6 Essential Startup Decks

Among the great many startup 101s’ that are out there, it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Here is an overview of the most essential startup decks that I have taken notes of. The list is merely a snapshot of hands-on startup methods and tools but a complete list of entrepreneurship literature.

Mint.com Pre-Launch Pitch Deck makes a great example of a startup pitch. For more on pitching  it is definitively worth looking into Pitching Hacks: How to pitch investors from Nivi and Naval at VentureHacks (PDF and free sample) to be used in companion with Dave McClure’s Startup Viagra: How to Pitch a VC.

Mint Founder Institute Accounting, this time by Mint founder Aaron Patzer, is a must read on how to draw your business case together and getting the numbers right.

Startup Metrics for Pirates by Dave McClure is the nuts and bolts of how to formalize traction and accountable metrics for your startup, including methods from the Lean Startup.

No One Cares About Your Stupid Little Startup by Xobni founder Matt Brezina takes us through its phases and tactics for building critical mass.

The Lean Startup methodology by Eric Ries combines the best from the agile development paradigm with Steven Blank’s Customer Development methodology (which might as well have been included) into a low-burn startup methodology.

Drop the business plan?! The Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder, is an one-slide template and systematic approach to analyze, brainstorm and sketch out your business model. If you are not familiar with the framework you might want to start with the Business Model Generation book, the lean startup business model pattern and Steve Blank’s post on how to process it.

There sure are several interesting startup decks, and no such list goes without mentioning Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start and Garage‘s Perfecting your Pitch. I will read SEO Moz’s Venture Capital Process again. Not to forget Getting Real and Rework – the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals’ (see aslo Eric Santos’ summary). Neverthless, keep up to date with Lean Startup news.

Do you know of other essential startup decks, we would love to know about them.

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Social Media Strategy Frameworks: what about the metrics?

The social web has created an ecosystem where off- and on-line businesses are rushing into blogs, social network pages, communities and other social media. When will organizations start taking a structured, holistic approach, rather than just pouring budgets into all cool ideas? While I have been on the outlook for such supportive frameworks during the previous weeks, the following three seems to be the most referred.

• The POST Method. Perhaps the most popularized framework as of today, the POST method by Groundswell describes a systematic approach to social strategy. POST is a acronym for People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology.
  
• The Three Spheres. Although Jeremiah Owyang applies the Three Spheres to web strategy in general, social media strategy could be considered a sub-set herein. The three spheres are the Community Sphere, the Business Sphere and the Technology Sphere.
  
• The Five S’s. Windmill Networking suggests five basic “S” concepts of social media marketing: Share, Support, Social, Strategy, and Sales.
  

The figure’s colors show correlations among the components in the frameworks. Conceptually there is a technology component at the bottom, and a business/strategy one at the top. In the “middle”, there is a social-community component (often user-generated media) – the business logic that technology and strategy align with. Yet, there is room for more descriptive frameworks for managing social media strategy.

With this middle layer I believe that time has come to revisit the true meaning of bubble-ish network effects and the “openness” as a part of every business model. This is the gist of  user-generated content. Also, I’d prefer to add an additional layer, it be “M” for Metrics into “POSTM”. In the months and years to come, measurement will become a key activity and impetus to competitive advantage . While control migrates back to the demand-side (i.e. buyers of social media strategy), knowledge of metrics will become invaluable. As Thomas Davenports title suggests, is Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning?