#brianne garcia

  Alicia Syrett – Angel Investor

On the pitch: In any great pitch to investor you want to include these things. And make sure quality of presentation is good! No typos - it needs to be professionally done. Presentation should be great - person should have a lot of passion and nail presentation  

On Market size: Most people look for a billion+ dollars market size as a scalable business; someone projecting their growth in 3-5 years as 100 billion plus in revenues. You want to now someone is thinking big and addressing this really big market. 

On yearly progress: Lemons ripen quickly. Ones that do incredibly well win at the 3-5 year time frame.

On teams: A one person project is doable but being an entrepreneur is very hard - so having someone who has a complimentary skill set and is there for all the hard decisions is important. 

On getting started: Attack a niche market.

On the investment: Angles are investing in the entrepreneur. A lot of times businesses will pivot to something you never imagined in the first place and that’s why you're investing in the person. It’s less about investing in the idea and more about investing in the person. The ability to execute the idea is in the person. 

On Content: CONTENT is KING right now. 

On “the story”: I value a really knowledgeable presentation without the bells and whistles of someone trying to entertain me. I don’t need to see you dance. If a story is helpful to help people see what that pain point is for your business and how you launched it, then that’s a way to bring people in. 

On outliers: If you're a serial entrepreneur you can raise money based on your track record alone. But that's an outlier.

Brianne Garcia – Market Research + Mentor

On Perception: When we're really close to our ideas we don't understand that people don't generally care.

On Calling upon others: How you're communicating and what you do is always about the other person.

On Growing: The three types of people or companies to keep track of when trying to grow partners/adviser network

1. Those who you know (gatekeepers or advocates)

2. Those you don’t know, but want to (targets)

3. Those you don’t know you don’t know (unknowns)

On Asking for Names: People will give you a name even if they can't/won't help you because they want you to go away. Just ask.

On the Follow-up: Always follow up and thank people for their time. 

On divulging your Ideas: Don't tell people what your business is before you meet them. Give them a generic idea but don't tell them the whole thing because then they will be biased.  

Four Pieces of Advice from Brianne:

Do your homework

Stay humble

5Ws+ H

3 Names 

Amit Paley – McKinsey

On McKinsey: We offer basic consulting readiness. We have cultural norms and a very strong set of shared norms.

On a Hypothesis Driven Approach: Start immediately with a hypothesis even in the absence of huge amounts of data. Test the hypothesis and begin to collect evidence.

On Problem Solving: Think critically about complex problems. Good management and decision making is based on fact-based problem solving.

On Rational for Approach: Get to the answers faster. Use time and resources more efficiently. Have greater impact on the business. Free up time to do other things.

Characteristics of a Good Problem Statement:

S  pecific

M easurable

A  ction-oriented

R  elevant

T  ime-bound

Jeff Jarvis - Buzzfeed Machine

On Making money: Don't fuck with a cash cow - it's the root of economic arrogance.

On Content: Journalism is not a content business. We all think that we are storytellers. Jeff says no! We are in the service business. We serve a community, enable a community and become part of the community. Enable people to connect and do what THEY want to do - not what YOU want to do. 

On Investigative Journalism: It’s trying to help a community know more about itself. It’s helping people to get their own information.

On TV News: The desperation that fueled innovation in magazines and newspapers now reached TV news.

On Niche Markets: Find a market that is underserved as opposed to doing what everybody else is doing

On Scarcity: We in media have always managed a scarcity. Google didn't try to do that. They put ad words. Google didn't manage a scarcity - Google managed abundance. 

Google sells relevance!

On Journalism today: The way I think of journalism today is helping a community (and individuals) organize its knowledge to better organize itself (lives, communities, goals). Question every assumption. And rethink what our relationship is with the public and each other.