SOPHISTICATED FINANCE

Excellent Book on Pitching Investors

 

I am starting to put together the content resources to help the teams in the new incubator at FIU--Startup FIU. Everybody has their favorite book, article or SlideShare deck on pitching to investors. I just reviewed a book from HBR, "Get Backed: Craft Your Story, Build the Perfect Pitch Deck and Launch the Venture of Your Dreams". The book is very well done. Filled with 10-15 examples of good pitch decks, all of which raised money. Also a lot of advice on content, format and design. I have not seen such a comprehensive (and correct) collection of useful advice anywhere else.

We will be accepting applications to Startup FIU hopefully within two weeks and throughout the summer. Students, faculty, FIU alums and the community are all invited to apply. More on this here at SF shortly. A graduating student from Morocco asked if his team could Skype in from Rabat. A meaningful number of team members need to be physically present in Miami to attend weekly events at the incubator. At an event last week we had everybody from high school students to post-docs come to hear the speakers. We welcome applications from local high school students. 

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Trump Should Pick Kim Kardashian as VP Running Mate

One of the great things about Miami is the unique and insightful comments of the foreigners that live there. This morning a very successful Mexican businessman told me he thought Donald Trump should announce the lovely Kim Kardashian as his Vice Presidential running mate. His reasoning was as follows:

1. Instant name recognition
2. 57 million followers on social media
3. First VP we have seen nude

To this very compelling logic I could only add one point. Whenever Presidents blunder and get into situations bad for their re-election, a President frequently creates a situation to distract the attention of the American voter. With Ms. Kardashian as VP, the opportunities to distract the American voter are almost endless. 

In the early years of this blog there were many funny posts and cartoons. This one on HUTM is probably the most popular. I would not say that we are returning to comical posts here at SF, particularly making fun of such a serious subject as U.S. Presidential elections, but it is tempting :-)

 Photo credit: Twitter.com

If you click on the link of Ms. Kardashian, probably best not to do it in the office.

 

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Some Random Observations

A few things I find interesting.

1. Overheard on the street, "I buy my eyeglass frames at Goodwill and then have the lenses custom made". Looks like a great example of functional fixedness overcome and re-using materials.
2. It looks like more and more people are combining communities with marketplaces as a way to address a social problem in an economically self-sustaining way. Etsy maybe comes close to this idea, but I expect the community to drive the traffic to the marketplace and not the suppliers.
3. I find it interesting that there is a significant percentage of the viewers of my TEDx talk on poverty who watch it multiple times. Not sure what it means but it intrigues me.
4. U.S. is in the midst of a food craze. People have to stop talking to me about their food ideas. Nobody yet appears to know how to get an incubator off the ground.
5. The best young entrepreneurs I see in Miami are women. Not sure we need to focus on helping women start companies, but I understand that "woman entrepreneurship" is a way to differentiate an incubator or accelerator.

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SOPHISTICATED FINANCE - My TEDx Talk on Poverty.

The New Approach to the Environment

In the last few months various initiatives at MIT have signaled a change in approach at that university toward environmental problems. (I am not sure this is an institutional view and might just be the view of various groups within MIT.)  No longer is there time for long term solutions and changing human behavior. Problems must be solved now before it is too late. Other organizations I am sure share this proactive approach which goes well beyond mere conservation.

A story on Medium, "How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution", describes a new way to do ocean farming that immediately reduces environmental issues, but provides almost a balanced diet from the ocean. A point that did not occur to me until I read the article is that all life began in the ocean. Therefore the ocean has the ability to provide all the nutrients to keep us alive. Land-based alternative sources of nutrients required less energy so early man moved away from the ocean as a principal food source. Scaling may have also been an issue in an ocean food supply. As the article shows, the ocean can be a more environmentally friendly, highly productive food source with modern technology. We may have to go back to our origins to survive.

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