(Since I've antagonized the venture capital community with last week's blog, I thought I would complete the picture and “out” entrepreneurs to begin this week. The hard part about writing this blog was narrowing down these lies to ten. Luckily, my partner, Bill Reichert, had already documented this list of the top ten lies of entrepreneurs.)

We get pitched dozens of times every year, and every pitch contains at least three or four of these lies. We provide them not because we believe we can increase the level of honesty of entrepreneurs as much as to help entrepreneurs come up with new lies. At least new lies indicate a modicum of creativity!

1. “Our projections are conservative.” An entrepreneur's projections are never conservative. If they were, they would be $0. I have never seen an entrepreneur achieve even her most conservative projections. Generally, an entrepreneur has no idea what sales will be, so she guesses: “Too little will make my deal uninteresting; too big, and I'll look hallucinogenic.” The result is that everyone's projections are $50 million in year four. As a rule of thumb, when I see a projection, I add one year to delivery time and multiply by .1.
2. “(Big name research firm) says our market will be $50 billion in 2010.” Every entrepreneur has a few slides about how the market potential for his segment is tens of billions. It doesn't matter if the product is bar mitzah planning software or 802.11 chip sets. Venture capitalists don't believe this type of forecast because it's the fifth one of this magnitude that they've heard that day. Entrepreneurs would do themselves a favor by simply removing any reference to market size estimates from consulting firms.
3. “(Big name company) is going to sign our purchase order next week.” This is the “I heard I have to show traction at a conference” lie of entrepreneurs. The funny thing is that next week, the purchase order still isn't signed. Nor the week after. The decision maker gets laid off, the CEO gets fired, there's a natural disaster, whatever. The only way to play this card if AFTER the purchase order is signed because no investor whose money you'd want will fall for this one.
4. “Key employees are set to join us as soon as we get funded.” More often than not when a venture capitalist calls these key employees who are VPs are Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun, he gets the following response, “Who said that? I recall meeting him at a Churchill Club meeting, but I certainly didn't say I would leave my cush $250,000/year job at Adobe to join his startup.” If it's true that key employees are ready to rock and roll, have them call the venture capitalist after the meeting and testify to this effect.
5. “No one is doing what we're doing.” This is a bummer of a lie because there are only two logical conclusions. First, no one else is doing this because there is no market for it. Second, the entrepreneur is so clueless that he can't even use Google to figure out he has competition. Suffice it to say that the lack of a market and cluelessness is not conducive to securing an investment. As a rule of thumb, if you have a good idea, five companies are going the same thing. If you have a great idea, fifteen companies are doing the same thing.
6. “No one can do what we're doing.” If there's anything worse than the lack of a market and cluelessness, it's arrogance. No one else can do this until the first company does it, and ten others spring up in the next ninety days. Let's see, no one else ran a sub four-minute mile after Roger Bannister. (It took only a month before John Landy did). The world is a big place. There are lots of smart people in it. Entrepreneurs are kidding themselves if they think they have any kind of monopoly on knowledge. And, sure as I'm a Macintosh user, on the same day that an entrepreneur tells this lie, the venture capitalist will have met with another company that's doing the same thing.
7. “Hurry because several other venture capital firms are interested.” The good news: There are maybe one hundred entrepreneurs in the world who can make this claim. The bad news: The fact that you are reading a blog about venture capital means you're not one of them. As my mother used to say, “Never play Russian roulette with an Uzi.” For the absolute cream of the crop, there is competition for a deal, and an entrepreneur can scare other investors to make a decision. For the rest of us, don't think one can create a sense of scarcity when it's not true. Re-read the previous blog about the lies of venture capitalists, to learn how entrepreneurs are hearing “maybe” when venture capitalists are saying “no.”
8. “Oracle is too big/dumb/slow to be a threat.” Larry Ellison has his own jet. He can keep the San Jose Airport open for his late night landings. His boat is so big that it can barely get under the Golden Gate Bridge. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are flying on Southwest out of Oakland and stealing the free peanuts. There's a reason why Larry is where he is, and entrepreneurs are where they are, and it's not that he's big, dumb, and slow. Competing with Oracle, Microsoft, and other large companies is a very difficult task. Entrepreneurs who utter this lie look at best naive. You think it's bravado, but venture capitalists think it's stupidity.
9. “We have a proven management team.” Says who? Because the founder worked at Morgan Stanley for a summer? Or McKinsey for two years? Or he made sure that John Sculley's Macintosh could power on? Truly “proven” in a venture capitalist's eyes is founder of a company that returned billions to its investors. But if the entrepreneur were that proven, that he (a) probably wouldn't have to ask for money; (b) wouldn't be claiming that he's proven. (Do you think Wayne Gretzky went around saying, “I am a good hockey player”?) A better strategy is for the entrepreneur to state that (a) she has relevant industry experience; (b) she is going to do whatever it takes to succeed; (c) she is going to surround herself with directors and advisors who are proven; and (d) she'll step aside whenever it becomes necessary. This is good enough for a venture capitalist that believes in what the entrepreneur is doing.
10. “Patents make our product defensible.” The optimal number of times to use the P word in a presentation is one. Just once, say, “We have filed patents for what we are doing.” Done. The second time you say it, venture capitalists begin to suspect that you are depending too much on patents for defensibility. The third time you say it, you are holding a sign above your head that says, “I am clueless.” Sure, you should patent what you're doing--if for no other reason than to say it once in your presentation. But at the end of the patents are mostly good for impressing your parents. You won't have the time or money to sue anyone with a pocket deep enough to be worth suing.
11. “All we have to do is get 1% of the market.” (Here's a bonus since I still have battery power.) This lie is the flip side of “the market will be $50 billion.” There are two problems with this lie. First, no venture capitalist is interested in a company that is looking to get 1% or so of a market. Frankly, we want our companies to face the wrath of the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice. Second, it's also not that easy to get 1% of any market, so you look silly pretending that it is. Generally, it's much better for entrepreneurs to show a realistic appreciation of the difficulty of building a successful company.

