Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

PYA, the power behind teknovation.biz, was one of the two platinum sponsors of the just concluded “Health:Further Conference” in Nashville. Organized by Vic Gatto, Marcus Whitney and the team at Jumpstart Foundry, the event drew more than 800 people from around the country and included several topical tracks yesterday morning. One was the “Venture Zone,” where we heard a couple of gems that we wanted to share with our readers.

We’ve heard that too many power point-type slides is not good when pitching to venture capitalists. The recommendation yesterday was no more than five slides.

Another piece of advice is the importance of transparency, specifically as it relates to an entrepreneur’s history. A VC on one of the panels, said he always does background checks before investing and always asks a simple question: “Is there anything I should know?” There was one occasion when the answer was “no,” but the background check came back with glaring issues. That killed the deal when honesty might have allowed time to resolve the issue.

So, the lessons learned that we are passing along are common sense: first, be brief and to the point, and second, be transparent and honest.

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