HOW DO I MAKE AN INVESTMENT

DECISION?

Self Introduction

2

Goal

• Hajime Hotta • President of Cinnamon • Founder of Innovatube (Incubator) • Ph.D Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) • Experienced serial entrepreneur in Japan • Invested in total 10 Southeast Asian startups

3

My Activity

LIFE OF STARTUPExecution is everything

Find PMF first (Product Market Fit)

Documentation is a waste of time

4

My Activity

US Guys say Because but in SEA

Execution is everything

Mentors are excellent enough

for ideas

Too many hopeless ideas

Find PMF first (Product Market Fit)

Hypothesis are too unique to believe

many guys try to verify something

just obvious

Documentation is a waste of time

US guys are very well trained on presentation

too many unacceptable documents

Circumstances are different from US

5

My Activity

SME and IDE is quite different tooSTEADILY

PROFITABLE SME

EXPONENTIALLY GROWING

IDElots of

Counter-intuitive differences

6

My Activity

Lecture series for my related buddies

✓Cinnamon members

✓My portfolio

✓ Innovatube members

✓SeedForAction* companies

✓Apprentice* Members

To

To compose a pitch which is attractive to investors

7

Goal

Understand Investors

Compose a pitch

8

Understand Investors

Compose a pitch

9

Understand investors

Who Investors want to invest in?

Excellent teams with disruptive technology to change the world

Investors are not evaluators

10

Understand investors

Who Investors want to invest in?

Excellent teams with disruptive technology to change the world

Inaccurate

Example 1; hopeless conversations

11

Understand investors

I have a concern on the real user-side demands

We can do the marketing through partnership strategies rather than directly doing marketing.

In detail, xxx

Investor

Entrepreneur

Example 2; hopeless conversations

12

Understand investors

I have a concern about the expandability of EdTech businesses to regional scale

I think it is still possible in our case because ….

Investor

Entrepreneur

Investors just want to find business partners

13

Understand investors

I want to collaborate

but it could be too risky

Investor

Investor

Only two factors which can convince investors

14

Understand investors

I want to collaborate

but it could be too risky

Investor

Investor

(1) The team and the field are my favourite

(2) I can imagine the next round fundraise

The team

15

Understand investors

Team Preference depends

16

Understand investors

Team Preference

Common Entrepreneurial

TendencyChemistry

Depends on InvestorsA likes tech geeks B likes detail-oriented guys C likes hyper risk takers D likes crazy visionalist… etc.

Observable common natures- Fact Oriented - Hard work - Responsive - Ability to attract talents - Product/UX Oriented - Fail-first minded

Serial Entrepreneurs can perfectly behave as entrepreneur

17

Understand investors

Depends on InvestorsA likes tech geeks B likes detail-oriented guys C likes hyper risk takers D likes crazy visionalist… etc.

Observable common natures- Fact Oriented - Hard work - Responsive - Ability to attract talents - Product/UX Oriented - Fail-first minded

Investors don’t like ambiguous broad vision

18

Understand investors

Your whole visions… what is it???

Growth Hack

Marketing

Product Current Product is just a part of the vision

Know a lot about techniques

Tagline

Product description is a part of marketing

tactics

Should respect marketing message on top

19

Understand investors

Marketing Message*

Features

Concise, attractive value proposition

(one sentence)

Operation

All the features has to be 100% consistent

Operation also has to be consistent with the

marketing message

*Marketing message = Unique Value Proposition

Example of non-product-oriented communication

20

Understand investors

I have a concern on the real user-side demands

We can do the marketing through partnership strategies rather than directly doing marketing.

In detail, xxx

Investor

Entrepreneur

Product Concern

Doesn't sound

product oriented

21

My Activity

2016’s new challenge (Innovatube)

Apprentice Program

‣ Exclusively for Entrepreneurial Engineer

‣ To acquire startup-focused business skills to be CEO

‣No excellent business idea required: deadline: 4th May