By popular demand (okay, two people asked me to do it), here are the top ten ways to attract the interest of venture capitalists. There's no guarantee that if you do these ten things that you'll raise millions of dollars, but this wishlist will get you in the game.

Before you even start addressing the hard stuff, never ask a venture capitalist to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). They never do. This is because at any given moment, they are looking at three or four similar deals. They're not about to create legal issues because they sign a NDA and then fund another, similar company--thereby making the paranoid entrepreneur believe the venture capitalist stole his idea. If you even ask them to sign one, you might as well tattoo “I'm clueless!” on your forehead.

1. Build a real business. This seems like a “duhism,” but few entrepreneurs do it. Most entrepreneurs focus on quick flips to an IPO or acquisition. Don't get me wrong: venture capitalists aren't necessarily good guys who want to make meaning and change the world. It's just that we've noticed that entrepreneurs who make meaning and change the world usually also make money. Nothing is more seductive to venture capitalists than a company that they can easily imagine having a big impact on the world.
2. Get an intro. Venture capitalists are lazy people. We don't want to be DeBeers: sifting through two tons of dirt to find a few diamonds. We want things handed to us on a silver platter like when someone we know, and maybe even trust, tells us about a good deal. The best intros come from corporate finance attorneys, college professors, and the CEOs of companies in our portfolio. Intros from these parties will usually result in at least a meeting. (Incidentally, this is a good reason why even though Uncle Joe the divorce attorney could probably do your early legal work, you don't want him to: he can't make any introductions compared to the lowliest lawyer at Heller, Ehrman.)
3. Obey the 10/20/30 rule. To repeat myself, your PowerPoint presentation should have approximately ten slides; you should be able to give this presentation in twenty minutes; and the smallest font should be thirty points. And yes, this means you--the guy with the revolutionary, patent-pending, curve-jumping, open-source, Google-adwords-optimized way to sell dogfood online.
4. Show traction. The easiest way to “prove” that you have a real business is to see that you're already generating revenue. It's one thing to believe your bull-shitake PowerPoint presentation; it's another to see cash flowing into your company. You show traction, and most venture capitalists will be willing to suspend disbelief. Fundamentally, you're asking venture capitalists to take a leap of faith with you--we'd rather jump off a diving board than the Golden Gate Bridge. If you can't show traction, then at least line up customer references who will really say, “If they build this, we'll buy it.”
5. Clean up your act. Going back to my theory that venture capitalists are lazy, you need to present a clean deal to venture capitalists. “Clean” means that there isn't a lawsuit by your former employer contesting the ownership of the intellectual property of your company; nor have you sold common stock to your friends and relatives; nor given stock to vendors in lieu of fees; nor have a disgruntled founder who owns 25% of the company but doesn't do anything but sit around and complain. The more crap that a venture capitalist has to clean up, the less likely he'll be interested in your deal.
6. Disclose everything. If you have crap that you simply cannot clean up, then disclose it right away--not necessarily in the first meeting, but soon thereafter. When it's making an investment decision or, later, serving on your board of directors, the worst thing you can do to a venture capitalist is surprise her with bad news.
7. Acknowledge, or create, an enemy. Woe to you that claims you have no competition. It means you're clueless or pursuing a market that doesn't exist. Venture capitalists like to see some competition--it means that there's some validation that a market exists. Then, it's your problem to explain why you have an unfair advantage. If you truly have no competition (and I doubt it), then just say that Microsoft or Google might go after you because these companies do want it all.
8. Tell new lies. Please refer to my list of the top ten lies of entrepreneurs. Every time you tell one of these lies, you decrease the likelihood of funding by 25%. Do the math: you tell four lies, and you won't get funded. I'd like to add an eleventh lie that someone brought to my attention: “This is the last round of funding we'll need.” That's a joke and a lie.
9. Don't fall for old trick questions. Venture capitalists will try two trick questions on you in order to assess your degree of cluelessness. (1) Do you see yourself as the long-term CEO of this company? (2) What is the liquidity path for your company?“ The right answer for the first one is, ”My goal is to build a great company. If it means that I need to step aside, I will gladly do so when the time is right.“ The right answer for the second one is, ”Frankly, I haven't given a lot of thought to liquidity. My team and I are heads down and focusing on finishing the product. If we build a great company, I'm confident liquidity of some form will occur.“
10. Under promise and over deliver. In everything that you say, ensure that your results exceed expectations. Deliver a prototype earlier. Deliver your list of references earlier. Sign up your first customers earlier. Close a partnership deal earlier. Launch earlier. The only thing you shouldn't do earlier is run out of money.

Written at: Back seat of a car going to San Francisco.