrase: “I have a great plan, but I don’t have the money.” You ought to be more sophisticated than that!
Another issue is the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). We generally don’t sign it. We wouldn’t be doing anything else, if we did, and even with all due care, with the hundreds of ideas we skim through, we would just step into trouble one day. Please understand and accept that, if you want someone to trust you and give you money, you also have to trust them not to misuse your information.
We’ve already written something like this, haven’t we? So now you know which projects we choose and how we invest, but also how to get noticed by us. We’re looking forward to the next unicorn!
November 26th, 2024 • Zdena Macháčková
April 29th, 2024 • Ondřej Fryc
I’m not gonna pretend anything, I was trapped too. It felt good to have our company and myself in the media! It boosted my ego, which grew. There are some people who don’t have that, but I see it in most founders around the age of 30 and let’s be honest – everyone is a bit of a narcissist.
April 20th, 2024 • Eduard Míka
It is said that creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship are the engines of economic development and the future prosperity of any country depends on them. In all neighboring countries, this seems to be the case, but not here.
April 10th, 2024 • Eduard Míka
Every investment transaction is essentially a bet on the person of the founder and their vision. There is usually nothing else in a startup.