 kind of big screen. Hello. Hello. You're supposed to say hello. The way you say hello is the first introduction I have to you. Anybody see Jerry Maguire the movie? Okay. No. Tom Cruise? No. All right. Well the first thing that they say in there is show me the money. Then the next thing you get from that is help me help you. But for me the most important line in that movie is you had me at hello. Because you only have a very small time to pitch the value of your companies and you've got to do it fast. You've got to do it with purpose. You've got to do it with passion. Otherwise, venture capitalists, we're going to fall asleep and then you're done. And you have minutes. You don't have hours and sometimes you only have seconds. A while ago I spoke at a conference and I had about a thousand people and I walked out on stage and there was a woman in the middle in the front row and she was waving her shoe at me and then she was waving a little hanky on her shoe and I'm thinking to myself, oh my God, I got the first and the only crazy person is sitting right in the front row. But she kept doing this. And finally I finished my pitch. I finished my lecture and then I looked down to where she kept pointing at my shoe and attached to my shoe was a piece of toilet paper. It was the size of like the entire stage. I picked it up. I took it off my shoe and I said, anybody lose this? Stood up and they applauded. And you know why? Because I connected to them as people. My first investor in one of my funds came up to me. I'd seen him on every front of every magazine. And he came up and he said, Miss Manis, you've built three companies. You've run two successful venture funds. But you want to know something? Care because whatever you build, I would invest into you. And you are the starting point for every pitch. What is your hello? Guess what? We are all composition of meaning and emotions. All of us. And everything we build is an extension of us. And we have to keep that in mind. So who you are and what you stand for is as important to a venture capitalist as the product that you're building. Raise your hand if you think you have integrity. Who has integrity? I love this. People are like, I don't know. I've got integrity. I may not have integrity. And then I have some people saying to the person beside him, you don't have integrity. Do not raise your hand. The fact is that we don't know what integrity stands for anymore. What is integrity? And yet it is critical. Your values are critical on how you pitch and how you grow the culture of your company. Do you have integrity? If you don't have integrity, let me give you some tips on that. We invest in values, not just valuations. That's what structure capital does. Your values are going to inform how you build your product and your companies. How you inspire. How you perform under challenge in circumstances. Those are all important. Let me tell you about patience. Women, I'm going to talk to you. Men, you've got to listen. Women, men think we are all drama queens. Okay? And we are going to, not all men. Some men think we're drama queens. And we're going to react in an irrational way. And my number one value to all of you is don't lose your shit in business. Don't lose your self-control because the moment you scream, the moment you have a meltdown, the moment you act erratically, oh God, with the toilet paper, you act erratically, they win and you lose your power. Don't raise your voice. Don't melt down. Show some self-awareness. Show some self-control. I want to see that when you're pitching. I want to see how you handle adversity. And by the way, at the very bottom of this is honor. You've got your word. That's your personal currency. Your word has to go the distance. So you give your word. That's your honor. Keep it. Maintain it. And pass it forward to everyone in your company. We are value-based. We are not just valuation-based. Okay, rock the room. I have a podcast. It's produced by Gimlet Media in the States. It's called The Pitch. We're sort of the antithesis of Shark Tank. And one day, Guy came in. He walks across the stage. And I'm really looking forward to this pitch because I've heard a little bit about his company. Just a wee bit. He walks in, sits down like this. I'm looking at him and I'm thinking to myself, get up out of that chair. Look me in the eye. Show me that you have confidence. Show me your passion. What the hell are you doing sitting on a chair slouched into the floor? You need to show that you are confident and not cocky. You need to show that you are going to be able to motivate an employee to motivate and inspire funders and founders. You're going to have to take this company for two to 10 years. And I want to see that in your eyes. And I want to see the respect and I want to see the passion. But first of all, I want you to know who I am. When you go for a pitch, please don't try to sell me a SaaS product when I'm really only interested in bioscience or not just bioscience, but a specific type. There are aerodynamics. Maybe I'm an aerodynamic fund and you're teaching me a product marketplace. Know your VC. We want to be able for you to connect to us the way that we connect to you. Be careful. Do due diligence on us as we are doing due