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Read Now: Without a clear ask, your pitch deck is useless – 101 Latest News
#clear #pitch #deck #useless
You’ve brushed off your Keynote skills, you’re giddy that you’re finally going to be able to start paying yourself a living wage, and you are excited to start pitching your startup’s next round of funding to your investors. It’s heady times, for sure, but hit the other pedal there for a moment, friend — you may be forgetting something.
After working with hundreds of founders on raising money — including the fantastically popular Pitch Deck Teardown series here on TechCrunch+ — there’s one slide that almost every founder gets woefully wrong. The slide is often referred to as The Ask. Or, as one investor friend calls it, the “what is my $10 million going to buy me”? slide.
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The Ask is a sensitive topic to a lot of inexperienced entrepreneurs, which makes sense. Trying to right-size a funding round can be a little overwhelming, and there are a thousand different ways of building a startup. If you were successful in raising $8 million, you can do things one way. If you raised $12 million, you could perhaps launch more features of your product a little faster, or experiment more, or go after an additional market earlier. You know that. Your senior staff knows that. Your investors know that. But regardless, you need a Plan A.
What do those key metrics need to look like in order to raise not this round of funding, but your next one?
What do you need to do?
A lot of founders will tell you that they are trying to raise enough money to survive for the next 18 months. That’s probably true, but that will be true regardless of how much money you raise. A better approach is to think about what you need to accomplish to raise your next round of funding, and then work backward from there. This is probably a combination of metrics and milestones.
Metrics are the measurable parts of your business that grow and evolve over time. One of the best metrics you have is revenue, but there could be many others: the number of sales, average order value (AOV), monthly or annual recurring revenue (MRR or ARR, respectively), customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (LTV), daily and monthly active users (DAU and MAU), retention rate (usually expressed by its inverse, churn rate) and much more. What do those key metrics need to look like in order to raise not this round of funding, but your next one?
Milestones are also measurable parts of the business, but instead of tracking them over time, they tend to be binary: You’ve either hit a milestone or you haven’t. For startups, this could be key hires; finding the perfect, experienced CFO that can help take your company public is one major milestone a lot of companies at some point need to hit. Product launches (coming out of beta), launches in particular markets (launching only in California) and localization (launching your app in Spanish and French, for example) are also important milestones. Financial milestones are also common; the first time you make a single dollar from any customer is a huge shift in the business. When a customer, on average, starts to make you more money than it costs you to acquire them is another. For earlier-stage companies, completing a customer validation phase by talking to, say, 100 potential customers is a milestone.
When you’re raising money, you will be mapping out a set of milestones that you need to hit in order to validate your company. In addition, you’ll set a number of trigger points for metrics — hitting $1 million ARR, having 5,000 daily active users or finding a combination of customer acquisition channels that means you can acquire customers at a reasonable blended CAC, for example.
So let’s examine how to put together a great “ask” slide by ascertaining what it takes to determine how much you need to raise, how to create a specific set of goals and how to bring it all together in a coherent whole.
Tech
Read Now: Best phones under Rs 40,000 (May 2023): OnePlus 11R 5G, Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G to iQOO 9 5G – 101 Latest News
#phones #OnePlus #11R #Samsung #Galaxy #S21 #iQOO
Ameya DalviMay 24, 2023 13:52:55 IST
There were quite a few handsets vying for a slot on our sub-40K list of phones this month. After much deliberation, we have shortlisted five. This budget gives you access to some premium features like flagship-grade processors, high quality cameras with OIS, excellent high refresh rate displays and more. You get phones suitable for gamers as well as photography enthusiasts in this budget. So let’s take a look at the best options you can get your hands on under Rs 40,000 this May.
Best phones to buy under Rs 40,000 in India
OnePlus 11R 5G
OnePlus had a strong start to the year courtesy of the launch of the OnePlus 11 series. While the flagship OnePlus 11 5G is loaded with more bells and whistles, the more affordable 11R 5G is no pushover either, and borrows a lot of goodness from its more premium sibling including the design. This stylish phone looks just like the 11 5G from the front and back, barring the placement of the front camera and a missing Hasselblad logo at the back.
The OnePlus 11R has a curved display too, measuring 6.74-inch with an unusual (higher than Full HD) resolution of 2772 x 1240 pixels. You get a standard Fluid AMOLED display here instead of the more premium LTPO3 variant on the 11. This HDR10+ compliant screen supports 10-bit colour, 120 Hz refresh rate and can get up to 1450 nits bright. This phone is powered by Qualcomm’s previous generation flagship Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip, and you get its 8 GB RAM and 128 GB UFS 3.1 storage variant in this budget.
