Raising Money for "Sliced Bread" in the Valley

You are the guy who came up with "sliced bread." You need to raise some angel or VC money to get your idea of the ground.

Say $5 million. $250k for swank Palo Alto offices. $500k for organizational costs, lawyers, accountants. $2m in salaries for you, engineers, business development people, marketing people, account executives, salespeople, interns, your hot secretary. $250k for a website with the latest web 2.0 ajaxy goodness - probably a social network for people that love sliced bread. $1m for a huge multicity launch party, advertising campaign, and buzz.

You walk into the fancy board room of the first VC on Sand Hill Road, fire up your projector and start your talk. Your presentation consists of one ppt slide - showing a piece of sliced bread. That is it. This is idea is so good, its potential so self-evident, that is all you need. You shut, up sit down and open your briefcase to hold the cash they are about to hand over.

Instead, however, they start peppering you with questions:

• Will people really buy sliced bread?
• How about cakes and the loaves of whole-wheat, rye, pumpernickel?
• What kind of knifes or machines will be needed?
• What about the crumbs left after the slicing?
• Could you partner with the knife industry and sell a machine that allows people to do this themselves at home?
• Have you filed your patent application?
• Can you do something about the crusts?
• The end-pieces?


• Isn't bread just popular now because of that Bread & Chocolate movie? What happens after the "buzz" around bread dies down?


• Will people think they're getting less bread to eat?
• How will people pick up the loaf to take home after it's sliced?
• Will people pay extra for something they already do themselves?
• Who is paying for it - will the consumer pay extra or will the bakery eat the cost for a competitive advantage?
• Why slice it so thin - don't people like thicker slices?
• Can you slice bagels?
• Did you turn in your TPS report this week?
• What about Challah?
• What about cubed bread?

Those jerks! You are handing them the greatest business idea since the wheel, and all they can do is raise objections.

The point - ideas on their own are worthless. Execution is everything.

Special thanks to Genesis U and their upcoming Mastering Due Dilligence online course for some of the VC questions about sliced bread.