Meet the Titans – How to work with the big boys @ BizTechDay San Francisco 2010

The idea was to talk to these 3 guys – representing the large corporations that is google, yahoo and Intuit – and find out how startups and up-n-coming entrepreneurs can approach them with a business idea or to get funded or even attempt to get bought out.

Here are the key takeaways w.r.t pitching your startup to the Big Boys, as told by Bosch, Upham, Meese and Chung (moderator).

Pitching Advice for Startups  – Highlights from BizTechDay 2010

The Do’s of Pitching your Startup

• Upham (yahoo): Your roadmap should jive with the company’s roadmap.
• No matter how compelling your product is, it is not going to get integrated into a company like yahoo right away. So be patient.
• Upham (yahoo): Be able to clearly explain how the idea will fit into the company’s strategy.
• Meese (google). Break down your end goal into steps. If you want to get bought by google, you must break it into many steps. Despite it’s size, Google is still a very approachable company.
• Meese (google): If roadmaps line up, google moves surprisingly fast. If roadmaps don’t match, things move slowly.
• Upham (yahoo): Know who you are pitching to. If you have a product for yatch navigation, pitch it to a yatch club or meeting, not at some other place where you consumers or target audience won’t be present.

The Don’ts of Pitching your Startup

• Don’t indulge in name dropping. Some startups come in and do name drops. For example “Oh, our founder is good friends with Jane Doe, and she really likes our idea!”
• Don’t try to put pressure. For example, startups that come in and say “We’ve already talked to Google, we really want you to look at its before we sell.”
• Meese (google): Don’t do cold calls. For example, it is a bad idea to go through your contact list and emailing everyone with an @google.com account to get in touch with someone at google.

Hmmm. I wonder how many of yahoo’s employees are feeling the “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” vibe of it’s Founders ?

Photo Credit - yodelanecdotal @ flickr.com

Carl Icahn the aggressive corporate raider has become Carl IQuiet, or at least that is the impression I get from his blog which has no mention of any of this today. It does, however analyze in great details the impact of the Bailout Plan on Executive Pays.

Further Reading

• San Jose Mercury News – Oct 2008 – Yahoo to lay off about 1,400; quarterly sales, profit decline
• MarketWatch – Oct 2008 – Yahoo posts profit decline, to cut thousands of jobs
• CNet.com – Jan 2008 Yahoo to lay off 1,000 as profit drops
• NYTimes – Jan 2008 Hundreds of Layoffs Expected at Yahoo