Pitching & Closing: by Scarsdale's Ellen DaSilva

Scarsdale's Ellen DaSilva has just written "Pitching & Closing: Everything you need to bring revenue-generating partnerships to a tech-startup." Ellen currently lives in San Francisco where she works on the Business Operations team at Twitter, which finds and targets strategic revenue opportunities for the company. Previously, she worked at Barclays on more than $10 billion worth of initial public offerings and other primary issuances for technology and media/telecommunications companies
Ellen grew up in Scarsdale and earned a BA in English literature with honors from Brown University and is now a trustee of the Brown University Hillel.

Ellen met co-author Alexander Taub through a mutual connection from Scarsdale (Adam Levin) when she was looking to leave banking and break into tech. Alex is active in the New York tech scene as the creator of the BD Meetup and an advisor to early-stage companies. He has been featured in Business Insider as one of the "Top 20 Under 25" on the New York tech scene. He writes a popular blog called Alex's Tech Thoughts; has been published in Fast Company, the New York Observer, The Next Web, and VentureBeat; teaches business development classes; and has been quoted on many tech websites, including TechCrunch, Gigaom, the New York Times, Business Insider, Mashable, and PC Magazine. He is also a contributor to the Forbes Entrepreneur section.

After moving to Twitter, Ellen stayed in close contact with Alex, helping him with background for his bi-weekly column for Forbes. When McGraw Hill approached him about writing a book on Business Development at tech companies, he asked Ellen to co-author the book.

Their new book, Pitching & Closing spans 5 major topics and dives in-depth about each. Part 1 is about the business development basics. What is it? How is it structured and organized at companies? What does it entail? Part 2 is an introduction to partnerships. Part 3 takes an extensive look at the process of pitching and closing, the namesake of the book. Part 4 is an overview of industry best-practices. And Part 5 features war stories from some of the best names in the business, including Charlie O'Donnell (Brooklyn Bridge Ventures), Gary Vaynerchuck (VaynerMedia), Jesse Itzler (Marquis Jet) and many more.

The purpose of the book is twofold: first, it is meant to serve as a guidebook to the art of business development and closing deals for people already in the industry. Second, it is meant to used as a training manual for new graduates or graduate school students who want to learn more about the industry and how non-technical roles work at tech companies.

We ask Ellen how she managed to write the book while working full time at a demanding job. She said, "The process itself was surprisingly organized. We kept ourselves to a rigid schedule, drew from our past experiences and spent a lot of time consulting experts in various aspects of business development, partnerships and startups. It was exhilarating getting it over the finish line and I think I speak on behalf of both of us when I say we're proud of what we produced."

Learn more about Ellen, the tech world and professional savvy -- and find out where to pre-order her book on her blog "The World According to Ellen."