The Perfect 10: Pitching Investors Return
When raising capital for your company, it’s necessary to describe the plans for your business in a manner that will compel a financier to fund you. Since fundraising pitches contain similar ingredients whether they’re delivered to angels, venture capitalists or bankers, the term investor is used herein to designate any financing source to whom a pitch is made.
When translating a written business plan to a spoken fundraising presentation, use presentation software (e.g., PowerPoint) unless you can memorize the material sufficiently. Here are the points to include.
1) Overview
a) Name
b) Elevator Pitch/UVP
c) Status
d) Stage of development
e) Headcount
f) Revenue level
g) Current customers
2) Problem
a) What is it?
b) Who has it?
c) How acute is it?
d) Why does it persist?
3) Solution
a) Deliverables
b) Benefits
c) Brief demo
4) Team
a) Collaboration history
b) Mgmt names, titles, education, certifications, prior companies, accomplishments
c) Key advisors, investors
5) Business Model
a) Value chain
b) Unit economics
6) Market
a) Segments
b) $ size of TAM
c) Trends driving market growth
d) Competition
7) Sustainable Competitive Advantage
a) Secret Sauce / Technology / IP
b) Other barriers to entry & defensibility
c) Leverage & scalability
8) Marketing & Sales Plans
a) Differentiation/positioning
b) Go to market strategy, lead generation, customer acquisition
c) Current pipeline
d) Product suite/plans
9) Road Map & Milestones
a) Accomplishments
b) Product intros
c) Critical hurdles
10) Financial Info
a) Current capitalization & valuation history
b) Capital requirements & use of proceeds
c) Financial results (v. plan) then financial projections (5 yrs)
d) Deal terms
e) Exit plan, likely acquirers, exit examples
Other Tips
When translating a written business plan to a spoken fundraising presentation, use presentation software (e.g., PowerPoint) unless you can memorize the material sufficiently. Here are the points to include.
1) Overview
a) Name
b) Elevator Pitch/UVP
c) Status
d) Stage of development
e) Headcount
f) Revenue level
g) Current customers
2) Problem
a) What is it?
b) Who has it?
c) How acute is it?
d) Why does it persist?
3) Solution
a) Deliverables
b) Benefits
c) Brief demo
4) Team
a) Collaboration history
b) Mgmt names, titles, education, certifications, prior companies, accomplishments
c) Key advisors, investors
5) Business Model
a) Value chain
b) Unit economics
6) Market
a) Segments
b) $ size of TAM
c) Trends driving market growth
d) Competition
7) Sustainable Competitive Advantage
a) Secret Sauce / Technology / IP
b) Other barriers to entry & defensibility
c) Leverage & scalability
8) Marketing & Sales Plans
a) Differentiation/positioning
b) Go to market strategy, lead generation, customer acquisition
c) Current pipeline
d) Product suite/plans
9) Road Map & Milestones
a) Accomplishments
b) Product intros
c) Critical hurdles
10) Financial Info
a) Current capitalization & valuation history
b) Capital requirements & use of proceeds
c) Financial results (v. plan) then financial projections (5 yrs)
d) Deal terms
e) Exit plan, likely acquirers, exit examples
Other Tips
- Objective: next step: follow-up meeting
- Control the interaction
- Engage early
- Tell “roots” story
- Pitch business/ROI over product
- KISS
- Bullets not sentences
- Font size = no less than 20 pt
- Ooze credibility
- Fit into investor’s portfolio: why they’re right investor
- End: Slides off, summarize, reinforce sticky UVP
