March 18, 2010

TO: Jeff Zalla, Diatom Ventures

FROM: SAMPLE MEMO ONE

RE: Increasing deal flow through low-cost, high-impact activities

All private equity firms have money to invest – what makes a private equity firm unique is the investors, through their guidance, expertise, and commitment. However, in order to turn these skills into a competitive advantage, it is necessary that, 1) you have a clear and consistent message, and 2) that the message is heard. This memo offers recommendations to increase the credibility and visibility of your firm, increasing deal flow through low-cost, high-impact activities.

1. Judging a book by its cover: the importance of website design

Because people will so often judge a company by
Especially as you don’t yet have a portfolio to serve as an example of acceptable companies, highlighting other practices would be advisable. One way to do this would be to expand your “Bookshelf” page to include links to articles and case studies. Be-cause.com does this well with their “Library” page, on which they post a reading list, their own blogs, and other blogs and articles that inspire them. Diatom could elaborate on this model by discussing and posting links to companies that you think are leaders in the CSR space. In the future you could replace these with the companies in which you invest.

3. Raising your profile by creating profiles: using social media effectively

Through social media you can raise your own profile to make entrepreneurs come to you, and in the meantime you can use social media to proactively seek them.

A traditional way that a VC investor might raise his profile is by making speeches, networking, and attending conferences, and social media has the power to increase the effectiveness of these activities exponentially. Consider for example:

▪ You don’t only give a speech to a defined group, but you post a video of the speech online on your website, expanding your audience and introducing yourself to many more budding entrepreneurs. ▪ By turning traditional networking into social