diligence on you. Okay. The why. Most important thing. I've heard pitches all this morning. Everybody, please, if you leave with one thing, not the toilet paper today, but leave with this. The minute you sit down, I want to know why. Why is this product important to you? Why is this product important to a consumer, to a customer? The why is much more important than the what or the how. Why should I care about this? Steve Jobs actually started all this thinking in terms of the why, not Simon Sinek. It was actually Steve that said, what is our emotional connection to our product? I need to know the why. Then start with the how and the what. Why should I care about this product? Why should I care about you? And then go from there. All right. In our investment meetings, we do something really clever. If I were to pitch you a product, in two seconds, I want you to think of either a thousand people that would use this product or the top three companies that could be brand partners, how I'm going to expand their brand or solve their problem, when they're highest problems. Okay. Let me give you one. On demand dog walking. Who would invest in that? All right. That's a pity. Alrighty. So then I think to myself, you're not doing this right. On demand dog walking in two seconds. One, two, think of a thousand people that would use that product. Anybody? It was pitched to me. On demand dog walking. I took at my investor meeting. On demand dog walking. And they looked at me and they said, what? And I said, okay, let me support it with data. People spend more money on their pets than their children in the United States. Veterinarians make more money than pediatricians. People spend more money on pet and dog accessories than their own hair accessories. And guess what? There are no regulations with this industry. And it is global. And we were with the third check into Uber. Structure Capital was. Regulations are very high on mind for us. So I started talking about this data and all of a sudden, everybody in the room stopped. And they said, oh, now we get it. Now we get it. We invest in the company. It's called WAG. We just got 650 million from SoftBank. It is now in all the U.S. And it is going global. It's a huge company. I think its valuation is 1.3. And that's the pet market. Because I knew a thousand people would use this. Purina, Petco, they collect the data. That's the value of this company. Boom. Okay. I do not want to hear from any of you that you are the only one. You cannot be the only one. I don't have any competition, Jillian. Well, that's horse manure. Of course, you have some competition. You need to know your competition. You need to know your competitive landscape. And guess what? Do not compare yourself to the next person in the food chain, all right? Who is the next leader? Who is topping the market in your space? I don't want to know the person next to you. I want to know the first person in line. And so should you, because that's how you should be measuring yourself against the front runner. Know who that is. Talk about it. Tell me how you are different, what your differentiator, how you expand on them, how you compliment them, but know it. Don't dock your valuation. Oh, my God. Now, this is a gillie-ism. Okay? We talk a lot about anchoring your valuation. I know it's prestigious to have a big valuation. I know you want to have these big exits, and we want that for you too. But guess what? The composition of these rounds, the minds that you're bringing around the table are much more important than the money of your valuations. It should be something that represents the integrity that you have, the respect, and the value for the money at the mind that you're bringing in, not just the money. So we call it anchoring. Never give a number out when you are talking about your valuation. The VC will say, what is it? And you'll say, okay, now you're going to anchor. I don't know. I was thinking around this. That's based on progress I made from my last round. That's based on how I'm going to deploy capital. This is based on the milestones that I'm going to reach. That's a good answer. That's called anchoring. Don't dock, anchor. And the last but not least, which is not coming up here, it went back to the beginning, but I want you to listen. Being a founder is a very scary. It's full of tremendous amounts of fear. But I'd liken it to coming to the edge. So I'm going to leave you with a little visual. A venture capitalist, a little bit crazy, but she knows her stuff. Said to a group of founders, I said to all of you, come to the edge. And you said, forget it. I'm going to fall off the edge. I'm not going to come there. I said, no, no, no. You're confident. You've got this. Come to the edge. You said, I'm not quite sure about that. I said, please, come here. Come to the edge. And you all did. And I pushed you. And you flew. So bear that in mind. Every time something gets scary, you just have to walk a little closer to the edge. You have to do that with confidence. You have to know and experience flying. And if you fall a bit, that's okay too. Pull yourself back over onto the edge, onto the ledge. Know your hello. Come pitch to me anytime. Try to figure out the best way to say hello. Thank you very much.