By Tony Armstrong

From the Wall Street Journal: Early in his career as a venture capitalist, Steve Brotman received a knock on his office door and in walked a woman dressed from head to toe in an outrageous green costume. She reached in her bag and served Mr. Brotman a business plan for a company that had “avocado” in its name.“Regardless of whether I was interested, you lost me at hello,” Mr. Brotman, now the managing director of venture-capital fund Greenhill SAVP in New York, says he told her. “I’m not about to do a deal with a lady dressed like an avocado.”It takes much more than a gimmick to get the attention of venture capitalists. As a growing number of entrepreneurs compete for a shrinking pool of capital, it’s more important than ever to make a good first impression with an airtight pitch. Read the whole article