Todd Earwood – Medium

Apr 17

3 Books Everyone Should Read About Presentations

As the son of a pastor, I know #EasterSunday sermons require many hours of preparation. On this special day, people fill churches and when they hear a powerful message, it’s impactful. Like my father, I trained for (business) speaking, spending hours practicing this skill. 👇👇 In 2009, I began studying…

2 min read

Apr 17

The #1 Survival Skill For Entrepreneurs

Let’s stop the talk about finding product market fit and get down to the real reason startups fail. Every company I’ve built or backed had things unpredictable things change their course. Those that survived all had this one skill…👇👇 In 2019, the Small Business Administration (SBA) reported the failure rate…

2 min read

Apr 16

5 lessons I Learned From A Big-time CEO As My Startup’s Board Chair

5 lessons I Learned From A Big-time CEO As My Startup’s Board Chair I recruited a former publicly-traded CEO of a @sequoia-backed company to invest in my Series A round. As I got to know him, I asked him to join and chair our board He required us to meet…

2 min read

Apr 15

Four Areas I Didn’t Realize Needed More of My Time When Building a Startup

Time management in a startup is incredibly hard. As a founder wearing too many hats, I didn’t know where to focus. As an investor, I privately share my stories of what I did wrong. Here are the four areas I tell them where I should have spent more time: 🧵👇 …

2 min read

Apr 14

Fundraising Cold Outreach Teardown

Want your cold email read by an investor (or anyone)? Get really good at writing subject lines. Here’s a sample of ACTUAL emails from MY inbox with a rating and how to improve them. Time for a Top 5 Teardown of cold emails! 🧵👇 1) SixSense.ai: Manufacturing AI company raising…

2 min read

Apr 13

Two Tragic Assumptions I Had Totally Wrong About Why Venture Capitalists Rejected Me

Every entrepreneur who has tried to raise multiple rounds of investment knows rejection is coming. It was easier to tell myself a story about why Venture Capitalists (VCs) were rejecting me than to learn how the game was played. …

2 min read

Apr 12

My 3 Totally Awkward Pitch Failures & How To Avoid Them

“There is nothing wrong with making mistakes, but one should always make new ones.” ― Dave Sim #1 — I didn’t do my research . I leveraged a personal relationship to get a meeting with a top tier VC. The investor agreed to the meeting because my contact said I was worth the time. Two minutes into my…

2 min read

Apr 9

The 3-Step Power Start Framework Only Repeat Founders Know to Use in Their Pitch Decks

Great pitches start so strong they handle investor objections before they become questions. Repeat founders know many of the questions before they get asked. (If you don’t know the questions — learn more here.) …

2 min read

Apr 9

🖐 Stop Playing the Monopoly Method When Pitching Investors

I receive a good amount of emails from founders cold pitching me their ideas. I love hearing new ideas and I love entrepreneurs trying to build new things. A cold email has a low chance of success because I know you don’t know me and I assume you don’t know…

2 min read

Apr 8

The ONLY Strategy All Great Pitch Decks Use

I failed at pitching my startups for years in part because I tried to convey too much information. As an investor, I’ve seen thousands of decks, invested in 65+ startups and the best pitch decks all use this strategy. The brilliance is these pitches show less and keep removing content…

2 min read