When founders are ready to raise cash, they will find a collection of resources here, including a description of the funding process and the Silicon Valley ecosystem, a glossary of common terms and more. After all, knowledge is power.

Coming soon...

The elevator pitch.

A great elevator pitch is short, punchy, memorable and descriptive. Think of it as a haiku description of your startup.

For example...

* The Hackers & Founders Co-op: "The Linux of Incubators".
* A cable movie channel: "It's not TV, it's HBO"
* A horror movie about a killer dog: "Jaws on Paws"
* A social network for pet owners: "Facebook for your Cat"

Describe the product. Sounds easy, doesn't it? However, the way in which a founder describes a product can influence an investor presentation. Following are tips from authors in this section. Click through to see more.

* The word "product" implies that individuals/business will pay for access
* Talk about the financial viability of the product and not the "cool hack"
* Talk about the big problem your product solves. A big solution means a big market and a big exit
* Explain why your process is superior to your competitor's
* Explain why your product is better than anything else on the market
* Use plain English
* Be clear, concise and direct in one or two paragraphs at most
* Avoid technical jargon, business speak or buzz words

Silicon Valley has a unique culture, which perhaps should be declared a national treasure because it is so well suited to startups.

This is not to say that a startup cannot be founded in another location. In fact, Hackers & Founders - Silicon Valley is committed to sharing our considerable resources with startup communities everywhere. Culture is not limited by geography any more. Ideas, cultural norms and attitudes can be exchanged where ever a startup community is located. The trick is to find a community of people that are willing to embrace the way of the startup.

In this section, you will find resources to explain Silicon Valley values and culture, both for those moving to the area and founders attempting to build startup communities around the globe.

Coming soon...

So much of what makes Silicon Valley the place it is today stems from its past. More information to come...

While moving to Silicon Valley is not right for every startup, those new to the area can find it overwhelming. It takes much too long to get oriented and up to speed on the startup scene in Silicon Valley.

Here's a few resources that we think will help founders become acclimated more quickly.

Social proof means those who will vouch for you. No, not your Mom, but a mentor(s) whose opinion is valuable and applicable to your startup.

The startup culture in Silicon Valley is highly based on an individual's personal network or social graph, so investors do tend to measure someone by who they know. However, a founder can still do well with limited social proof, especially with adequate traction.

Social proof tends to "just happen" over time in Silicon Valley because the culture values reputations and meritocracy. So just do the cool stuff that you do as an entrepreneur and as you meet people, some will volunteer to act as social proof.

Think about the friend who just raised a large round of funding, an advisor with a startup exit or a thought leader among startups. There are many people who might qualify.

Do not post your resume here. Instead, investors want to know what cool things people on your team have done.

This list is very roughly organized by "startup coolness" and experience at the top of the list is better than experience towards the bottom.

* Founder at a startup that exited
* Founder or funded startup that failed
* "Committer" on major open source project
* Designer for national products
* Dev/Design/Biz for a recognized startup
* Team Lead for product launch at (insert big company name here)
* Created public GitHub repos that are actively used by others
* Amazing design portfolio
* Cool hacks leading to fun outcomes
* Design & Code skills in same person
* Employed by (insert big company name here)
* Big tech degree from name brand school
* Name brand degree

Traction trumps every other category.

What is traction? To those new to startups, figuring out what traction is, how to get it and then how to communicate the numbers to investors is pretty difficult.

Some examples of traction:

* How many users a startup has
* How quickly a startup gains new users
* Amount of paying customers
* Revenue in general
* A small but fanatical user base
* Active engaged users
* Mobile app downloads
* How quickly the user base doubles. Doubling a fanatical user base, engaged users or mobile downloads every three months is great traction
* Page views are one of the least exciting forms of traction, but they still count. Doubling your page views every 3 months will probably get an investor's attention

Once a startup has traction, how should it be documented for presentation to investors? It's called an "up and to the right" graph. First, a founder must collect at least three data points to demonstrate growth over time. Then these points are placed on a curve in the graph and when connected, investors can view expansion at a glance. An investor's favorite graph is the "hockey stick growth curve" and they love it even more if the data includes paying customers.

The amount of traction needed to capture an investor's attention varies greatly depending on the type of startup. Currently, the word on the street is that investors are "done" with social media startups. So for a social site to receive investor interest at this time, traction would probably need to include millions of active users and perhaps some paying customers.

This is not an exact science. The amount of traction needed to impress an investor is also dependent on his/her firm's investment thesis, what fields the investor finds interesting, what is "hot" and who is bidding against them. But you cannot have enough traction. The more traction, the better. Traction, traction, traction.