I start e-mail messages to VCs with a very short pitch that explains the problem I'm solving, the market it is in, why there's a good shot at 1 billion devoted users, why my work is the first good solution, etc. Darned short.
I've never explained the problem I'm solving in public -- not yet. When I have an open beta, then it will be obvious, but I want to keep that much detail non-public until my beta and going live.
Sometimes I stop there. Sometimes I include some more of what I gave above. I never include as much technical information as above -- that is for an HN audience.
I wrote the above for the HN audience to explain what I can that HN could understand.
For the list of "accomplishments", some VCs, including SUSA, claim that they like to see such.
My main point is, in conflict with the OP and with SUSA's remarks on their Web site and in this thread, VCs including SUSA don't respond anything like they claim to. I wasted HUGE time contacting VCs, sent them dozens of highly polished e-mail messages, e.g., including very carefully written PDF foil decks, some with only 10 or so foils and only 250 words in total, and the response was essentially always the same -- silence. Could call, get an assistant, give her (always a female) a heads up about the e-mail, could leave phone messages, could send e-mail follow ups, etc., and in all cases, nothing significant.
My conclusions: Flatly, VCs essentially never take unsolicited e-mail messages seriously, no matter what the content, short, medium, long, highly polished, formal, informal, technical, non-technical, etc. Nothing, not even zip, zilch, zero -- phone calls, e-mail -- unsolicited counts.
Point: Don't waste your time. About all that counts is traction and publicity enough that VCs hear about the company NOT from the company. Maybe "warm introductions" count, but an entrepreneur like me just doesn't know the same people as VCs. We just don't know the same people. I know some very high up people that know me well, but those people don't know VCs.
The "warm introduction" idea is a bad joke on the VCs because the people they would really like to meet don't have the same associates as VCs.
To VCs, everything from the company unsolicited is "from over the transom" and regarded with contempt.
Now with the much lower prices of computing and Internet data rate and lots of free infrastructure software, etc., it's a new day: A sole, solo founder can bring the company to good traction alone. Then a solo founder can have such a low burn rate that by the time a VC firm wants to write a check, the founder will no longer need or want the check -- because such a check has the BoD with all the power in the company and has the founder essentially again an at-will employee.
I can rewrite my pitch anyway I want, and I can promise you that from the 100 top US information technology VCs, an unsolicited, "over the transom" e-mail contact will get a significant response from at most 2 firms but very likely none. It's just an unspoken secret of Sand Hill Road: VCs ignore unsolicited e-mail messages, no matter what is in them.
I've never explained the problem I'm solving in public -- not yet. When I have an open beta, then it will be obvious, but I want to keep that much detail non-public until my beta and going live.
Sometimes I stop there. Sometimes I include some more of what I gave above. I never include as much technical information as above -- that is for an HN audience.
I wrote the above for the HN audience to explain what I can that HN could understand.
For the list of "accomplishments", some VCs, including SUSA, claim that they like to see such.
My main point is, in conflict with the OP and with SUSA's remarks on their Web site and in this thread, VCs including SUSA don't respond anything like they claim to. I wasted HUGE time contacting VCs, sent them dozens of highly polished e-mail messages, e.g., including very carefully written PDF foil decks, some with only 10 or so foils and only 250 words in total, and the response was essentially always the same -- silence. Could call, get an assistant, give her (always a female) a heads up about the e-mail, could leave phone messages, could send e-mail follow ups, etc., and in all cases, nothing significant.
My conclusions: Flatly, VCs essentially never take unsolicited e-mail messages seriously, no matter what the content, short, medium, long, highly polished, formal, informal, technical, non-technical, etc. Nothing, not even zip, zilch, zero -- phone calls, e-mail -- unsolicited counts.
Point: Don't waste your time. About all that counts is traction and publicity enough that VCs hear about the company NOT from the company. Maybe "warm introductions" count, but an entrepreneur like me just doesn't know the same people as VCs. We just don't know the same people. I know some very high up people that know me well, but those people don't know VCs.
The "warm introduction" idea is a bad joke on the VCs because the people they would really like to meet don't have the same associates as VCs.
To VCs, everything from the company unsolicited is "from over the transom" and regarded with contempt.
Now with the much lower prices of computing and Internet data rate and lots of free infrastructure software, etc., it's a new day: A sole, solo founder can bring the company to good traction alone. Then a solo founder can have such a low burn rate that by the time a VC firm wants to write a check, the founder will no longer need or want the check -- because such a check has the BoD with all the power in the company and has the founder essentially again an at-will employee.
I can rewrite my pitch anyway I want, and I can promise you that from the 100 top US information technology VCs, an unsolicited, "over the transom" e-mail contact will get a significant response from at most 2 firms but very likely none. It's just an unspoken secret of Sand Hill Road: VCs ignore unsolicited e-mail messages, no matter what is in them.