The 50MP primary camera with OIS but without Hasselblad’s colour tuning is quite impressive and does most of the heavy lifting. The support cast is modest with an 8MP ultrawide camera and a 2MP macro camera. There’s a 16MP selfie camera too. Its 5000 mAh battery can last for a day and a half of moderate use, and the bundled 100W charger promises to juice it up in just 25 minutes. The phone runs OxygenOS 13 based on Android 13 and one can expect several OS and security updates going forward.
OnePlus 11R 5G price in India: Rs 39,999 for 8GB RAM/128GB storage
Motorola Edge 30 Pro 5G
The Motorola Edge 30 Pro 5G seems to have received further price cuts and you can now get it under 35K. This phone is powered by Qualcomm’s previous flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, which is still extremely powerful, and comes with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage. Its 6.7-inch Full HD+ OLED screen flaunts a 144 Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ compliance and can display over a billion colours. You get Corning Gorilla Glass protection against scratches at the front and back.
The photography department on the Motorola Edge 30 Pro is impressive too, starting with a 50MP primary camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and another 50MP camera for ultra-wide photography; there’s a 2MP depth sensor too. The 60MP front camera is bound to impress the selfie crowds. This phone has a 4800 mAh battery that comfortably lasts close to a day and a half of moderate use and supports 68W fast charging as well as 15W fast wireless charging. This phone launched with Android 12, and an Android 13 update has started rolling out. Like most Motorola phones, you get a clean and near-stock user interface.
Motorola Edge 30 Pro 5G price in India: Rs 34,999 for 8GB RAM/128GB storage
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G is another great option in this budget. This phone has a sleek design and also flaunts an IP68 rating for dust and fluid resistance. It has a 6.4-inch Full HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with HDR10+ compliance, 120 Hz refresh rate and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection. It is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 2100 chip which can be found in several premium phones from the company. You can get its 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage variant in this budget. The phone launched with Android 12, and is upgradeable to Android 13 with Samsung’s One UI 5.
Photography department on the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G consists of three cameras at the back starting with a 12MP primary camera with OIS, a 12MP ultra-wide camera with 123 degrees FOV and an 8MP telephoto camera with OIS that provides 3X optical zoom. The camera performance is impressive with excellent detail and wide dynamic range, and with a strong low light performance too. A 4500 mAh battery keeps the phone running for close to a day and a half of moderate use and supports wireless charging as well.
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G price in India: Rs 39,999 for 8GB RAM/128GB storage
iQOO 9 5G
The iQOO 9 5G is for those looking for a solid camera phone with ample storage under 40K. It is powered by Qualcomm’s earlier flagship Snapdragon 888+ chip, and you get its 12 GB RAM and 256 GB internal storage variant in this budget. Its 6.56-inch HDR10+ compliant Full HD+ AMOLED display has 120Hz refresh rate and can display a billion colour shades. The phone launched with Android 12 with FunTouch OS 12, and the company released an Android 13 update for the phone a few months ago. One can expect more software updates for this device in the future.
The rear camera department here is quite versatile too. You get a 48MP primary camera with Gimbal stabilisation, accompanied by a 13MP ultra-wide camera and a 13MP 50 mm professional portrait camera for great portrait shots. The 16MP front camera is more than handy for selfies and video calls. The iQOO 9 5G has a 4350 mAh battery that can last over a day of moderate use, and the bundled 120W fast charger claims to charge it fully in just 18 minutes.
iQOO 9 5G price in India: Rs 37,990 for 12GB RAM/256GB storage
Asus ROG Phone 5s
Here is a surprise entrant in this list. A relatively old phone but still highly relevant for mobile gamers, and certainly a very interesting option at this price point. We are talking about the Asus ROG Phone 5s. Other than powerful processing hardware, the phone has several optimisations and enhancements to give gamers an immersive gaming experience. The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+ SoC which is still fairly powerful for gaming, and you get 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage to go with it.
Its large 6.78-inch Full HD+ 10-bit AMOLED display has a 144 Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ compliance and can get up to 1200 nits bright. This phone is targeted primarily at mobile gamers, but it can handle photography reasonably well, courtesy of a 64MP primary camera, 13MP ultra-wide snapper and a 5MP macro camera. The Asus ROG Phone 5s has a large 6000 mAh battery for long gaming sessions, and the bundled 65W fast charger can recharge it briskly. This phone launched with Android 11 and Asus’ ROG UI, and a stable Android 13 update has started rolling out recently.
Asus ROG Phone 5s price in India: Rs 39,999 for 8GB RAM/128GB storage
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